Alzheimer's

For many of you it will come as common knowledge that my mother passed away, at the age of 94, as result of contracting Alzheimer’s.

A relatively short while ago a friend of mine invited me to his house to meet his Dad who was also ill with the same sickness.

We attempted to engage his father in conversation but it was difficult. There were moments of clarity but, for the most part, his mind was elsewhere—in a place where we had no access. He passed away a short time later.

I am now informed that another friend of mine has the same problem in that his father, too, has Alzheimer’s.

Coupled with that is the realisation that another close friend has this illness. This friend is someone who is very dear to me; this has come as something of a personal blow.

It is hard to describe, for me, what Alzheimer’s is. There are many medical and learned tracts that discourse on the technical aspects of the disease. These mean little, or nothing, to me.

From a practical viewpoint it is hard to put into words what the effect becomes—not just on the patient but also on the carers and relatives.

It is distressing.

In the first place there is confusion because neither those people close to the patient nor the patient themselves know what is happening.

It is likely that the patient considers that everything is normal but to the close relations it is far from normal

For some relatives they believe that the patient is ‘making it up’, that they need to ‘pull their socks up and behave themselves’.

The truth is that they are slipping away into a different reality.

Trying to make the patient return to your reality is a lost cause and will only serve to increase the distress felt by everyone.

Tensions will rise because there will be occasions when the victim of this disease becomes violent.

Perhaps they suddenly realise that the world around them is not the same as the world they perceive.

Understand that the sufferer is slipping away from you in their heads. There is no blood to see, no rashes, no broken bones and rarely any delirium—at first.

But they cannot distinguish night from day. The memory of you is disappearing. There comes a point when they will not know who you are.

You will give them medication, medication that is often started far too late. One night you will give them a pill and say, “Swallow.”

They will not understand. They may just repeat your words. There is no concept in their heads of what you are attempting to convey to them. Giving them any medication is time consuming. 

Some medications have to be held under the tongue until they have dissolved. There is no possibility of the patient understanding that instruction. The only imaginable way is to start it early so that it becomes an automatic function for them.

Frustration. So very frustrating.

Right from the outset it may be that tempers will be frayed because you do not understand them. They will, increasingly, not understand you.

Trying to restore their reality into your own perceptions does not work. You must join them in their reality—whatever that might be.

They will wander around at night calling out for people, close friends, relatives, who died years ago.

Their ‘just now’ becomes increasingly distant compared to your ‘just now’ as their short-term memory fades away.

The only consolation is that they are unaware of what is happening to them.

The people suffering are those that are looking after them. It is exhausting and it is a twenty-four hour a day job.

At the end we believe that Mum knew she was about to die. We are certain that she was trying to say goodbye to us.

Somewhere, in the depths of her mind, there was just the smallest inkling of what was happening and who we were to her.

We shall never know.

It is a small comfort.

Military Persons as Pariahs

For twenty-seven years I was a member of Her Majesty’s Royal Air Force.

Ask me if I am ashamed of being a member of the British Military.

No. I am not.

I am, however, ashamed at the reaction of the British people to members of the British Military.

The latest event seems to have occurred in a hospital.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hospital-apologises-after-moving-raf-6518237?ICID=FB_mirror_main

It appears that a Sergeant who was, incidentally, an Aircraft Technician, was the source of embarrassment to staff in the hospital and had to be hidden away as a result.

Note that there had been a previous incident involving an ‘altercation’ between another uniformed Military member and a person in the hospital.

What was that all about? Poor reporting again.

We need to know what the other altercation was about? It might have been somebody they owed money to or an irate relative?

How is the previous incident relevant to this one?

There appears to be a necessity to stir up trouble. The media have an ardent desire to promote discord where, essentially, none exist.

Well, they have discord from me.

I do not care if that Military person is a member of the Marines, Navy, Army or the Royal Pay Corp, that person—male or female, has volunteered to put their life on the line for Queen and Country. It doesn’t matter where they are sent or what the current ‘cause’ is all about.

They are sent off to do what they have to do. The politics of the situation is irrelevant to them. They will do their job.

For someone to treat them with disregard and disrespect is appalling.

Someone who, moreover, is in public service, it seems. A hospital worker—someone who also works for ‘Queen and Country’!

I want to know who these ghostly figures are who are so easily offended. What are their names?

Surely, if they are so grossly offended then they should own up and declare themselves.

Not by rioting on the streets; not by making anonymous demands or by vituperous comments on the social media or to the press corps. They should own up by telling us their names or are they afraid of the potential consequences.

So they are offended. These anonymous and mysterious people.

What about the Royal Air Force Sergeant? How offended was he to be treated as some sort of stain on civilised society to the point where he had to be hidden away? How offended was he to have his name splashed all over the news media as a pariah?

It is fine to offend some people but not others.

Some time ago there were complaints from anonymous persons about an old lady who had pigs decorating her windowsill—inside the house.

Muslims do not have a problem with seeing pigs. Muslims know pigs exist. Muslims are not permitted to eat them—or bits of them; they should not touch a pig. Seeing a pig and speaking it’s name is not a problem.

