My Alzheimer’s Journey – Handbagwarrior: Dementia and me

Alzheimers Journal: The move

I packed all of my life into boxes, how much stuff can one get on a small boat is incredible! I am sure a lot of it should be thrown away and when I continue opening boxes I shall be doing so. Trying to be organised when you have Alzheimer’s is incongruous to the task. In my defence I will say that I was trying to keep the boxes light by adding a random assortment of things into each 😉

I dare not stop to think about the emotional cost of what was happening because I needed to be focussed on making sure everything I needed to do was done on time. I tentatively wrote on each box what was in it, but by the time it was filled I had no real idea what I had put in there!

I said goodbye to my cat of thirteen years who was remaining behind with my husband, she would be happier to remain in a life that suited her. To my friends I had made in the marina, and my boat that I had lived on for 5 years.

I will allow myself one teary week, then will get on with it .

Moving into an Anchor Housing studio flat is not the worst thing to do. I have already met some lovely people and with the knowledge that there is a Manager on site it is extremely suitable.

Unpacking is a nightmare, but I don’t need to tell you that do I? I have little furniture having bought a pine bookcase and tv table at a community furniture project that I shall very shortly be ‘upcycling’ by painting and maybe distressing.

In my first week I have had a cooker, fridge freezer and carpet installed and fitted.

I have been sleeping on my chair which is excruciatingly painful when you have fibromyalgia. Then my wooden bed arrived which I put together – splendid. No mattress yet though 😦 I have tried to make a ‘nest’ of duvets and anything soft to use it to sleep on, and its almost comfortable (okay not the right word but I am being positive here). Then yesterday I put together the drawers that go underneath the bed, well supposedly! They are either 2cm to high or the bed is 2cm too short whichever way you look at it. So I have emailed the ‘not so helpful’ Mr Mattress.co.uk, to ask if they can give me a date for my mattress being delivered (which they previously just said no), and what can be done about the drawers not going under the bed. Frankly I am not expecting much response from them, and I am tiring of trying to sort things out. I have noticed that where as once I was able to spring into action and get things done, now I have to plan everything I do. The stress makes me more ‘befuddled’ so I will take my time, there is no hurry.

Emotionally, I do what I do to stay positive and upbeat.

Apathy and the constant challenge of challenging myself!

Some days need more of a challenge than others as I slip into an uncomfortable numbness.

The hot humid summers days have cooled. I welcome the coolness outside having hated the heat which exhausts me, but with the coolness and the humidity comes the pains in my joints especially my shoulders right now, but ok I can take a paracetamol, after all you can’t have everything.

Its Monday morning and I get out my medicines to fill my weekly box and blow me, guess what, I have forgotten that I needed to collect the remainder of my Rivastigmene from the chemists! Good grief, have I not just gone through this a short time ago. So, not only did I forget to order my prescription, which came in two parts, I have forgotten to pick up the remainder of it , how could I not have remembered that one? I was going to write ‘what is wrong with me’ but thats laughable.

The past few days I have been feeling apathy and something I can’t quite put my finger on and feel upset with myself for not overcoming it.

Maybe I am feeling apathy because I have allowed myself to sink into a routine that is so comfortable it is not challenging? Maybe, my brain is just having a rest, maybe its part of Alzheimer’s depression (I don’t remotely feel depressed or less than happy). I have somehow not phoned my family, friends, or kept up to date with anyone. I realise that for me sometimes it is a real struggle to do these things, how do you explain that I can get ‘scared’ to make that call, or chat. I don’t understand it myself only that once I do it, all is well, and I think what was all the fuss about.

One thing I know, keeping positive is a challenge on a daily basis, and somedays I don’t manage so well.

Yesterday whilst the weather was on the edge of turning into rain, I took my camera out to take some photo’s and to check what the farmers had done to the field next to us. For the past few days our eyes have been watering and we are told that they have been spraying lime on the fields and unfortunately the wind has been in our direction. Having listened to the tractors early in the mornings I thought they had been ploughed but see that they are working through the patchwork around the marina spraying.

Last year the fields were planted with potatoes, this year oilseed rape, I wonder what will be in there next year?

Disaster on the software/hardware front!

It struck after getting a new computer. The question was how to transfer photos and documents from my Asus to my new Macbook Pro – yes a luxury that I already love. I have most of my photos backed up on a Toshiba external drive and needed to format my drive to be FAT or whatever, so copied the files back to my Asus…………….but instead of adding them it didn’t. Did it overwrite the files? No and I have no idea quite what it has done. My original files are there, well most of them but my ‘story’ I have been writing (70,000 words so far) has gone, the only copy left is from October 2013 😦

I am mortified, both my writing and my photos have gone, so much for having kept them safe on an external drive. All my wedding photos but thank goodness Mr Hsg has got as many as I had. Apart from the pieces I have posted on here, with my memory problem I will never be able to rewrite what I have lost. I thought it was safe keeping it on an external drive but no, I should have printed them all out, you can never beat paper copies.

There is no point in being upset, I have to try and continue using what is left. I have a file with photos that I had include in my writing so can guess what I was writing about and start again. I will never remember anything I have written without them.

Onwards and upwards.