“What if you can’t remember who’s standing in front of you? The face is familiar, but you have no idea what name belongs to that face. Your wife tells you it’s ‘Sarah’ but you have no idea. A vague memory of what once was the past.. when you were still strong and looking at life with a happy and joyfull mind. But things have changed over the years, the more weeks pass by the less your head seems to remember. Slowly it seems life turned it’s back on you.. “
Within our small family, we have a man who is 86 years old and he has been diagnosed with dementia almost 2 years ago. He suffered from a heart problem in the middle of the night during weekends. His doctor where he always goes, is not around at those moments, so some one else who can be called will come. Sadly enough, the doctor was terrified and was not sure about how to handle, so he gave him morfine and called an ambulance. He was admitted to Intensive Care and it took a few days before he was ‘back’. But he did came back.. After some time, the doctors in the hospital found a medicine that would help, but the damage was already started at that time.. A few months later, something similar happened. Luckily enough, no morfine this time, but again on Intensive Care. I heard that IC leaves an impression to people who have been lying there…
Either way.. from that moment on, it always went more and more the wrong way.. there’s no way back. You can’t turn. Especially for his wife, must it be terrible to see how the man you’ve lived with for the past 60 years or longer is slowly becoming a stranger. Also for me, this is a strange feeling/idea that the man who survived World War II, who was so very strong, is now at times, not even able to eat his dinner or lunch independent. It hurts me even more when I go to visit them and he does not remember my name. Things are now so far that in the near future his wife won’t be able to take care of him and he will have to move to a home for the elderly, where he can get the care he needs. None of us saw this coming, but it hurts terribly to see how a man once so strong, happy and joyful in life now somehow is losing contact with the world….