cakap cakap...the Mrs.

It has been a while since I last talked about my better half.

I talked about and share with you all how life is like with my wife because there are many others who are also caring for a loved ones who are not well. There are many others who faces the daily challenge of living with someone who has dementia. Dementia at an early stage, dementia at its onset ...or like me, dementia in a 70-year old wife that has robbed her of her ability to talk, walk or do anything for herself.     

If you want to know what it is like to live with someone with advanced Dementia, I can sum it up in one word. HARD. Hard not only for me but also for those around me and for those being cared for. How are you to know if they are well, unwell or in pain, hungry or thirsty, if the drink you are giving them is too hot or too cold, if they want more sugar or less milk in their coffee, if their feet is cold because it is freezing outside and even if they are upset or happy with their life? My wife cannot tell me these things and so I have to become her....and that is easy because after marrying her at 23 I know her well enough to be her when she is 70. 

And so that is how it is like, every day. 

I know when she is hungry, happy and upset...my wife does not get angry. At most she gets upset and that is how it has been all our life! She does not complain about anything....not even for the fact that in our life, all that I have ever got her in terms of jewellery you can possibly count on one hand and still have a few fingers not used. 

And I still remember just over three years ago when she stopped doing housework because of the onset of dementia - and not knowing that she was about to be diagnosed with dementia within a month or so - I was upset and asked her why she no longer does any housework or cooks my meals.  

She told me that she has had enough of doing all that and now I will have to do it! 

And that is what I have been doing for the past three years plus a few months. 

In the process, I have become as good a housewife as any housewife out there! Cooking, I am still working on ....and as any decent cook would know, cooking is a process and being a cook is a work in progress....and for me the work is progressing A Ok. I can roast a Leg of Lamb, do a decent Chicken Rice, Roast Chicken is too easy and feeding myself, my wife and my son is done without much hassle. And I am good at washing up too! Like those at McDonalds...I clean as I go.

The only thing that I have stopped doing what every other housewife is doing...is ironing. No can do. Too fiddly, too time-consuming and though I can do it if I really really really must ...I have virtually gone cold turkey on ironing for over two years. Since then we get non-iron clothes or wash and wear garments - which means, you wash the clothes and wear them and damm the wrinkles! 

It is almost 9 AM now and I have to start getting organized for my better half to wake up in about an hours time....think about breakfast and lunch and what else I have to do for the rest of the day. 

The trick to life is letting everything flow...all things must pass and it is up to you to make the best of it. For me, life is good.