Author: Saro (Elmarie)

Two years ago, I had two strokes and was diagnosed with vascular dementia. It was the most horrible thing that happened to me. As my cognitive impairment is already considerable, there might be a lot of grammar and spelling mistakes. This is a journal and a journey. Doing a draft, leave me with no clue as to what I wanted to write. Thank you for joining me on this venture. When family or friends read this please don't be offended if I mention something that might make you feel uncomfortable. Love you

Day, I have no idea, of lock down. Snakes…..

Hi, I’m still on the Discover Prompts thing. I suggested snakes, so here goes… A true story!

We still lived in Welkom, we were young and the kids were small. Now I’m the kind of mother that can remind you of a hen with her two chickens. Well okay I’m still a hen with her two grown up chickens, which I will protect no matter what.

Earlier the day we discovered a snake, name or kind unknown and forgotten by now. I had a lovely lady that worked for me and lived in. Well the snake were pulverized and husband in all wisdom and expert knowledge told everybody that where there is one there is two or one snake always have a little friend or is a married couple or whatever.

So a whole arsenal of sticks, shovels and broom has been put in a corner near the kitchen or at least, near for the moment the enemy turned up and needed to be killed. Happily we all watched TV and the next moment I saw it…..! The snakes chum, wife, husband or whatever by the open front door. It stood with it’s head raised up. I gave the mother of all screams, grabbed my chickens, one with my left arm and one with my right arm and jumped on the sofa. Well all three of us were screaming our heads of, while husband and house angel sprung into action, each grabbing a weapon and stormed for the front door. Swear words, screams, many words were uttered in that moment.

The next moment a silence and standstill happened in front of the front door. Such a monumental anti climax…. and you could see the question mark appearing in my head…. And? Well dear wife, your snake is the broom’s dustpan. The handle that was standing in the air just above the ground.

And so house angel went back to bed, husband missed his favorite TV show and being snotty about the fact. Two little girls giggling about the whole affair and mommy that is so strong and who screamed the hardest, and me feeling like a total monumental asshole.

The next day my husband actually saw another snake in the yard. What was weird was that he told me that he saw the snake and the next moment it was like it turned over like a hand and vanished…..

Well that’s my story about snakes, dustpans and mysterious vanishings.

So what’s up? What’s the new Discover prompts?

Lots of love and kindness

Saro (Elmarie)

Discover prompts: Song

I read this post and sorry I cannot remember who’s post that was, just that I must put “Discover prompts” in the tags. Well this prompt is: Song

Well I do have a favorite song with good memories. It is The Anvil choir from Il Trovatore. You can listen to it here.: https://youtu.be/-8aHsJdMEMY

Before we retired we usually went on holiday every year for round about 3 or 4 weeks. Quite frankly after the first 2 weeks I already wanted to go home. We always went to some resort or something like Victoria Bay for the first 2 weeks and then 2 weeks visiting family.

Well this holiday, the kids still small and did not complain about our choices of music, we discovered The Anvil choir and Il Trovatore. We listened to it over and over and over and then started again. We were so happy and carefree. Kids were good. Petrol prices for okay. We saved the change throughout the holiday in a pencil tin and used that for petrol to get back home. Hmmmm That’s a good memory with today’s really really crap petrol prices. Guess what… we don’t go on holiday anymore. Although I must say, we now live where our favorite holiday place was and now is.

So many years ago, so many things that happened in the meantime from then to now. Well we made it through the tough times and the good times are remembered with fondness.

With the dementia thingy I don’t remember anymore detail, but it was and still is an awesome piece of work.

PROMPT: SNAKE

It can be a funny one or adventures one or whatever. When finished please just put in tags: Discover prompts

Toodles

Much love and kindness

Saro (Elmarie)

Day 7 of Corona virus lockdown

Been a busy day today. Cleaned the chicken beds, washed the floors, vacuumed, cooked…. and thought out some stuff I want to bake. Thinking out that stuff was hard work, since I want to do it tomorrow…..

