Tripping lightly the path of alzheimer

Tripping Lightly Along The Path of Alzheimer

I always laugh and laugh when I see jokes about Alzheimer's disease. I laugh because it always becomes apparent that the joker does not know what it is he is making a joke about - or does not care. Alzheimer's may be a peculiar disease but it is not funny. Perhaps Ms Tweedie thinks that brain disintegration is a barrel of laughs; that it is funny not to know where she s or what she is doing. So here is a little taste of Alzheimer's Ms Tweedie, just to whet the appetite.

To start off with you may begin to forget things, even as early as fifty years of age. You may forget your key or your purse. You may forget to close the windows or water the plants. All these things are nothing to worry about at the beginning but soon they will greatly affect your life. As the illness progresses not only will you forget your key but you will forget the house it belongs to and the lock it fits. Instead of forgetting to close the windows it will be the door, thus ensuring all your precious possessions are stolen in broad daylight. All your plants will die and you won't remember that you forgot to water them. These vital little memory jolters that keep us in touch with reality will soon disappear completely.

Gradually friends and relatives will notice that you are not behaving normally. They will say things like:
"Mum's not her usual self today"
"Do you think she's alright? She forgot to feed the budgie/cat/dog... herself"

But soon when they go back to their own houses they will forget themselves, that you looked a bit peaky.

A few months pass and your relatives and friends are trying to persuade you to go to the doctor, but you won't though because you are scared that he'll send you somewhere (which he more than likely will). You put it off and put it off until eventually the doctor arrives on your doorstep and you don't know why. A home help is organized for you and she whisks around cleaning here and there, shopping for you, washing up, hanging out clothes until you feel like a prisoner in your own home.

This problem can soon be solved. You receive a mumbled apology from your son; something about, "too much work...own family to consider...be better off in a home."

And you are rushed off with only a few personal belongings and dumped at the nearest waiting room for heaven. The people are very nice, you think. You are given tea and biscuits at regular intervals and lunch is always on time, although supper is a little late for your liking.

One day you find yourself sitting down to breakfast when a care assistant drags you up by the arm, scolding and gesticulating toward the lavatory. Out you go slightly bemused at this uncalled for action, wondering what you have done to deserve this. The assistant begins to undress you, hitching your skirt above your waist, whilst the door swings open so that everyone can see you have wet yourself. Two o'clock in the afternoon you have wet yourself again. The care assistant drags you back to the toilet and puts you in a split back nightie, ready for bed.

"This is the last time I change you Jilly. If you do it again you'll have to stay like it, I'm sick of it!"

The morning comes. You have wet and shit in the bed. The young girl pulls you up from the bed by your wrists and dresses you in clothes three times too big. (All the better to whip them off granny, when an 'accident' arises.) She takes you out to breakfast but forgets your teeth; in three weeks time when the teeth are remembered your gums will have shrunk and the dentures no longer fit so they will be forced in if necessary.

But you can't complain Ms Tweedie. Oh no, if you complain you will be treated with disdain and obviously you won't find it within yourself to write articles on fifty something. You will be too busy wandering up and down corridors, shedding your clothes as you go, wiping faeces along the handrails and eating it on the way back. When all this becomes too much you can lay in bed gathering bed sores because you are not turned often enough.

The ones dearest to you will be but a blur, coming and going, talking in front of you as if you no longer existed. And this is what it all comes down to: Non existence.

Better to wish some other awful disease upon yourself. At least you can complain. At least you have your wits about you. At least people treat you with respect. But it's OK to make a joke about Alzheimer's disease isn't it? Because the sufferers don't know and if they did who'd care?