Its a war zone

jc141265

Registered User
Sep 16, 2005
836
0
49
Australia
In another post (http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/talkingpoint/discuss/showthread.php?t=2244) Brucie wrote:
I still think that, out of everything that has happened to Jan, my biggest shock was the realisation that she couldn't write her own name, when that stage came. That was when I knew we were in this thing for real, and I was scared witless, unable to discuss it with the one person I could always talk with about anything - Jan.

That really struck a chord with me. To others who haven't experienced dementia, they would probably think that the incontinence or the loss of ability to eat would be the things we state as the really BIG shock events, but for me too, I guess by the time it got to stage I was beginning to become numb (not completely, but at some level yes) to the shocks this disease delivers. For me the BIG shock I remember happened when preparing for my brother's wedding. Dad stood there looking in the mirror, his hands to his tie, and he just didn't know what to do. :(

It begins like a little tapping at your foundations, something that is a little unsettling, makes you feel uncomfortable and a little ill at ease and then the tapping gets louder, becomes more violent, starts to shake your foundations. Then you begin to rattle and tremble and are shaken to your very core as the thunder rolls in. From this point on, its just one bomb blast after the next. KABOOM, KABANG, KAPOW, shrapnel is flying everywhere and you don't know if you are going to survive, you are out on the edge, teetering, and you don't know if you are going to be able to hold on much longer...but you do, you just keep hanging there while the blows continue to fall, and hell rains down upon you. You can no longer see for all the muck and grime in the air, it even makes breathing a chore. But time ticks on, and you start to notice that you are still there, everything is in ruins around you, but you are still there, there's debri everywhere and everything is covered in dust and is grey, but although the bombs keep falling you no longer hear them so loudly, everything is muffled, perhaps they sent you deaf? You can still feel the shaking at your foundations, but they seem far away and distant. You peer out from the dust and you can see a sliver of sunlight, its the faintest hint of light, but you focus on it, it doesn't get any bigger, but neither does it go away and in your dreamy daze you just keep looking at it, knowing that that is what you must do, to get through this.

One day the sun will shine again, the dust will settle and you will see the ruins around you, mangled and broken. The bombs will have stopped falling and you'll dare to take a step again, breathe again. The world will be silent, but you will have cried all your tears for it long ago. On that day you will look up and see how the world can begin again and on that spot where that sliver of sunlight shone all that time, the light that got you through, there will be a beautiful forget me not, a splash of colour in this grey world growing there and it will give you the hope to begin again.....
 
Last edited:

cynron

Registered User
Sep 26, 2005
429
0
east sussex
The Tie

I CAN IDENTIFY WITH YOU OVER THE TIE SITUATION MY HUSBAND COULD NOT REMEMBER HOW TO DO IT.AND I DID NOT KNOW HOW TO HELP HIM EITHER.

I REALY LOVED YOUR LAST POST ABOUT THE LIGHT SHINING THROUGH AT THE END. :eek:

LOVE CYNRON
 

connie

Registered User
Mar 7, 2004
9,519
0
Frinton-on-Sea
Nat, its not a 'war zone' it's life............No one ever said it was fair, and it certainly never came with a guarantee.

Deal the cards as they come.. I was widowed, unexpectedly (sorry, is it ever expected) some 11 years ago. Met a wonderful man, who was then struck down with A.D. aged 60.

Still not a war zone, only life kicking you in the teeth. I would not have changed meeting Lionel, for all the drawbacks, so go ahead, and celebrate all the GOOD times, and as for the rest, well who knows. God bless, Connie
 

jc141265

Registered User
Sep 16, 2005
836
0
49
Australia
Connie,

Its not a war zone, no but I don't think its just life either. I appreciate how hard things have been for you, but when I wrote this and most of my posts it is not about me, the shocks I feel are not about 'how could this happen to me' its all about for me ' how could this happen to someone like dad'. The things that happen to me, they suck, and they 'are just part of life', but I am never going to accept for the sake of my loved ones that this should be 'just part of life for them'. Me as the focal point in my above post, is perhaps misleading, I'm standing there, keep standing there, not for my sake but his. I don't have to stand there and take the blows, you don't have to stand there and take the blows but we do, we may not feel like we have a choice, but we do, we can walk away like many others have done, ultimately we have made this choice, it wasn't 'just part of life', we decided to stand and take the blows. We do it for them, and doing that well for me, is like being in a war zone.

I'm not usually one who struggles , I take on things with a plan to excel at anything I do, and I like nothing better than a challenge, my life is all about facing challenges, but this situation with Dad has shaken me to my very core, it rattled me like nothing else and now I feel like although its all still happening around me, its not shaking me so much and I can see the other side, I can hold onto that ray of light and it will pull me through.