List: Cinnamon rolls (post photo on facebook ), little blankets (sausage in a dough fried in oil. Vetkoek. Mayonnaise muffins. Much of this I want to freeze for snacks etc….

Found something interesting on facebook. Put a note on bread for Husband… If you don’t stop binging on the bread your pants is not going to fall off anymore because you don’t have hips… there will be enough at the end of the lock down around your waist to keep your pants up. Original note on Facebook said:”You are not hungry, you are bored… go watch some more TV” stuck in the fridge. Very original.

My Dementia Mentors Zoom buddies decided we should have a cowboy theme for next week. Well I don’t have anything cowboy, except for my landlord’s few cows that is grazing outside as we live on a farm. I think I will make a note: “Cowboy theme” and stick it on my forehead. Should do the trick.

We talked about snakes tonight… grrr yuk. Don’t like… nope ….no. I promised to blog a snake story, but will leave that for tomorrow. Someone also made a joke to use baby nappies as face masks, I thought I could just pull mine over my head… then they told me it was only a joke. I can be such an asshole.

My meds is kicking in and I have to go. I did play my Dawn of Titans and touched my jewelry and blogged. Personal mission accomplished. I must put in diary that someone asked me to make a video of my jewelry and post on facebook. Maybe I should and I just need to get a few things sorted. Don’t know how long that’s gonna take lol. Lora has a small stand for her cellphone…. O well at least one idea already.

Toodles! Lots of love and kindness.

Saro (Elmarie)

Day 6 of lock down.

Titles is getting boring….

Hi, it is day 6 of our total lock down. Thus far my intention to write, play game and jewelry is successful. My friend Marian visited and we made cinnamon and sugar pancakes. She told me to make the batter. I think her intention was to let me feel I can still do somethings myself. Thing is, I could not understand the recipe. I could not understand the measurements. It is so strange, my brain just refused to make sense of it. I ended up putting a quarter cup vinegar in, very happy that I did not have to battle to get the liquid in a tablespoon and make a mess. Eventually I started crying and she took over. All you could taste was vinegar. She did not know about the vinegar measurement that I was so relieved about. Well it did not taste that bad and we finished the lot.I just made myself some chicken livers and that was a success, what a relieve and pleasure to my taste buds.

That was only one of my boo boo’s today. We had our Dementia Mentors Zoom and one guy Cecil made a quilt. That’s a story for another day, but thing is, he is so funny. He has the most wonderful sense of humor. He makes me laugh and he truly makes me happy. Well he made another joke and I insisted to give them the word in Afrikaans for a really funny guy. Grapgat. I translated it to Joker asshole. I saw everybody just looked at me and I tried again…. a big hole of jokes. But I told him, he makes me laugh and happy. He actually cried. Afterwards we talked on Messenger and I apologized. He then told me it is a word you cannot translate that belong to a certain part of a country and came up with the words a “well of jokes”. Well that is accurate and really sounds better. This guy speak I don’t know how many languages, so he could figure it out.

Got to go, sleep time and my meds is busy kicking in.

Lots of love and kindness

Saro (Elmarie)

Day 5 of lock down

I wonder how you get the picture to the side, or maybe it should be in the middle… anyways, here I start my blog with one of my random thoughts. Oh well, that’s okay too. I don’t know if I said it somewhere, but I decided that in this time I will blog again, play Dawn of Titans and do my jewelry. Well, I’m successful thus far.

Sad thing just happened. I’m looking after baby chicks that is been hatched in an incubator. One little Orpington just died. He had lovely white lines around his eyes. His dad… a formidable huge Orpington with a real bad temper died a month or so ago. I’m so not taking this very well. A wonderful thing about this chicken thing is that a few times I had the little chicken born right in my hand. That is an awesome experience.

I enjoyed my first game on Dawn of Titans. There are a lot of new players I don’t know and way to little players. Wonder where my kids went off wondering…. (mind you grown-ups between 30 and 50 years old)

My jewelry education on Youtube is quite extensive. There is this woman Darlene, I just adore her and she is so practical and awesome creative and good ideas…. and so I can go on.

