Comments on: Blog 7: DIAGNOSIS – APHASIA

By: Fay

Fay — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 04:47:21 +0000

And, in the end, Nola, the diagnosis gave us good reason to keep on fighting the disease. And that was a good thing. We didn’t know that Bill, at that stage, only had another four years to live. We thought he would go on until he was 90 and conducted our lives accordingly. Sometimes it is a good thing in life to be blinkered and naive. It was a good thing for us in August 2007.

By: Harold and Nola

Harold and Nola — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 21:49:49 +0000

We agree: it is so much easier to handle when you can put a ‘handle’ onto an illness. To have some sort of diagnosis does come as a relief. Although, as you question, was that first diagnosis the right one? To be treated for the wrong thing can well come against the sufferer – not to mention the carers.

By: Fay

Fay — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 06:42:57 +0000

It was that love and respect that sustained us through the whole journey, Sonia ….. and still sustains me now. Because of his inability to communicate, Bill often felt “shut out” I’m sure, but that wider feeling of love and respect, that was always there, helped him to bare that load.

By: Sonia Hendy

Sonia Hendy — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 22:51:18 +0000

On the occasions that Bill was able to communicate, it was such a joy to know he was “still there” and knew he had the love and respect of his friends and family.

By: Fay

Fay — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 03:37:15 +0000

Hi, Suzi,
I think that the Speech Therapy in itself did not do anything to stem the continual and ongoing language losses that Bill experienced but I do think that it gave us props and strategies that helped Bill exist in the real world. People were sometimes astonished when, mid-conversation, he’d pull a photo album out of our bag, sit someone down with him and make them go through it with him. It usually happened when he felt himself being inadvertently cut out of the circle of conversation. You knew that he was crying out: “I’m here, I’m here, don’t ignore me!”

By: Fay

Fay — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 03:25:12 +0000

Taken around 1990, Sharon, when Bill was in his early 50s. It’s quite extraordinary. Bill’s looks didn’t change dramatically from then on until he was really ill. Fay

By: Suzi Carson

Suzi Carson — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 05:21:58 +0000

I think the Speech Therapy made a difference
And importantly I think it made it easier for awkward visitors, like myself, to begin conversations somewhere….I found it was a great way to ‘be’ with Bill….given that being with him was a little different to my way of being with him all my life to that point…..
And yes- I think it may not have been pure aphasia….but no doubt you have readers who have experienced a similar presentation in their loved ones, perhaps after, rather than before the diagnosis of ‘dementia’ was made……..
S

By: Sharon Hendy-Moman

Sharon Hendy-Moman — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 08:51:58 +0000

I love this photo of Bill.

By: Fay

Fay — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 13:20:15 +0000

But was that diagnosis accurate? Did Bill suffer Aphasia for a couple of years and then fall into Dementia? Or is Aphasia itself a form of dementia and just part of the relentless, unstoppable downward slide that characterises the disease?