Then when the confirmation comes, the next nine to 12 months are so hard: trying to come up with ways to fix the problem — which at this stage is only in its infancy — and people saying what you should and shouldn’t do.
But what a lot of people don’t understand is that if 20 people are diagnosed with the same dementia, not one of them is the same in mind or body.
Dementia attacks both — the way we think, act, walk, communicate and work.
When first diagnosed, we are still us, but some people think that we have to stop what we do and give up.
And the question to that is, simply: why?
People, especially us, need to keep our minds and bodies working.
In a lot of cases we don’t need to be told what to do, but might need a hand with what we do as time goes on.
Depression, diabetes, head pressure (not headaches), slower movement, emotions and dizziness, are all mixtures of this disease — and of course, the damned memory.
But, probably the loss of faces of both friends and family would be around the top of the list.
In some cases, this doesn’t happen every day, but it gets more prominent as the disease progresses.
In some cases, we become bed-ridden once a fortnight or month and the body and mind shuts down, with the energy not there, and the following week is so hard dealing with people’s voices causing havoc in the mind.
But after all of this, we get up and smile, as if trying to say “I have got to get into life and I have got to keep trying”; or to say “I am not as bad as others, so let’s get my backside into action and at least tell others that I am okay.”
Deception and stigma are common obstacles.
Deception in saying we are okay when we’re not, and the stigma of keeping within ourselves or hidden from our families.
With over 160 types of dementia — likely a growing number — and with dementia being a whole life disease, affecting not only people over 60 years, we all need help.
Young children, young adults and middle-agers are all now being diagnosed.
Again, the big question is: why?
But this is why we with this disease need to come out and speak to others who have our disease, to say “I can help you, can you help me try to understand?”
– Mick Simpson
For local help in Kyabram, please ring Kyabram Community and Learning Centre on 5852 0000 or the 24-hour Australia-wide Dementia Australia Hotline on 1800 11 500.
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