Had a very nice Zoom Dementia Mentors Zoom meeting today. We had such a laugh, Peter had to chase a bumblebee out of his glasshouse where he was chatting from. Everyone is learning or doing zoom and whatever meetings now, while we have been doing it for like ever… Our Virtual Cafe’s is awesome. We are family, friends and meet everyday. So awesome. I just love the lot of them. Everyone has some form of dementia in different stages, although most of us are early onset. Some days we all have on hats, or tie dye shirts (don’t know how to spell that, not that it matter anymore for me, as long as I can communicate.

My husband is driving me around the bend. He is comfort eating and smoking his pipe, but I put my mask on when he smokes. I will most probably not go out anyway.

Have to go. Toodles

Saro (Elmarie)

Day 4 of lock down.

Hi guys and girls, it is out fourth day of COVID-19 lock down. Many lovely positive things happened today, so no complaints over here.

My dearest friend Marian had her 49th birthday today and I made her a lovely little basket and lid from newspaper. She was really happy with it. She also brought us some frozen chickens and offer to to buy some necessities, so that my husband and I don’t have to be exposed. We decided to wait another 2 days, as the government old age payments were today and there would have been a lot of people. Also, she can get the stuff we need close to us, that is not that much visited by people. That’s really awesome of her.

One thing though…. my husband and his pipe smoking or smoking in general is killing me. I stopped 6 months ago. The pipe smoke gives me a headache and makes me nauseous. Tomorrow, I’m wearing a bandana or scarf around my face. I love him very much, but this is really getting too much.

Another good thing that happened was that I decided to make a Whatsapp group to keep in touch with my 3 brothers. They all thought it to be a good idea and it makes me happy, although I stated it is to chat and not to be spammed with stupid pictures …. those that some people spam your phone with mornings and nights.

I must admit that this pandemic is raising my anxiety to new levels. I do however try to just avoid negative things and search out positive things. Share the amount of people that recovered after having the virus, instead of how many are now infected or died. We have to live in confined spaces for quite some time, so we must take measures to avoid depression. Also, get closer to God, he never leaves us. He is not the one that send this, He is the one that heals. God is in the healing business not killing. His love for us is infinite and far more than we can ever imagine.

Have to go now. Hope and pray that all of you stay safe and are well.

lots of love and kindness

Saro (Elmarie)

Day 3 of total lock down.

I’m almost scared to use the word Corona virus or whatever it is called, as it is everywhere and now in my post as well. In South Africa we are in a total lock down for 21 days.

What is strange, is that I never want to go anywhere or even get an opportunity to go anywhere, except to work (doing limited tutoring with my daughters). Now that I can’t go anywhere, guess what…….? It feels like death itself. That emotional thing that happens when you are told not to do something and all of a sudden you really want to do it…. a bit, okay more than a bit like with children. Tell them not too and guess what, five minutes in and the deed is done.

With the dementia it is not that easy, as I am getting to forget a lot lately. Got an entry in my diary “contribute to tommy otter” what the hell that is, I don’t know and am too scared to ask. I have decided to get some sort of schedule going.

1. Blog, obviously

2. Play my online game Dawn of Titans, which I quit a while ago.

3. Make my jewelry.

4. Look after my zoo of dog, cats, bird, chickens, bunny and husband. My daughters are not here, but are stuck somewhere else. Can you imagine my one bunny “Ashes”, other one is Sparkle, tried with his little paw to remove the stone I was busy putting on his latest escape tunnel. The audacity (big word… yaaayaaa), so I fetched another one and put it on that one. When I went to feed them, I noticed that the man was quite busy, with you know what.

I see that I’m getting sidetracked again as usual. Thing is, I have decided not to keep on reading all these reports, only check out positive text messages. Keep the air freshener close to me, to use when my husband is getting overly busy on his pipe. It really sounds strange… just sucking on it, like it is a ventilator or something like that. So we should keep out of each other’s hair. Maybe the two of us have a few things to work on…. we will see.

