greetings to laurel and faye
A page in the diary "Sue's thoughts on life"
Written by suew Monday, 4 January 2010 09:20
Hi girls, good to see you both on again. I know it is hard for us all, no-one looking after someone with dementia or Alzheimers or whatever tag is put on your loved one's disease finds it easy.
I have been looking after Ray for ten years now through physical and now mental illness and I guess I am just tired. In Ray's case he just gets quieter and more withdrawn, his protest is not strings of abuse but if I ask him to go faster he just goes slower. It is the kind of resistance that a sulky child uses. It is hard to have an adult relationship with someone who is acting like a child.
Jokingly I talk about long service leave but really I mean it, I am tired and need a long period of time off and time out. It is the "down season" for help so Ray's Daycare is off till mid January, his men's group is in recess and I have five hours of care if I am lucky. That means with all the rain we have been having we have been mostly at home. And the telephone no longer rings as our active friends are out living the life that we would have lived if Ray had not had the strokes, not had the dementia etc. So yes, I am probably a bit depressed but it is seasonal and will go when life takes an upturn again.
Faye it is okay to come on here when you are down and in need of someone to offload to, I am okay with that. If you were happy and laughing I would suspect that you were just denying the realities of what is happening in your life. We all need support and that is what a support site is for - and that is what Dementianet is, a support site.
If you want to contact me at any time my email address is on my profile. It is okay to email me with a time you will come on and I will try to be on then. I know it would be lovely if this site had a thousand active members and they were here around the clock but it is never going to be like that. We Aussies don't talk about our troubles and woes like some others do, we bottle it all up inside and have heart attacks, strokes and yes - depression. In the meantime there are other sites out there where you can chat about everyday concerns just not specifically dementia.
Most nights I am in chat about 10.30pm. I watch some television after I have settled Ray into bed and then come on here, also log into Strokenet as I catch someone on there as America wakes up. Some stroke caregivers have time in the morning before they get their care recipient up so like a few minutes chat then. Like us their lives are concentrated on helping the one they love to live as good a life as possible. Unlike us the person they care for will likely plateau and become stable and even get better.
I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all go away or wind back the clock and force Ray to see about his diabetes, or go straight to the doctor when he had those few earlier "funny turns". But as they say hindsight is 20/20. And so all we can do is live life bravely, have a good laugh when we can and appreciate that many others are worse off than we are, including the person we are caring for right now.