LEWY BODY`S A FARAWAY PLACE

Faraway place

Last night I travelled to a faraway place, a place I had never been before and yet familiar, except this time it was at high speed. Buildings and street corners passed me by at great speed, supermarkets and shoppers going about their business at 100 miles per hour. Thing was, I didn’t or couldn’t make out if I was passing them or they were passing me as I didn’t seem to be in a vehicle of any kind!

Huge buildings towered over me and seemed to be coming closer and closer. I could hear someone shouting but couldn’t make the voice out and then …It stopped as suddenly as it started and I was in a field full of raspberry bushes. I found myself explaining to someone my surroundings, which seemed to change every second. One minute I was in a field, the next walking by a riverside, then in a cinema, then in a car. This seemed to go on for an age, scenes changing like switching TV channels.

I suddenly realized I was talking to Elaine my Angel, but she wasn’t there, just a voice in the distance as I carried on describing where I was. Then, for some reason I suddenly realized I was in a world of my own. I was stuck in some way in this, my very own reality, and felt like there was no way back. I suddenly felt so very alone and frightened. WHAT IF I never go back, I screamed. WHAT IF this is what it’s like falling over the edge of dementia and all I have to look forward to? Changing places, unfamiliar scenes for the rest of my life, I SCREAMED and suddenly I was there, sitting in my front room with my wife, my beautiful wife Elaine. She sat with me asking if all was okay. Did I step over the edge, if just for a second? Is this what the future holds in a faraway place? Some call this a catatonic trance but that can happen to most people without a diagnosis, this is completely different.

Elaine says my eyes are still open and they dart from side to side , always a giveaway apparently but apart from a little movement of my head, know body else will know what I am seeing or going through. It’s like being an extra in a film that nobody would ever want to be in , the fear that rips through your body is ?devastating and can affect you for many hours or even days after as I have flashbacks. So many people tell us that their loved ones with dementia just sit there and go into a world of their own, unable to answer a question or notice what’s going on in the real world. Sadly this is not uncommon and the worst thing about it is, sometimes, the world they are in, is somewhere they would rather not be. It really is like being paralysed and unable to move sometimes whilst the horrors you see flash past your eyes. This is how cruel this disease CAN BE AND MOSTLY NEVER SPOKEN ABOUT. What can you do?? All I can say is be there for them, when they come round, gently try to coax them out of their trance if you want to call it that buy whispering or talking to them gently because when we come back from a place so bad, you would not believe how wonderful it is to see a loving friendly face smiling back at you and one that you recognise.

Till next time …..