They say things happen for a reason...

I wish I knew what the reason was for my grandpa having this awful invasion of Alzheimers and the reason as to why my mom as well as myself has to go through it after everything else. Unfortunately no one out there can give us the answer.

This alien that has invaded my grandpa, makes him do the weirdest things that a person could and you always ask yourself, What in their brain makes them do such things. In a post or two's time I will be closing up the before stories of what he has been through and done especially in the last few months. Then from will be the diary of each day that he lives, doing these weird and wonderful things. Although, not so wonderful.

I have a green Ford Escort that used to be my moms, now my grandpa was a man of WHITE cars and that's pretty much how it should be. If you walked into his garage at the farm, whether it be my grans, uncles, works or his personal car they were ALL white. I'm not quite sure why though!

Well, my green car is now HIS car! even though he no longer has a license and of course could not drive. I have endless arguments about who's car it is and boy does he come up with millions of reasons as to why or how it is his. I know we shouldn't argue with them but the alien seems to make them a bit meaner and aggressive. I try every now and then not to argue and just agree that it's his car but then he goes on and on about how no one else must drive it.

Maria, our help tells us the things he says when we aren't around and surprisingly he speaks a lot to her, oh and her name to him is Martha because that is the name of the lady who used to work for him on his farm. No matter how much we told him it's Maria, he just refused to leave it that way.

The one day I came home after doing some deliveries and he came out the front to come and speak to me. He spies out the bathroom window (as it faces the road) to see who is coming or going or what we are even doing in the garden instead of coming out. He came to tell me how it's his car and he hopes I have left petrol in for him so he can get home. I just said yes there is LOL but he was quite assertive and harsh on the looks.

The spying thing... Why? We don't know!

If we catch him and ask him why or what he is spying on he goes quiet then gives you some really random excuse like he's looking at a car that was driving past - There were none at the time- whilst he is leaning, if not climbing into the bath to look out the window. The one window used to open to face our kitchen window and we always got that weary feeling that someone was watching us and true as bob he was "secretly" doing that. We finally found a way after writing signs and sticking them to his window saying "do not open this window" and blocked it with a plant and some things that were lying around. Thank goodness over time he got over opening that window. Although he still tries out the other window.

Trust me.... It is not easy!

Till next time Xx

Being Grateful...

Sometimes this is difficult when you don't see how much support and help you have around you. Sometimes you have support but it's not the support you need or you don't realize how much weight you have lifted off your shoulders by having someone to be there and handle the victim.

I would say we slowly realize how lucky and grateful we are to have our help Maria who helps us with my grandpa. My grandpa is very stubborn and difficult and to have that much patience... well you must be an angel! LOL. Maria does my grandpa's breakfast and lunch as well as a snack or two and then makes sure he has enough coffee and sugar and milk so that he can make his coffee. She also helps make sure he is doing alright and is there when my mom and I need to go out. It truly does help a lot and it also helps that seeing as we work from home Maria keeps him from coming to bother us with silly things that while working we cannot focus on.

We try not being horrible to my grandpa but sometimes he can be so rude and then somehow you must stay incredibly kind, it is not an easy thing and with at least having her help us we have less of it to deal with and she has so much more patience than my mom and I put together.

Although what I have noticed is that It is so easy to be kind and patient with someone you are NOT related too, live with or even know. We knew someone who suffered from dementia and it was so easy to just listen to the same stories and answer the same question and we just had enough patiences for it. But, people who live with can't handle it with the person who is has been invaded.

This is just a short quick post as its mainly dedicated to our help, Maria.

Thank you for helping us and being there to help with my grandpa.

This is getting exciting for me....

No! Not the alien taking over my grandpa but that I am getting closer to writing this blog in a diary sort of way! There are so many things that have happen in this last year as it is but we are almost there! Just a few more things on his sad journey. It is so scary, yet fascinating how things change in such short spaces of time!

But First!....

My grandpa used to make sure that his farm was clean and well groomed. He was very particular on how things needed to look and when trees were planted on his farm... they all ran in straight lines! Never were they scattered around in different spots or spread out too far. I used to wish he would build a swimming pool in the middle of the housing area because even the houses and garage were built in a circle so there was this enormous patch of grass there and it used to get really hot out there! As much I asked as the cute little granddaughter for him to build a swimming pool, I just never won. My grandpa felt it was too much to handle.