All I was doing when I wrote that bit above was typing out my inner emotions about how this situation with Dad felt. While writing it it was almost like being in a trance (and no I don't do drugs! :p )I didn't plan to write it, it just came out of me as I was sitting there typing after reading Brucie's post (which also talked about becoming numb to the shocks) and after typing about the BIG shock I remember. It was just pure honest emotion. I wasn't being melodramatic, this is how it is/was for me.

I though after I went to bed last night that I should have put under it that this was just my perspective. But by that time it was late at night and bed was more important.

Perhaps it is not a warzone, but I will not, do not accept that this is just life.
Thanks for your good wishes and same to you and Lionel, I really hope that you don't accept that this is just life and take pride in the fact that you are a soldier in this war and have made the greatest sacrifice.
 

Brucie

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
12,413
0
near London
I would not have changed meeting Lionel, for all the drawbacks,

Connie, that's as good a definition of LOVE as I have ever seen.
 

JANICE

Registered User
Jun 28, 2005
23
0
75
SOUTHAMPTON
Connie,

I know exactly what you mean about not changing things. Keith is my second husband, having been divorced after 8 years in my first marriage. My first husband was a pig of a man who was handy with his fists, if you know what I mean. Someone recently said to me that if I had stayed with him I wouldn't have all the problems I have now and in the future with Keith with AD. I can quite honestly say that I have absolutely no regrets, despite the way things have turned out, about meeting and marrying Keith. We have two wonderful daughters and many, many happy memories from the last 26 years and although things are changing now I am ever optimistic for the future - maybe just round the corner there is something that will help all our loved ones fight this awful disease. If we don't hold onto hope then we have nothing. Deep down I know things are going to get worse but I am just living day to day at the moment and still planning holidays, weekends away etc with Keith while he is still able to. I love to see him get excited about plans for next years holidays and breaks and will continue to help him enjoy life as well as he can. Regrets - absolutely not, he is still the best thing that ever happened in my life.

Best wishes


Janice
 

Canadian Joanne

Registered User
Apr 8, 2005
17,710
0
70
Toronto, Canada
Janice,
That person who said if you had stayed with your first husband you wouldn't have the problems you have now is silly at best and a totally insensitive clod of a moron. If that ever comes up again, why don't you just say if you had stayed with your first husband, maybe you wouldn't be alive today? And what would that person do if it were his /her mother or father? That isn't a relationship we "choose".

26 wonderful years - and more to come for you all. Enjoy each other as you have been.

Joanne
 

jc141265

Registered User
Sep 16, 2005
836
0
49
Australia
Things that happen

It begins like a little tapping at your foundations, something that is a little unsettling, makes you feel uncomfortable and a little ill at ease and then the tapping gets louder, becomes more violent, starts to shake your foundations. Then you begin to rattle and tremble and are shaken to your very core as the thunder rolls in. From this point on, its just one bomb blast after the next. KABOOM, KABANG, KAPOW, shrapnel is flying everywhere and you don't know if you are going to survive, you are out on the edge, teetering, and you don't know if you are going to be able to hold on much longer...but you do, you just keep hanging there while the blows continue to fall, and hell rains down upon you. You can no longer see for all the muck and grime in the air, it even makes breathing a chore. But time ticks on, and you start to notice that you are still there, everything is in ruins around you, but you are still there, there's debri everywhere and everything is covered in dust and is grey, but although the bombs keep falling you no longer hear them so loudly, everything is muffled, perhaps they sent you deaf? You can still feel the shaking at your foundations, but they seem far away and distant. You peer out from the dust and you can see a sliver of sunlight, its the faintest hint of light, but you focus on it, it doesn't get any bigger, but neither does it go away and in your dreamy daze you just keep looking at it, knowing that that is what you must do, to get through this.
One day the sun will shine again, the dust will settle and you will see the ruins around you, mangled and broken. The bombs will have stopped falling and you'll dare to take a step again, breathe again. The world will be silent, but you will have cried all your tears for it long ago. On that day you will look up and see how the world can begin again and on that spot where that sliver of sunlight shone all that time, the light that got you through, there will be a beautiful forget me not, a splash of colour in this grey world growing there and it will give you the hope to begin again.....

The above is now displayed all around the local private hospital walls! My partner Keith asked me for a copy because he was so moved by it. He gave it to a lady (one of his business customers') who's recently had 2 daughter in laws die of cancer within months of each other and who's husband is ill as well. She thought so much of it, she made copies of it and displayed it at the hospital where she volunteers. It was nice to know that I wasn't the only one feeling this way and that it touched someone else enough for her & him to think it should be passed on to others.