Blog

We’re to begin?… Well I decided to do a weekly blog about the life of a person with dimentia/alzheimer’s disease. There are lots of different stages of this terrible disease for me it’s the worse thing possible that could ever happen to anu human being. I have never written a blog before and have no idea what I’m doing but thought I would give it a go. I spend allot of time with my partners nan who I will name sal for data protection reasons… Sal got diagnosed with fast accute alziemers 19 months ago and has progressively got worse since the diagnosis…. I spend 3 nights a week with this lovely lady and between the family they do the rest I knew bits and bat’s about dimensia and alzheimer’s before I met sal but nothing compared to what I know now…. I spend hours doing research when I’m not with sal to find out how to cope with different behaviors so I have pretty much self taught myself how to care for someone with this soul destroying disease. My aim with this blog is to type about a day in sals life I’m not sure how long left we have with sal so I would love to document her final journey as I know she is going into the last stages of this disease…. My aim is to make this lady as comfortable and as happy as possible and maybe help other people who are going through this same thing as me by writing about my personal experiences.

We are now on the 8th if December 2020…..i arrived at sals at 1.30pm today. When I came into the house sal was sat in her usual comfy chair in front of the telly with her grandaughter and she seemed very distressed. Sal was worried that no one would know who she was or were she was as she herself didn’t know who she was. Sal often got confused with other people but never forgit herself until now so this was definitely a new experience for all of us involved. We manage to calm sal down for a few mins by distracting her with some soup and cup of tea… After sal finished she had a little nod in the chair for 10 mins before waking up very distressed when I asked sal what was wrong she said she wants to go home to her mother and father. Sal is 89 years old and her mother and father have long passed so having to try and break the news to sal was so distressing for her and me… I had no idea what to say I was stuck between telling her the truth or telling her. Lie. Sal was adament I picked up the phone to call her parents so I was left with no choice to be honest so I told her the heartbreaking truth that her parents are no longer here and haven’t been for quite some time. Sal broke her heart as if she had hered this news for the first time this was so heartbreaking to see. Eventually I managed to distract sal by discussing what we could have for tea…. Whilst tea was cooking sal was trying to get her things packed to go home even though this has been her home for over 60 years… But packing her things and asking to go home is a regular thing for sal usually starts around 3pm and through the night this is called sundowning. We managed to get through tea time without sal getting to distressed.. My answer to her when she asks to go home now is…. We shall go tomorrow its dark now I know it sounds cruel but its so much better than having sal up all night worrying which is all so a regular thing for sal to do. So tonight about 7pm sal had her bedtime meds then me and my partner put her in bed and lay with her till she fell asleep it is now 23.34pm and sal has only woke up once as she was struggling to catch her breath…. She has manage to settle since so now I’m planning on getting some sleep as we never know when sal will wake. It’s 24hr care for sal as she cannot be left alone not even for a min so there is always someone here with her why my partner works… I will keep my blog updated as much as I can but for now it’s good night from me 🙂

Today it’s the 9th of December and it’s been an extremely emotional day for me sal wasn’t very well through the night last night so I sat up with her all night…. She managed to drift into sleep for a solid 8 hours in an arm chair as that’s the only place sal felt most comfortable. Normally sal wil need to go to the toilet at least 3 times an hour during any night or day…. By the time I tried to wake sal this morning she hadn’t been to the toilet in over 14 hours…. All so sals speech was very slurred and she was drooped to one side so my initial thought was either a uti or a stroke…. So we decided to phone the ambulance and I waited with her i lay my head on her lap and she tried so desperately to stroke my hair 😢…. The ambulance came after 30 mins and did all Betty’s obs which were good and strong the only thing what wasn’t quite right was her speech and no mobility what so ever. She was taken in at 12.20pm today and we won’t find out any updates till tomorrow its breaking my heart what this little old lady is having to go through and the worse thing is no one can go with her because of covid we just gotta sit and wait for that daily call. Anyway it’s sleep time for me I’m only surviving on 2 and a half hours at the min I will post an update on sal tomorrow prayers are much needed for her right now 🙏