And yet there were complaints that led to this old lady having to remove the pigs from ‘public view’.

Nonsense. What were their names, these brave people who complained so much?

We shall never know. These people hide.

They tell us to ‘wear your poppy with pride’.

Sadly, wearing your uniform with pride is a no-no!

Remembrance is good. Tolerance is not.

The Village Mentality

When I was small there was a plague of spider crabs that visited us from out of the depths of the English Channel—or ‘La Manche’ as our closest European friends might say.

At that time I was wont to go snorkelling around the coastline near our village. Just looking, really. Hoping to see fish of any sort.

The crabs were irresistible. There were so many of them! I took a bag of twelve, or so, of the largest that I could select and presented them to Mum. I thought she would be happy but Dad said that you can’t eat those, they are, he assured me, poisonous.

At that age one does not question the wisdom of elders and, specifically, parents.

Anyway, I removed the claws and boiled them. They were delicious. The bodies were ceremoniously dumped at some remote site up in the woods.

Nowadays I am aware that spider crabs are a delicacy in many places—known for their flavour.

Some years later a ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’ establishment opened up in the Exeter Road of the large town near where I lived. It was actually about eight miles away (around 12 kms) but it was regarded as the big town. It wasn’t big but we thought so. Exmouth was bigger than Budleigh Salterton and, indeed, Budleigh only had one cinema where Exmouth had two!

But I digress. This ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken ‘ opened to a fanfare of total silence. Few people went there at first. I asked Dad about it. I asked him if we could sample the chicken?

He informed me that they only pay a penny each for the birds, they are battery chickens—there’s no meat on them. “It’s a catchpenny*”, he told me.

So we left it alone.

Not until many, many years later did we get a bucket of chicken for Mum and the removal men, when Mum was moving out, as a convenient way to feed everyone. Not until then did we realise that Mum had never had a ‘KFC’, as it is generally known.

She thought it was delicious. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

It wasn’t Dad’s fault. These edicts came about because he had been ‘told by a friend’.

It would never occur to people to ask an expert—or, even, ask the manager of KFC about his source of meat.

We have all experienced it. There are common phrases attached to this:

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“It stands to reason, doesn’t it?”

“Everybody knows that!”

So the prejudices flow. False information floods down the generations and from village to village.

It is the village mentality and it exists World-wide.

It is negative.

Know your place in society. ‘Better people than you’ have tried, or thought, or planned, something.

Anything to put you down. Anything to drag you down to their view of the World. Anything to make you conform to their lack of ambition.

In some places it is known as the ‘Barrel of Crabs’. This is a condition where one crab will try to escape from the barrel but the others will pull it down—for reasons best known to themselves.

I prefer the ‘Nine Monkeys’ analogy.

Put nine monkeys in a large cage. And then put in a stepladder. Over the ladder hang a bunch of bananas.

Wait.

Eventually, one of the monkeys will make a plan; climb the ladder and reach for the bananas.

At this point all the other monkeys at the bottom of the ladder will be thoroughly doused, by you, in cold water.

The next day a new bunch of bananas is put over the ladders and the process repeated. It should be noted that the same monkey will climb the ladders because it has learnt that the reward is available without personal risk. The other monkeys will become cold and wet again.

On the third day the other monkeys will prevent the ninth monkey from climbing the steps. They have also learnt that his reward is tainted with their punishment.

Now replace one of the monkeys.

The new one will observe the bananas and the ladder. A plan will form and an attempt to scale the ladder will take place. The other monkeys will prevent this from happening. The new monkey has no idea why he is being prevented from reaching the bananas but will conform to the group’s will.

On subsequent days the monkeys will be replaced, one by one, until all the monkeys are ‘new’. None of them have been made cold and wet but they all know that something bad will happen if an effort to reach the bananas is made.

None of the monkeys has any clue why this should be but they will adhere to ‘The Rule’.

There go all of us.

We do things because they are the ‘norm’; because they are tradition; because they are part of our culture.

Depart from that practice and you will be outcast, ostracised or regarded as a non-conformist or, worse, a lunatic.

We often see people playing safe. They wish to ingratiate themselves with their ‘own crowd’ and so they denigrate others instead of promoting their own beliefs or traditions.

It is always easier to drag others down than it is to build your own view up.

I have often said, “Putting someone else’s light out does not make yours burn any brighter.”

And so it is.

The social media is full of people who will insult you or drag you down because you do not conform to their ideas or opinions.

This does not make you wrong. It does not make them better or, even, more idealistic.

It makes you different.

‘Vive le difference!’

Let the insults slide off.

A person just told me, in response to the statement that I am an author and ‘Blogger’, that I should “do the world a favour and stop writing now”. It must have been an important point because it was all in upper case letters.

His opinion. Should I obey?

No. He is not an arbiter of my life.

Has it spoilt my life?

Not for a moment.

Do not let negative people spoil your life. Let them live their life and you continue with yours.

Aim for your dreams, aspirations, hopes and desires and let others do the same.

We are different. We are not better or worse than anyone else.

Just different.

* Catchpenny:  Having a cheap superficial attractiveness designed to encourage quick sales.