The dementia thing is getting a bit worse. I still could figure out something went wrong, but now it happens less and less. Just blissfully have no idea if something went wrong.

Something on coping… must put this in my diary… Put up stickers. Geyser switch… up is on and down is off. Same with stove and whatever might be dangerous. For the life of me I could not figure out 2 days ago which way the geyser is on or off.

Ok… Zoo… check, Blog… check, game… check, jewelry… check, husband… still alive and kicking… check.

Bye, and stay safe.

Saro (Elmarie)

I’m back blogging.

Ok, I’m just going to type as it comes up. I have not been blogging all this time, because I was afraid that I cannot do it anymore. It was shaky according to my standards already, but let me not be harsh on myself… I do have early onset vascular dementia after all.

I started out getting an image, which I don’t like anymore, but decided to keep it anyway. I woke up one morning somewhere end last year and my speech was almost gone and what was left, was incomprehensible. It was dreadful. I already had aphasia after the first stroke, but not that bad.

Well I started making paper beads and then jewelry. Something I just could not believe, because I have severe hand tremors. At one stage I could not write, had to be fed etc. I so felt pathetic, which of cause is stupid. How can a person feel pathetic about something you can’t help. I just tried to email from my phone some of the photos of my jewelry to my laptop, but the fricken thing updated again and of cause I will have to figure it out again from scratch. Well to make this shorter, my hand tremors improved and my speech. How that works, is beyond me, although I read on google that they use art therapy for speech problems. And of cause, God is awesome and deserve all the credit, because He is the one putting this paper bead, jewelry making thing in me. I don’t care what doctors say, that’s what happened to me. I do not take new medication, in fact the medication I’ve been taking for my hand tremors, my pharmacist is unable to get hold of.

In the meantime, I noticed that my memory is going downhill. I always was still aware of what went wrong, now most of the time I just don’t know, which in a way is bliss. Not beating myself up that much.

My family also is making progress. There is no more…. don’t worry mommy I also forget with a whole story about the forgetting. What most people don’t realize is that normal forget is something you can be reminded and you remember again or going back in your tracks or whatever trick you do to remember something…. with us there is just a black hole… nothingness. Whatever we forgot just never existed where it concerns us Us, being people that falls under the dementia umbrella. I have a note for the 30th of March in my diary to contribute for tommy otter. Who and what the hell that is, is beyond me. It is written with my pink pen in my best handwriting. Oh well, one of those things. It kind of suck to put something in your diary to remember and when you get to it, have absolutely no idea what it is.

I can’t remember what I really wanted to say, except that I wanted to see if I can still write. Well I hope it is not to shabby. My reading is starting to suck…. long things only get read about a quarter in, then the not remember kicks in.

Now since I don’t like too long stuff let me say bye. This was day 2 of total lockdown for South Africa. Hope I will be able to organize a schedule. Jewelry, blogging, online game and ofc the chickens.

Toodles

Saro (Elmarie)

Stigma

  • How should I begin to tell you about what bodders me the most. The thing that makes people lonely and causes them to hide away. Causes people to misunderstand us most. Fear comes from not being educated about something.
  • I have copied and pasted as is from the next site: to give them the credit http://insighttelepsychiatry.com/stigma/

Stigma

“The negative stigma attached to issues of behavioral and mental health is the product of a long history of misunderstanding, exaggeration, and ignorance. In today’s world, many people believe that behavioral health issues, even extremely common ones like anxiety or depression, are somehow a sign of weakness.

Sensationalizing in news stories, tabloid magazines, and television shows make a point of referencing a history of mental illness in the background of a person who has committed a crime or violence. Other sources of stigma include societal factors, like the idea that asking for help is a sign of weakness, and that people who can “take care of themselves” are somehow stronger.

