Comments on: Blog 16: Recurrence

By: Fay

Fay — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 07:40:36 +0000

You put it so succinctly, Nola. When Bill first started crying for his father, my initial reaction was: “It was 65 years ago. Get over it.” It took me a while to understand that the pain had been buried so deep that it did not affect him until all that time later when the disease broke down the barriers. Of course, there was no help offered from psychologists and psychiatrists in those days, long ago. It was all “stiff upper lip” stuff and “You’re not the only one ….. pull yourself together!”

By: Harold and Nola

Harold and Nola — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 22:32:01 +0000

The thing about it all at this time was that Bill still wanted to ‘do’; he still wanted to ‘go’.
And most definitely all of his grief over his dad, mostly buried for all those years, was surfacing, for the defenses he had built surrounding them had fallen before the onslaught of this dire disease. Bill [not to mention yourself] was waging horrible war against a terrible, ferocious enemy. More tears here.

By: Fay

Fay — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 07:08:09 +0000

Through it all, I think that Bill was very brave, Sonia. He seldom allowed himself to sink into depression ….. for which I’m truly thankful. I don’t think that I could have kept up if Bill had become permanently sad. But he didn’t. He mostly just kept trying to hang in there and trying to get on with the life that he was now forced to live.

By: Fay

Fay — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 07:00:36 +0000

Me, too, Sharon …… in part because it brings back the feeling of helplessness and horror that I felt as I watched. You couldn’t comfort him because he was not in our world ……. He was way back there, at the end of 1945, six years old and watching his mother crumple up with grief. From what I saw, those long-time, deeply-buried memories came back to Bill with great force and vividness.

By: Sonia Hendy

Sonia Hendy — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 12:54:02 +0000

Hi Fay,

Glad to see a couple more blogs up. I think we only saw the ‘good’ days of Bill’s illness in the early years. I agree it must have been exhausting trying to converse with us and get his message across.

Keep the blogs coming. Sonia

By: Sharon Hendy-Moman

Sharon Hendy-Moman — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 08:00:33 +0000

Fay, I cried reading this one.

By: Fay

Fay — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:55:53 +0000

Thank you for commenting, Alison, and I hope Albert is on the mend. Through all the days of Bill’s decline, my job was always made so much easier because of the ongoing support that I had from relatives and friends, not least that that I received from Rotarians. I always knew that, if I needed it, help was only a phone call away. It must be very difficult for carers who do not have similar support. They must find it very hard to carry on without their hearts becoming heavy. In part, I’m writing this story for them …… so that people will know what it is that these carers go through. Please keep listening. There’s much more to this tale.

By: Alison Benfer

Alison Benfer — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 02:58:17 +0000

Fay, Albert and I have just spent the past couple of hours reading your blog which brought back lots of memories of you and Bill, and has also given us a greater appreciation of what you, Bill and the family have gone through over the past number of years. For a man of Bill’s intelligence, it must have been so, so frustrating. You are an angel for all the support and care you gave him.

By: Fay

Fay — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 03:43:24 +0000

Hello Maureen,
Your comments reflect the reasons why I’m blogging Bill’s story. Many people just do not understand what it is like to be a person living with dementia. They do not understand that, though the person looks all right on the outside, there is torment and turmoil on the inside. And there are those who just don’t want to know about it. Fortunately, there are many others who do.

I do agree with you that poor circulation could be a contributor to dementia, but Bill was on daily Asprin doses for five years …. surely that should have addressed that problem. As far as I could see, however, it didn’t. That damned disease just kept pushing on. As you suggest, cardiac problems, too, could also be a pre-cursor, the heart and the brain both being part of the cardio-vascular system. But Bill’s heart was mostly strong whenever they tested him.

As you indicate, though, we need to find an answer to this problem because, at present, all we can do is be kind and give to Alzheimer’s Australia. Thank you for your comments.

By: Fay

Fay — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 03:17:27 +0000

So glad to hear that, David ….. That you have not been angry for a while …… It’s good for Type A personalities not to get angry. Seriously, though, I believe, in your father’s case, that the fits of anger occurred because of frustration, that the ensuing sleep was the result of exhaustion and that the awakening into another reality happened because Bill’s brain was not working properly. Bill didn’t fall asleep because he was feeling sheepish and a bit ashamed …… he fell asleep because the act of trying to get his message across exhausted him. It’s hard work trying to live in the real world when you have dementia.