Just when it seems life's most aggravating challenges are passed - the kids are grown up, retirement is here, commuting is no longer vital - some very weird alternatives to peace spring up.
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| Handup ... We need a hand at all stages of life, but none quite so much as in later years. Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash |
He's enjoyed the best of life, complete devotion by his keenest fan, and yet looney is what he's become, even though the condition gets a happily more respectable label.
However, call it what we will, it's madness that it happens and what it is.
Flowers
From friends' point of view, he has gone crazy and they are left half-crazy wondering what they can do to help.
Of course, they can offer a drink or two and commiserations, and perhaps a bunch of flowers from time to time. The previously wise and sensible fellow continues to deteriorate even so.
Probably a century or so back, the effect would be blamed on Satan. We don't have that handy let out these days.
Done your best
| Dementia is a growing challenge. As the population ages and people live for longer, it has become one of the most important health and care issues facing the world. In England it is estimated that around 676,000 people have dementia. In the whole of the UK, the number of people with dementia is estimated at 850,000.- NHS |
What are you to do?
A dear friend faces the dilemma. Her husband is going crazier - has been losing his mind - more and more each day.
The silly things kids do, he does. At least the conscience of the kids prods them and eventually encourages the issuing of apologies.
Flowers
But the husband losing it either doesn't recognise the wrong of his actions or simply doesn't care, or perhaps more disturbingly can't stop himself.
Very disturbingly, the NHS puts the number of dementia victims in the UK at 850,000. That equates to an awful lot of distressed wives and families.
Probably the least understandable part of the process is that each sufferer only gets worse. I've mentioned some of the ghastly aspects here before - littering the home with broken dishes, urinating indiscriminately, even defecating where you'd least welcome it.
But the situation just gets worse. It seems the perfect excuse for murder, except we tend not to go in for that these days.
It seems then that my friend must go absolutely bonkers herself, but fortunately, advice from friends and family dominates, and the sad case is moved into what we term a care home.
The unexpected
The unexpected situation now is that surprise surprise, he likes it. The major challenge to sanity and peace and pleasure is out of the house for good.
And where my friend had loathed arranging his despatch to is actually liked, is appreciated. An almost forgotten smile returns to that sad face.
However, it has stolen the smile from my friend. Life is so much better for her, and more than likely for him, but she can't really get over that ever-watchful human feeling of failure or a form of it.
Our grandmothers advise that time is the best healer. I hope so.
Thanks very much for visiting the mostly Tuesday and Thursday blogs for my adventure book, Sailing to Purgatory, which are introduced each time on Facebook Facebook dot com/Sailingtopurgatory
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The blogs for Sailing to Purgatory are introduced on Facebook.
