Barry
Registered User
Hi folks I must just tell you about my great afternoon yesterday, I’d heard some time ago that there is a young American English teacher now living and working in our village at one of our local schools and that’s all I new as I’d never seen anything of him, well my Indonesian friend that I spoke about in the article I wrote the other day “Verbal Outburst” phoned me on Tuesday asking if he and the American lad could come and visit me which we arranged for yesterday afternoon (Thursday) after school had closed, (at least he realized after the other days episode its now best to pre-warn me)
I must admit that I was feeling a bit anxious about meeting the American lad as I’ve not spoken to another person whose first language is English since my brother Steve came out to visit me six years ago so I was a bit apprehensive about my ability to communicate clearly and if there would be anymore untoward outbursts from my condition, anyway they arrived at 2-30pm and I was confronted by this young slender lad of 27 years of age who must have been at least ‘Six foot-Six inches tall’ brimming with self-confidence and enthusiasm, my Indonesian friend had pre told him that I was ‘SICK’ but couldn’t explain what my illness was so the first thing I did after our initial introductions was to explain to him about my Alzheimer’s etc, etc… ‘BUT’ as I had anticipated he immediately grasped the seriousness of my situation which instantly allayed my inner fear of my own loss of confidence and we just sat relaxed chatting away as though nothing was wrong with me. I asked how he came to be teaching in our village and he explained that he’s with the ‘American Peace Core’ doing Voluntary English education in Java for two years with just one year left until he returns to the USA.
Our conversation just seemed to flow like a gentle stream without any turbulence from one subject to another and I could sense that I was specking without any apprehension and was able to immediately answer any of his questions about my past job and as to how ‘I ended up living in a village in Indonesia’ without any hesitation of having to think about my reply, “In fact” I felt so relaxed talking it was as though the Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease didn’t exist within me, he said he was amazed at how I have coped without having any Alzheimer’s Society or help lines of support and with the total isolation for the past six years within a community that knows nothing about Alzheimer’s / Dementia or the distress it has on a person and family, and before we realized it, it was 5-30pm.
As my visitors were about to leave they apologized in case they had over confused me or made me feel to tired, but I said “Far From It” in fact you’ve exhilarated me as I’ve not felt so buoyant for a very long time and hope I’ve not gabbled on to much with my slurred bewildering speech… but according to my dear wife Sumi and the young lad, I’d not faltered on a word, I’d not had any adverse agitation in my body, arms or hands, and not even had any affects from ‘Sundowning’ which I would normally experience at that time of day which makes me even more confused and irritable.
Well that’s my news, and as I said the Lad has one more year in our village so we exchanged phone numbers and he will be coming to see me again in a couple of weeks time, I think one thing I’ve realized even more from yesterday is that question of ‘Total Isolation’ and not having people to converse with face to face in my own native English language all the time, which in truth is something I now desperately need to do… and I think that’s evident from the way I still feel this morning “Exuberant” and that was made even better when I checked my own website to find that it had over ‘500 views yesterday’ so all being well by this weekend it should hit 21,000 views…
Barry
I must admit that I was feeling a bit anxious about meeting the American lad as I’ve not spoken to another person whose first language is English since my brother Steve came out to visit me six years ago so I was a bit apprehensive about my ability to communicate clearly and if there would be anymore untoward outbursts from my condition, anyway they arrived at 2-30pm and I was confronted by this young slender lad of 27 years of age who must have been at least ‘Six foot-Six inches tall’ brimming with self-confidence and enthusiasm, my Indonesian friend had pre told him that I was ‘SICK’ but couldn’t explain what my illness was so the first thing I did after our initial introductions was to explain to him about my Alzheimer’s etc, etc… ‘BUT’ as I had anticipated he immediately grasped the seriousness of my situation which instantly allayed my inner fear of my own loss of confidence and we just sat relaxed chatting away as though nothing was wrong with me. I asked how he came to be teaching in our village and he explained that he’s with the ‘American Peace Core’ doing Voluntary English education in Java for two years with just one year left until he returns to the USA.
Our conversation just seemed to flow like a gentle stream without any turbulence from one subject to another and I could sense that I was specking without any apprehension and was able to immediately answer any of his questions about my past job and as to how ‘I ended up living in a village in Indonesia’ without any hesitation of having to think about my reply, “In fact” I felt so relaxed talking it was as though the Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease didn’t exist within me, he said he was amazed at how I have coped without having any Alzheimer’s Society or help lines of support and with the total isolation for the past six years within a community that knows nothing about Alzheimer’s / Dementia or the distress it has on a person and family, and before we realized it, it was 5-30pm.
As my visitors were about to leave they apologized in case they had over confused me or made me feel to tired, but I said “Far From It” in fact you’ve exhilarated me as I’ve not felt so buoyant for a very long time and hope I’ve not gabbled on to much with my slurred bewildering speech… but according to my dear wife Sumi and the young lad, I’d not faltered on a word, I’d not had any adverse agitation in my body, arms or hands, and not even had any affects from ‘Sundowning’ which I would normally experience at that time of day which makes me even more confused and irritable.
Well that’s my news, and as I said the Lad has one more year in our village so we exchanged phone numbers and he will be coming to see me again in a couple of weeks time, I think one thing I’ve realized even more from yesterday is that question of ‘Total Isolation’ and not having people to converse with face to face in my own native English language all the time, which in truth is something I now desperately need to do… and I think that’s evident from the way I still feel this morning “Exuberant” and that was made even better when I checked my own website to find that it had over ‘500 views yesterday’ so all being well by this weekend it should hit 21,000 views…
Barry