Now we -luckily for me- have a swimming pool and a pretty little garden for my grandpa to roam in and for quite a few times a day would wander outside and during the autumn months with all the beautiful oak trees losing their leaves and completely smothering our poor garden my grandpa would grab a rake and sweep those leaves away! The swimming pool, well, too my grandpa the "dam" as he called it would have leaves too of course and he would get the broom and sweep the dust off the bottom and swipe the leaves away with the net. We aren't quite sure why my grandpa thought the pool was a dam as our pool was blue and well... his dam was brown!

As usual with all the other things he "used" to do, this also fell to the way side and now no longer thinks of cleaning the pool as he believes now he is too old? Even though he would tell everyone how fit and healthy he is but when it came to cleaning the garden and pool .... No, i'm too old for this thing.

until next time.

Can you believe it? I am managing to post the next day! LOL it's a shocker I tell you!

Let's get started!

My grandpa has never once been on a aeroplane! Not even done to Durban or Cape town so of course never travelled over seas. I know there are many people out there who don't get the opportunity or just plain and simple the time. I myself have been lucky enough to get the opportunity to fly to Durban and Cape Town  but in total Three times! Although my grandpa had many opportunities and back then had more than enough cash to take a small trip but just...never did.

What I found interesting but a little sad is that when my grandpa would stand outside looking at the trees and birds flying around in the beautiful blue sky and the air traffic is always going with aeroplanes flying this way and that way. My Grandpa would look for them and make sure he spots them. If my mom, Maria or myself happened to be walking past or he spotted us somewhere whether it be in the garden or inside the house he would tell us with such excitement how many enormous engines that specific plane had and how it moves! If it was a small plane he would come and tell us as well. He was so fascinated with these giant machines and we were hoping one day if we could get cheap enough tickets we would go with him and fly him to anywhere, Durban, Cape Town wherever. Probably Cape Town because that's where my mom wants to go to again one day!

Sadly with this cruel alien and of course time and money we never got the opportunity to take him and with that cruel alien being in his body and deteriorating his mind we could no longer possibly take on an aeroplane as it can scare them and confuse them more. Luckily he didn't know of our plans and was therefore not disappointed although even if we did tell him.... he wouldn't have remembered.

This fascination slowly disappeared too even though he would listen for the sound he never found the plane in time anymore and if he did we never heard of the engines.

It's things like this where you can slowly tell they are being taken over more and more.

If he went out for lunch like I mentioned before, we would ask how it was and asked him what he ate and he couldn't remember and he couldn't tell us. You can see the frustration that goes through there minds and the confused look in their eyes. They know they have forgotten something and it freaks them out even though they cant remember that after a while....

To be continued...

Time...? What is that? I don't seem to have it any more and it is so frustrating when all you want to do is write. Although that four letter word is just never around long enough.

So back to where we were, I last spoke about how my grandpa visited his brother. There were a few of those occasions. He would go off to visit his other brother Glen who owns a get away place in Brits even just for a day or even just down the road for lunch at a restaurant with an old friend. He would always claim he wasn't hungry or just wanted to get home as soon as he could. We often felt guilty for not taking him out enough but he got to the point where staying at home was perfect and he didn't appreciate the food when we ate out and to us it was a treat.

The sad thing is, even if he maybe liked going out, it was like walking with a zombie, he never says a word or tries to have conversation but we noticed it's mainly with women and with men he would chatter away, repeating himself even if the person wasn't listening. I think with men being the way they were back in the day thinking they were better than woman might be the reason. Little did we know how even that could get worse... BUT not just yet. It was just uncomfortable walking or sitting with someone who just wouldn't say a word.

I must say when you hear the same story over and over again you just want to block your ears and say shut up! but you can't! You have to just suck it up and take it because my grandpa wouldn't understand why you are acting that way and would most probably ignore and carry on anyway.

The one story we heard about often and possibly still do every now and then is about some bloke in Kroonstad who had said that things weren't like they used to be and that "savages" would just walk into the shops and be rude and take stuff and apparently this person phoned very often.

