(no subject)
Yesterday it was World Alzheimer’s Day, and with 2 colleagues I went to see a documentary about Alzheimer’s (called “Lost down Memory Lane” and shot in Belgium) at the nearest movie art house.
It truly is a horrible disease and I feel for everyone who has experience with it in their lives. My grandfather passed away suffering from this condition, and seeing it so detailed in the movie just again emphasised its tragedy.
I have to say that I would be ecstatic to get the chance to grow old (and not die young, which is a great fear of mine); but getting truly old, whereby everything you do - getting up out of bed, getting dressed and washed, eating and drinking, walking, going to the bathroom - becomes an extremely difficult chore, that takes time, and you need help, and it probably hurts, and you have no privacy, is not something I look forward to obviously.
But to lose your mind until you are alone in a home, where you cannot remember your children, or your life and accomplishments, or your dead husband, or even what you did yesterday or how you got where you are today, until you forget how to eat and drink, is a nightmare.
One lady in the film, who was still aware enough that she knew was in a home and had Alzheimer’s, and could be quite laconic about this fact, was most terribly upset about the fact that society had written her off. That there was no more use for her. It was incredibly sad.
It truly is a horrible disease and I feel for everyone who has experience with it in their lives. My grandfather passed away suffering from this condition, and seeing it so detailed in the movie just again emphasised its tragedy.
I have to say that I would be ecstatic to get the chance to grow old (and not die young, which is a great fear of mine); but getting truly old, whereby everything you do - getting up out of bed, getting dressed and washed, eating and drinking, walking, going to the bathroom - becomes an extremely difficult chore, that takes time, and you need help, and it probably hurts, and you have no privacy, is not something I look forward to obviously.
But to lose your mind until you are alone in a home, where you cannot remember your children, or your life and accomplishments, or your dead husband, or even what you did yesterday or how you got where you are today, until you forget how to eat and drink, is a nightmare.
One lady in the film, who was still aware enough that she knew was in a home and had Alzheimer’s, and could be quite laconic about this fact, was most terribly upset about the fact that society had written her off. That there was no more use for her. It was incredibly sad.