Ambasador Health Hand

Dear reader my name is Stephen Busby nd this is my experience of dementia!

 

The role of Ambassador has been given to me by a very dear Friend of my Wife & I, Wieslawa Pokorska who is the creator of this wonderful idea to help people in need of support for either carer to the person or the patient who is directly affected by their health problem.

This role of Ambassador which I accepted without a second thought, is a role with responsibility to each and every one who has like me either been touched by the tragic experience of dementia or if I can help in some way ease an ongoing health problem.

 

My experience of dementia started when my Dad one day visited me at my home in Bushey in 2023.

On opening the door to him he said,  

“Your Mother’s driving me round the bend, think she has dementia”

Well of course I was extremely concerned and suggested we still go to the local village cafe for a chat which we had previously arranged anyway.

Dad had earlier driven Mum to the hair salon where Mum was having her hair set, so Dad had some spare time to visit me before going to collect her to drive her home and was nice to have a catch up with Dad to have some quality time together.

While we were both enjoying our respective sausage sandwiches with a cappuccino I asked Dad, that if Mum got really bad would he consider to put Mum in a home, to which he replied, “No.”

He also went onto say that, As long as he was around he would always care for her, which he did till she died in hospital on December 2nd 2023 aged 92!

For my Dad of course his experience was every day, where as mine was when I would visit them both two or three times a week.

 

For the record my dear Mum was also registered blind with macular degeneration without proper eyesight to read anything as well, also had breast cancer which she was taking tablets for, so she had a lot to cope with, but she was able to walk around which was something and Dad would take her out for a drive often which she would enjoy.  

 

Reader there are sadly many dementia stories that I can recite to you of situations that were very upsetting for both Dad & I, like the time I visited them both, when we would be sitting in the front room when Mum would suddenly say where is Clive who was my Dad as he would be sitting in his chair watching TV.

Suddenly Dad got all tearfully upset and said, “Please Maureen don’t leave us”

Maureen was of course my Mum’s name.

That experience will haunt me forever.

Other times Mum would ask where is Dad, when she meant her Dad and of course my Granddad who had been dead for over fifty years.

One day when visiting my Parents, Mum actually thought that Granddad was upstairs, of course we would go upstairs to find him not there and Mum would say, “Oh has he gone again”

know it seems at first that it reads like I goaded Mum, but a Friend of mine once advised me to always agree with their intensions to avoid any confrontations that may result in an argument!  

 

 

Mum did attend a memory clinic in Kingsbury north west London in August of 2023 when she

passed the memory test to Dad’s amazement, however the memory clinic staff then arranged another appointment in December 2023 and in between times Mum got progressively worse to the extent that in October 2023 when after visiting a Family wedding in Wales my Wife & I realised that Mum was getting worse.

 

I drove Mum to her local doctors where a memory test was completed on her and she could only remember her date of birth.

 

My dear Dad was of course a lot of the time in denial, when the dementia was getting worse when guess he was entitled to be in denial as he was married to Mum for sixty four years and knew her for seventy years which was a long time to know one another and thus hard to accept the situation.

My wife would later recall that Mum was probably starting to show sighs of dementia as far back as April 2023 when around the time my wife was starting to get to know Mum after meeting my Parents for the first time in March.

 

Dad always thought Mum’s dementia was quick, but in reality reader there is always a starting point and a slow progression then after to the end!

 

As said Mum of course died in December, although the cause of death was breast cancer, but Dad, my Wife & I thought dementia played a big part in my Mum’s demise when her dementia could have been properly diagnosed by the memory clinic sooner and tablets could have been administered which obviously was not the case!  

 

Reader, please please if you feel that your dementia patient is deteriorating fast keep making a point of pestering the NHS for an earlier assessment appointment to determine to what extent their demise is happening!    

 

So if anyone is going through similar experiences to myself or my Dad had in 2023, then please get in contact with us, we will do our upmost to try to help you in any way we can  

and remember you are never alone though it will feel so initially at the beginning!

 

Health Hand is there for that extra hand when it is needed!