However, strength is not merely the measure of how much we can endure, but how we choose to deal with the problems we face.

Suffering from a behavioral health problem affects quality of life. Neurological and physiological sciences have proven that issues of behavioral health: addiction, depression, bipolar, phobias, PTSD, and more, are matters of biochemistry. With therapeutic techniques, well-managed medication, and behavioral modifications, behavioral health issues are treatable, and affected persons can live normal lives.

How can you help fight stigma?

  • Respond positively to media you encounter that works to de-stigmatize behavioral health care.
  • Respond to false statements about behavioral health conditions with truth.
  • Share your own experiences with behavioral health conditions—both your own and those of people in your life. The more exposure the general public has to a positive understanding of behavioral health, the greater their compassion will be.

If you or someone you know experiences mental health stigmas in a way that keeps them from getting care, telehealth may be a good solution. Some telehealth providers specialize in offering psychiatry and behavioral health care through online video calls. Learn more about InSight’s online psychiatry and therapy option, here.

If you are in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a free, 24-hour hotline at 1.800.273.8255. If your issue is an emergency, call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.

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I started this blog some time ago and noow decided to post it. Please visit the blog I refed to.

Stigma has so many faces.

I will try to blog again soon.

Love and kindness

Saro (Elmarie)

Standing still 2

Some time ago I wrote about, just standing still by someone to comfort. This is counting for my 5 things that made me happy.

I think I mentioned a million and one times that my friends sort of disappeared. They are busy, specially over season as this is a farming community. Some of it is I suppose my fault as well, I did not go to visit them and on the other hand, I cannot drive anymore and to get my family to drive me around to visit is another matter all together, but I suppose they are busy too and my husband is complaining about using too much petrol, unless he go and visit his friend, which is an uncle, which I suppose does not count and now I suppose I should shut up about that.

This morning me and hubby went to church for a change and was early as usual. The next moment a friend of mine, her name is also Elmarie, came to me. I was still standing in the passage, She asked me how I was and I started crying of cause as you might have guessed. She told me she missed me and loves me and then gave me a hug. She is much younger than me, but she serves the Lord with all her heart. I asked how her kids was, they were in my Aftercare center and then told her about the dementia. She gave me another hug and told me that all I ever have to remember is how much God loves me. Sometimes we forget.

When I got home I found a text message on my phone with the next bible passage:

Psalm 63 The Passion Translation (TPT)

Thirsting for God

63 For the Pure and Shining One
King David’s song when he was exiled in the Judean wilderness
1 O God of my life, I’m lovesick for you in this weary wilderness.
I thirst with the deepest longings to love you more,
with cravings in my heart that can’t be described.
Such yearning grips my soul for you, my God!
2 I’m energized every time I enter
your heavenly sanctuary to seek more of your power
and drink in more of your glory.
3 For your tender mercies mean more to me than life itself.
How I love and praise you, God!
4 Daily I will worship you passionately and with all my heart.
My arms will wave to you like banners of praise.
5 I overflow with praise when I come before you,
for the anointing of your presence satisfies me like nothing else.
You are such a rich banquet of pleasure to my soul.
6–7 I lie awake each night thinking of you
and reflecting on how you help me like a father.
I sing through the night under your splendor-shadow,
offering up to you my songs of delight and joy!
8 With passion I pursue and cling to you.
Because I feel your grip on my life,
I keep my soul close to your heart.
9 Those who plot to destroy me shall descend into the darkness of hell.
10 They will be consumed by their own evil
and become nothing more than dust under our feet.[a]
11 These liars will be silenced forever!
But with the anointing of a king I will dance and rejoice
along with all his lovers who trust in him.

And this song: https://youtu.be/IUhJNA0XGqc from Chris Tomlin.

Only Jesus knows our hearts and can do things like this. Send and angel to comfort you. I so love God and you should too. Another song: https://youtu.be/SAhlIHCZw5A In Moments like these a love song to the Lord of Lords.

Much love and kindness

Saro (Elmarie)