Not giving up kinda girl

Hi there. I must find a way that I can blog every day. Today was a funny day, I guess a dementia day. My cellphone updated, now I have to figure it out again. So did the apps. My emails changed and I simply could not send an email. Trying to send one to my friend Minna from Suddenly Mad, but I guess I will figure it out again. I joined a Zoom chat with Dementia Mentors and were pressing buttons hihihihi. Well somehow I have to figure out how it works lol. It sort of makes me sad, because I used to be so good with computers and cellphones and stuff. Even finding my way around WordPress seems challenging some days.

Some days I wonder if I suddenly became stupid or something. Someone told me it is the blog fairy that is moving stuff around. Sounds good to me.

Sitting here typing about what I find challenging lately and that it makes me sad, just got me thinking… I AM NOT THE GIVING UP KIND OF GIRL. No I am not and never will be. There are so many things in life that I went through and I am still here, 56 years old.

You can make it, I did. Maybe you or I don’t see it now, but I promise you will make it, whatever it is you and I are going through.

I have a coping mechanism or two. First of all, if I did not have God in my life, I would not have made it. And for goodness sake having dementia and strokes is not God punishing you or that you have so many sins etc. The Love and Grace of God is new every morning.

The other one is making jokes. It’s not bad talking between people with dementia and making jokes only people with dementia would probably understand. Peter one of the guys on Dementia Mentors said that we should live our lives to the fullest. I am doing just that. Some days are foggy yes, but other days are good.

The other day my husband send me into the store to go buy candy (I haven’t been in a store in a long time). I fetched what I wanted, the cashier recognized me and chatted me up. So I took my candy and left… She came running after me Auntie, you forgot to pay. So I went back, payed and told her, next time she sees me, she must ask me if I want to pay cash or with a card. So that was sorted.

Another funny thing I find myself doing is sensory. My hands and fingers. If I cannot remember if I took a specific pill with like a aluminium foil covering on, I just try to remember if I felt the taking out of the pill and the feeling of the sharp edges. If I do, I know I took it. I don’t know what other examples to give. But I try to remember the sound or feel of something and it helps me remember. It is very strange, but it sort of help coping. Sometimes it does not work, but most of the time it does.

I must go and sleep now. Have a lovely day or sleep well.

Please tell me if you have any things you use to cope with the dementia stuff. I would love to know. I need to learn. I will share from my side too.

I will never give up or lie down. I will go out kicking ass… that I promise!

Much love and kindness

Saro

I’m so happy!!!

I’m so so so happy. Let me start with mothers day. I got a card saying … The best mom in the world. An Oreo Bubbly chocolate, and my favorite body lotion. Both my kids were here and we had our favorite meal. Russian sausage and chips, very unhealthy and smothered with mustard sauce and ketchup. Well that does not happen every day, so that was awesome.

The NPO VALK (Prevention of alcohol and substance abuse) of which I was chairperson for a few years, held an annual camp for the farm workers at Eerste Rivier by the sea. That was always the highlight of my year. We took these people and served them. We took them a bit out of there circumstances and spoiled them for a weekend. They got a chance to talk about their sorrows etc. We always had a concert as well. They enjoyed it so much. They got a chance to enact the things that made them unhappy and get a solution for it. We empowered them…

What I really want to tell is about two years ago a lady gave her testimony how she were ridiculed and mistreated because she was barren. My heart broke for this woman. I just held her in my arms for a whole night, dried her/our tears and prayed with her. My best friend that is a social worker came to me this morning. She told me she met this lady this past week at some women’s gathering AND SHE HAD A THREE MONTH OLD BABY IN HER ARMS! And she just said she would love to know what I would say when I see her baby. I am so going to find her. God is good, He exist, miracles exists.

The other thing that got me so excited is, I am invited to talk to a group of women on the 25th May about dementia. I so thought my life was over, and here I start crying again. But my life is not over. I used to do public speaking, I think the biggest crowd was about 300 women, not counting the men and children. Praise God, for He is good.

One other thingy, last night lying in bed my husband mentioned he would like to go to Oudtshoorn to see something again, can’t remember what. I said to him, why don’t we go and the answer as usual was: We have no money. And true as Bob, in the announcements in church this morning, there is an outing on the 22nd of May to Oudtshoorn. I do have enough money, but my friend that is organizing it said that I can use it for pocket money 😉 I am so fricken happy!!!!!!!

Thank you for reading my blog and sharing in my heartbreaks and happiness. I hope that this will help someone else.

Love

Saro

How everything started going wrong.

In 2017 I started noticing something is wrong with me. When my best friend asked how I am, my answer always was. Not good, but I could not say why.

Before I go any further, my cognitive impairment is already considerable and the two strokes does not help much. I googled cognitive impairment (I used to be a neuro therapist, which says a lot of the dementia) and it means my thinking process is not good any more. People think dementia is only forgetting, but that is only one of the symptoms. So if my spelling or grammar is not so good, please forgive and know that I’m really trying to do something here. I might repeat myself or a sentence might not make sense. My speech are impaired due to the strokes. The speech therapist said it is not all about the words, it is about bringing over the idea of what I want to say.

One day I woke up and I could not think or really speak, so my family took me to our doctor. My blood pressure was sky high, so he gave me some medication for it. My hands always shook, but all of a sudden it started shaking so much that I could not eat on my own or write at all. My walking was off. So once again my family took me to the doctor, with a note with what is wrong, because I could not say what is wrong. He immediately got me admitted at the hospital. A CT scan were done and it showed the two strokes and the multiple infarctions across my brain. So there are many parts over my brain that died off. The two big strokes were new, but the rest were already old.

The neurologist said I do not have parkinsons (the hands shaking) or anything else apart from the two big strokes and the infarctions, which caused my brain to shrink.

Finally I found the most wonderful psychiatrist. I made sure she had all the medical reports and CT scan results. So October 2018 I was diagnosed with vascular dementia.

I decided to be honest in my blogs and I’m crying so much now that I will have to continue later.

Thank you for reading my blog.

Love

Saro