Something was wrong.

Around that time in 2007, when I thought something was wrong with Beryl's mental health I also noticed she kept complaining about a non nondescript 'stinging' in her left arm. That was the excuse I made to see the doctor, making sure it was s female doctor as I was thinking that that would be less of an ordeal for her as she infrequently saw doctors on a regular type basis, even for checkups that she deemed 'invasive' (I'm thinking of the smear test, you ladies know what I mean). She went, not long after the menopause, for a smear test and she found it an ordeal and never went again, she said it was painful too.

So she was never too keen on seeing doctors and nurses, like much of her, and my generation, we only made appointments to see them when it was really, really necessary. The younger generation forget their history and think the NHS has been here forever but there was a time, before the National Health Service was born in 1948 and overseen by the Labour leader Aneurin Bevan and ordinary working folk had to pay for a consultation and prescriptions or buy health care insurance to see them through illness, a lot of which was brought on by deprived living conditions and work in industry. It was instilled into people of our generation that the NHS was god sent to the hard working classes and to this day I am proud of this countries commitment to the NHS but not proud of the way it is going and have many misgivings. But I digress.

The doctor was marvellous and noticed from Beryl's files that she had not been to the surgery for a long while and decided to give her the 'full works.' Beryl's heart and blood pressure were fine and her blood samples came back negative...she, to the layman was as "fit as a fiddle". During the middle of all this I spoke up about my concerns about Beryl's mental state and all she could do (the doctor) was refer her to the Memory Clinic.

Memories!

Our first visit to the memory clinic was, Er, memorable. The first person you have to see is the clinic nurse who goes through an evaluation process straight out of a manual. I was told at the outset not to interrupt or try and give Beryl any help in phrasing answers etc but could give my thoughts afterwards. The usual questions ensued:

What day is it?
What month is it?
What year is it?
What Season is it?
Who is the president of the USA?
Who is the Prime Minister of the UK?

All standard stuff that I had expected but then the nurse went on for over nearly an hour with diagrams, phrases and, in the middle of all this, would talk about a scenario involving two or three people but would stop half way through and say that she would come back to it then somewhere down the line would ask Beryl to recall the scenario and give answers to her questions about it...well, I couldn't remember most of this type of questioning and felt for Beryl. There is now doubt though that she has the disease though. The next thing was a brain scan. And since then nothing, Nada. We are totally alone with Alzheimer's and I think I prefer it that way.I couldn't bear leaving her with someone she does not know as she looks for me whenever I am out of sight. The time will come though when I have to leave her in the care of others but now is not the time.

I think I am up to the present now and will blog other times about the day to day workings of someone who has Alzheimer's.

To be continued...

The first inklings that something was wrong.

It was around 2006 when I thought something was not right with Beryl. She kept saying the same things over and over as if she had just mentioned whatever we were talking about for the first time. I took no action and let it slide, as it were.

In early 2007, around February or March, I was asked by my consultant to come into hospital for around a week as my skin complaint had burst out all over my body. They were treating me for Eczema but were stumped as how to treat it. I went into hospital with much trepidation. One thing that bothered me was that I could not smoke and a nationwide smoking ban was looming. I'll leave the smoking ban aside for the moment as my main concern was leaving Beryl alone for a week. Luckily there was only one blip where she was concerned. She phoned me up because she'd forgotten how to set the microwave. Anyway I found a place to smoke with the other smoking patients that was not too far away from my ward but had a run in with a doctor there who pointed out the no smoking signs outside and I told him in no uncertain terms that it was not against the law to smoke outside. He was and odious anti smoker and had upset one woman by calling her names.

The consultants eventually decided that I did not have Eczema but Psoriasis.

Anyway after I got out of hospital and been put on a drug called Azathioprine the symptoms soon went, I am on Azathioprine for the rest of my natural life.

The impending smoking ban took over my life as I was incensed that our government could be so cruel to force people, whatever their age or infirmity, out of pubs, clubs and bingo halls into the harsh British winter days and nights, especially using the mythical SHS fraud (Second Hand Smoke) to push through such draconian legislation. I went onto the Internet to find out if I was the only one that was opposed to such a dreadful and divisive law. I soon found out I was not alone.

I found a forum called The Big Debate that was soon to transform itself into Freedom2Choose. We then formed local Freedom2Choose branches for us to meet each other and form action committees in our local areas. I started the F2C North East branch which met at The Tardis in Redcar, not a million miles from where I live. After a couple of meetings there we moved to a pub in Drighlington where the manager and his wife were opposed to the ban and had a banner up on their building to say so. The Tardis went the way of most pubs after the smoking ban and no longer trades as a public house and is now a cafe. I now had to get on two trains and then a bus journey to get to the Painters Arms in Drighlington which was made all the more harrowing because you are not allowed to smoke on trains and now many train stations do not let you smoke on their open air platforms. It was still worth the effort though and I made many videos for Youtube about our meetings and watching those videos I could see something missing when I saw Beryl's eyes and demeanour, she seemed lost and not quite 'with it'.

It was late December 2007 when it was finally brought home to me that Beryl was entering a stage of dementia. She asked me where her mother was, a question that had me in tears as her mother had died in 1981, the year that Princess Diana and Prince Charles got married. How was I going to get her to see a doctor? That was my main problem as getting Beryl to do anything was a hardship so I had to resort to subterfuge because she was never one to bother doctors and had great physical health up till then.

To be continued...

36 hours

I am deviating from my own set timeline as Beryl's heath took a turn for the worse in Monday.

On that day, around 5pm, Beryl complained of a stomach ache which I assumed would pass but by 7:30 pm it persisted and I told her she should go lay down for a few hours and see if that eases it. At midnight she started vomiting and was more unresponsive than usual to my directions when getting her up to be cleaned and remove the soiled bedclothes. She also became very lethargic. After cleaning her and the bed being remade she went back to sleep only to wake up around 5am vomiting again. First thing come 9am I called the Doctor out. He examined her thoroughly and concluded that she had a 24 hour bug and prescribed tablets to stop the vomiting. All day yesterday she still was unresponsive and lethargic but, thankfully, the vomiting had stopped. It really was a worrying time for both of us.

Beryl slept relatively easily during last night and this morning. Today she is able to get up and sit in the living room and has become less lethargic and a little more responsive. Her Alzheimer's made her sickness all that worse and I feared that this bout of sickness would have serious consequences but am glad that she is recovering. She is not eating properly but I hope this will change as the hours go by. Time is the best healer, or so they say.