Dementia: Thank Goodness For Gary Lineker

This post was written last night and will be circulated on Sunday Morning:

I’m glad I’ve got Match of the Day to watch in half an hour.  Maureen has just denied me of my hat-trick as she wants the bed to herself as she is too hot to have me in beside her. Then just as she is getting ready for bed she tells me that there are men sitting in her car staring up at her.  Just to put her mind at rest I went outside to assure her that there was no-one in the car.  Unfortunately, she is still very unsettled as she believes that this has happened before and other people are using her car.  She says she needs the car for Paul to drive her around as her dad can’t drive.

I had intended to go to bed early tonight but I need time to settle myself after seeing Maureen so frightened: Lineker is the man for that.  Maureen hasn’t had a bad day but on occasions she has been sitting with a very worried look on her face.   I have delicately tried to get her to share her thoughts and she has said she has forgotten what she is thinking about.

I’m hoping that the referral to the Memory Service will lead to involvement with the Home Treatment Team:  when they were involved before I was impressed by their approach to dementia.  Their involvement might give Maureen an opportunity to open up to professional staff about how she is feeling.  That would be a preferable option to plying her with medication that would close down the areas of her brain that are already under attack from dementia.

Sunday 7 am continuation of this post:

I’m glad Match of the Day is repeated in half an hour’s time.  I nodded off early in the programme last night and I need Gary this morning.  The advice of ‘letting sleeping dogs lie’ has really hit home this morning. For the last hour or so Maureen has been trying to make sense of her memory loss.  It started with thinking of writing to her mum and it has ended with what have I been doing for the last 16 years.  The questions are coming thick and fast with all sorts of barbs thrown in and I have had to be at my best to keep my cool.

Maureen understands my addiction to football and may accept that I’m going downstairs to watch Premier League which is a relief after listening to the Sky Blues struggle yet again yesterday.  Gary will also give me a break from the repeated enquiries that lead nowhere as Maureen just can’t remember and is bemused.

I’m hoping that additional support from the Home Treatment Team will help us through the next stage of our journey. We have now hit a very rough passage as we try to figure out a way forward.