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There is a photo I could use. The one that hangs in the Town Council Offices taken when you were Mayor in 1986. I understand completely that it was a thankless task (with no remuneration, for those outside of or unfamiliar with rural town councils), but you look so proud, if a little embarrassed by the attention. All dolled up with a new perm and your mayoral chain, some bastard love child of Margaret Thatcher and Maureen Lipman, if such a thing were biologically possible. I think that’s how you’d want to be remembered.
You’re snoring as I sit here waiting for you to die. No pussy footing around it. That’s what is going to happen. Every now and then there’s silence. You stop snoring and I think “is this it?” then watch as your chest almost imperceptibly rises and falls. And then rattles into life again with a huge, yawning snore. Always makes me jump.
You look quite serene, now that the cocktail of painkillers efficiently administered by the District Nurse have taken effect. I have her mobile number if you need more. She tells me I’ve done really well to get this far, alone. “Have I?” I wonder. It doesn’t always feel that way. I get frustrated by you. Not by you. By the disease. That nasty, insidious, malicious, joke of a disease which takes people from their loved ones years before their bodies are ready to switch off. It’s a 21st century disease. It didn’t exist when life expectancy was what we now think of as middle age. Advances in technology, nutrition and medicine combined have made this our problem, and our children’s problem. It’s a primary cause of housing shortages and NHS shortfalls. We are living too long and need more care than the system was ever designed to support. I think they call it progress.
dizzylizzie72 said:
I remember how others shunned my brother from the beginning of his dementia problems. I hated others for how they treated my brother. There are those who say they will help you, that you do not have to do this alone. But, when you look around they are not there, it is just you. You know in your mind you do not want to do this, you do not want to be a caregiver. You resent the one you have to care for, but it is not their fault, it is the disease. You feel bad about the thoughts that go through your mind. I am sorry I did not find your blog earlier, so I could help you with support, if only through blogging. So sorry for this difficult time you are handling on your own. The world needs to come up with a way to care for those who are suffering with Alzheimers/Dementia. My Mother also died with dementia and my sister. Just a devastating disease.
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