The PSYCHOTIC symptoms that come later in patients diagnosed with dementia, from the caretaker’s perspectives, translated…
My husband’s able-bodied, and you couldn’t tell by looking, that he is thirty-three years older than I am. On a September afternoon back in 2012, he’d fallen down after he got up from his naps to go to the bathrooms, I’d taken him to get an X-ray at the hospitals, and, the doctor told us, that there was a fracture in his spinal column, and prescribed him some painkillers, that very night, he’d had delirium symptoms, and started ranting incessantly, refused to go to sleep at night, in just one night, it’s, as if, his brains became like those messed up channels on T.V.
Following this, he’d had some good days, and some bad ones, and, he’d not slept for two nights on end, and would tell me he was needed at work in the depth of the nights, and, he was lying in bed sleeping, and, his mind went elsewhere, told me he wanted to go home, he couldn’t remember that he’d taken a bath already, and, saw his reflection on the glass window panes, and said it was somebody else, and, to prevent him from seeing his own reflections, I’d, pulled the curtains up to block it night and day.
not my diagram…
I’d changed the lyrics of the nursery rhyme, “Mud Babies” into “Elderly Babies” and sung it to him with the hired help and I’d also sung the songs he was familiar with, like The Jasmine Flower, Missed You Oh So Much, and we’d told him often, “We’re glad to be of services to you.” Hoping, to reduce his unsettling, once he’d started laughing happily, and we’d told him, “If you’re happy, then, our moods are also lifted up as well”, he’d said to us sensibly, “Having happiness with you”.
Because of our age differences, I’d walked on eggshells since I married him, worried that he may leave me when I was still younger, I’m grateful, that he was there, to help me raise our children to adulthood, actually, I’m not the one accompanying him, he is the one, accompanying me as I age. I want to call out to those with progressive conditions elderly at home, you need to know how to de-stress, after all, this, is a long-term battle, we don’t have the right, to fall and quit.
On last year’s Bachelor Day, my husband went to be an angel, I’d thought about that I’d needed to write something to commemorate him, and so, I’d made the deadlines for this article now.
not my art…
The caretaker’s journals again, and, the symptoms are so varied, that there’s NO SET of one-size-fit-all profiles for dementia, every patient is different, and the caretakers are faced with different challenges, taking care of their loved ones who are diagnosed.
Life, the Obstacle Course 