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    Dementia a Slow Descent Through Hell
    Dementia a Slow Descent Through Hell
    Dementia a Slow Descent Through Hell
    Ebook90 pages1 hour

    Dementia a Slow Descent Through Hell

    By pat linum

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    About this ebook

    The book is intended to help prepare readers, who may well become carers, know what to expect andThis heart-wrenching story traces the lives of a dementia victim and his caring family as they descend through the devasting journey and ultimate end that is caused by Alzheimers Dementia.
    Using personal experience and that of others the author explores in graphic detail the pain and confusion of Pat, the victim and the selfless love of his wife Carol and daughter Mandy.
    The book is intended to help prepare readers, who may well become carers, know what to expect and to raise general awareness of a condition that receives little attention compared to its impact on the lives of men and women throughout the world.
    Reading this will make the reader better able to recognize and have empathy for the victims around them and to wonder about themselves and their own family members and friends because...(That will become clear)

    LanguageEnglish
    Publisherpat linum
    Release dateFeb 10, 2017
    ISBN9781520553924
    Dementia a Slow Descent Through Hell
    Author

    pat linum

    I am indescribable and I have lived many lifetimes.

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      Book preview

      Dementia a Slow Descent Through Hell - pat linum

      67

      DEMENTIA A SLOW DESCENT THROUGH HELL

      by:

      Pat Linum with Margaret Gumble

      Contains adult material

      Table of Contents

      Page 3 Foreword

      Page 5 Chapter One (Pat’s Journey Begins. His early 60s)

      Page 9 Chapter Two (Pat aged 65)

      Page 12 Chapter Three (Aged 66)

      Page 15 Chapter Four (6 months later)

      Page 18 Chapter Five (Pat aged 68)

      Page 23 Chapter Six (Pat aged 70)

      Page 26 Chapter Seven (Pat – the end)

      Page 29 Chapter Eight (Carol’s Journey)

      Page 39 Chapter Nine (The Agony Worsens)

      Page43 Chapter Ten (Mandy’s Experience)

      Page 52 Chapter Eleven (Carol Needs Help)

      Page 65 Chapter Twelve (Carol – the end)

      Page 66 Epilogue (Three months later)

      Page 67 Margaret Gumble reflects on our final draft.

      Page 68 Contributions received from the Writers’ Forum.

      FOREWORD

      Make no mistake: dementia is the incarnation of evil. I am anxious to get this project out before its merciless grip consumes me and separates me from myself.

      The insight of Ernest Hemingway is cruelly demonstrated by his declaration that ‘two people in love can never have a happy ending.’ The following account will validate that statement.

      Hemingway also expressed his own intimate feelings. He noted: ‘Being a writer is easy. You just sit down at your typewriter and bleed.’ I am going to bleed a lot. This account needs to be written. It is not positive about the effects of dementia, but positively realistic.

      The story is based on true life experiences and attempts to explore the feelings and emotions of a person going through the dementia process. Clearly it is not possible to question a victim who is past a certain point, but, by closely watching them and using bucket loads of empathy, a little insight is possible. These people are what they are. They do not have axes to grind or pretentions to live up to. It is, I believe, a question of ‘what you see is what you get.’

      In respectfully recounting the other side of the equation, in this case the point of view of the victim’s wife, I am grateful to e-writing friends from three continents who have encouraged me to complete this work and have contributed their own sad experiences, which I have alluded to in the story. They will recognise their contributions, which I hope help bring reality to this work. In the pages that follow you will read events firstly through the eyes of the victim, Pat, and then from his carer and wife, Carol.

      It may well be a descent you will one day, or perhaps are already experiencing. All types of dementia are progressive. This means that the structure and chemistry of the brain becomes increasingly damaged over time. The person‘s ability to remember, to understand, to communicate and to reason is in decline. The sufferer’s personality goes through 180 degrees. They suffer pain and die. Happy endings are no part of the dementia journey.

      It can be likened to a single-cell, self-reproducing maggot that finds its way into the human brain, feeds indiscriminately on various brain cells, multiplies with catastrophic results, and drags that person ultimately to death. Along the way it produces incalculable pain and suffering to the victims and their families and friends. How soon before the human population is, maybe, wiped out by it?

      Who knows?

      CHAPTER ONE

      PAT’S JOURNEY BEGINS (his early sixties)

      Do not ask me to remember

      Don’t try to make me understand

      Let me rest and know you’re with me

      Kiss my cheek and hold my hand.

      I’m confused beyond your concept

      I’m sad and sick and lost

      All I know is that I need you

      To be with me at all cost

      Do not lose your patience with me

      Do not scold or curse or cry

      I cannot help the way I’m acting

      I can’t be different though I try

      Just remember that I need you

      That the best of me is gone

      Please don’t fail to stand beside me

      Love me till my life is done.

      I cannot say these words to you

      Of them I cannot think

      But thanks for being there my love

      As in through hell we sink.

      Owen Darnell (Final verse respectfully added by Pat Linum)

      Well, here we go. My name is Pat and at the age of sixty-four, unknown to me, vascular dementia – a form of dementia or Alzheimer’s – has for some time been in the process of smothering my brain.

      Four years ago I took early retirement. Put in its proper context it was the sack. They said I was unable to adapt to the new computerised and robotic ways of working and I had made some serious errors of judgement in dealing with my staff. I thought this was ridiculous – although I was aware of becoming more forgetful. Don’t we all put that down to the passage of time?

      With my unexpected free time, I took my lovely wife, Carol, on a cruise – or was it two? And then a long holiday in the sun. With the generous financial package, we paid off our mortgage and were happy with our joint income from private pensions, knowing that state pensions would come later. We get on well and love each other to bits, although she did make me a bit cross repeatedly telling me I’d forgotten to flush the toilet. That I never did forget. I don’t think.

      Naturally I did some DIY decorating and cleaned the car for the first time since I had brought it back from the body shop where it had been for repair two years before. I was on my way home from the shops and driving up our street. The houses looked much the same as usual and I turned into what I thought was our drive, only to hit a tree that had not been there before. It was raining and I had picked the wrong drive. Well, these things happen, don’t they?

      I watched daytime TV and my viewing had sunk to the depths of old Ed Sullivan and Jeremy Kyle shows and reruns of detective movies. How sad is that?

      It was then that I landed on the idea of becoming a writer. Not just a writer, but a rich and famous one. A modern Jeffrey Rowling, if you like, or even a male JK Archer. I think they’re the ones. There would be book signings, I mused, maybe a blockbuster movie. I told Carol, my wife, that this time next year we’d be millionaires. I heard that expression on some TV show one afternoon called something about horses and fools.

      That sacking had been a godsend. At last I had time to write a bestseller. I sat down in front of the typewriter and typed ‘The...’ But, try as I might, I couldn’t remember what came next. Anyway, my Carol was happy for me to have a try although she thought our old black typewriter was not fit for purpose.

      Now where was I? Oh, yes, I know. By the way, who are you? Well, ok.

      After a visit to our local PC World, I became the proud owner of a fairly basic computer and I had plans to enlist on a course at our local college to learn Word.

      I was keen to have a go with it as soon as

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