Unfortunately my grandpa is from the old times with growing up in farm communities and although he always respected black people in his own way and grew up believing that black people had ther place and white people had there's. He accepted the change when Nelson Mandela came into power and we became a democratic country but now that he has Alzheimers he has gone so far backwards and we have a few moments where the "k" word slips out and we just cringe! then say, oupa that word doesn't get used any more and we all laugh it off and he chuckles too.

There was also a gentlemen who used to phone often - Remember he no longer has a phone - from Australia, His name was or is Eddie Whitehead! now what this man has to say is about how it is so nice living in Australia you can leave money on the roof over night and it will still be there the next day... my grandpa says he asked if he would ever come back and Eddie would say never... I think my grandpa spoke to this man about 10 years ago? It is quite interesting how they remember speaking to specific people. Sometimes the story changes a little bit, but otherwise that's all we got from him when it came to conversation.

see you all tomorrow my 1000s of fans He he he!

Hi There,

Well, As I said previously, I will be continuing on from the last post and about the some of the things he has said or done in the last four years.

This was all starting from about 2007 since he moved in. 

We had kitted out his little cottage nicely and made sure he was comfortable there. We left some old books that he had with him at the farm, added in one or two items from the snooker room / bar and and some nick nacky things. he used to have this gimmicky item for the bar which was made out of glass. It was a bar man on top of a barrel and my grandpa loved this item for some reason. He would always twist it, put it down and listen to the tune it played. It lasted for many many years until he moved here and somehow managed to break it. 

My grandpa had an old school cellphone that worked perfectly fine as we all know many of the older generation could not stand the new technology! He sort of knew how to work it but to try and get him to keep the phone on.... impossible! Otherwise he would make phone calls to his brother in Parys and his other late brother in East London. When we got the phone bill, Yikes. he would phone atleast six times but doesn't always mean the call went through luckily. It could be quite stressful because on weekends we had free minutes so everyone took advantage of that and used the sim card but sometimes someone forgot to put it back then it would cause a fight because no-one remembers who had it last.  My mom and I got into a huge fight because she assumed I had lost it but I went to go search my grandpa's cottage and I found it in his cupboard. We had no idea that he would be able to take out that tiny little thing but somehow he managed. 

After a while he finally lost it so it was okay because he didn't notice that the phone was no longer working. 

We still leave the phone there because he says he still phones everyone! even though it's not charged.

He went away to his brother Robin In Parys and he was supposed to stay for a week and only ended up staying I think the weekend. My grandpa would phone us every five minutes asking when we were going to fetch him and he just wasn't coping staying there on his own. We knew by now he was getting a little worse... Although he would have a few good days in between the bad.

To be continued...

The Change.

Remember I had spoken about my grandpa walking to the shop? Everyday! At about 13:00pm-14:00pm? Yeah, well, That slowly changed. We noticed he wasn't getting ready to go to the shop and normally if he didn't feel like going we would just get the newspapers for him. Although when it got to this point we never knew if he had gone or not and when we would ask why aren't you going to the shop today he either said he will go now or his foot was sore or "I'll go tomorrow". This was maybe every 2-3 days but it started becoming everyday and we put down to his foot being sore. Trying to see what was wrong with it wasa different story but by the time we got to look at his foot it was apparently fine... 

One day, The shop was no longer in his routine. Just stopped.

In a way we were grateful that he stopped on his own so that we didn't have to stop him but it was a little sad that he didn't get out as much any more!Plus! Because we work from home the main gate is sometimes still locked and the problem was he never noticed that and would try open the gate continuously and almost burn out the motor. Obviously we would rush out to prevent that from happening. I forgot to mention that obviously having a car, why didn't he drive? Well, two days after my grandpa had moved in, they somehow stole his little white Ford Lazer out the gate and barely noticed. In a way that was a blessing in disguise too! Can you imagine if he was still driving? Mmmmm. 

Anyway, he was doing okay around the house, Until he decided that he needed money for what reason, we don't know and that he banks with \Standard Bank... He banked with Standard Bank about 40 years ago and for some reason still thinks he does. He would tell us he's going to walk up to the bank and we would say there is no bank anywhere near here but of course he knew better. Although he never went or found the bank and forgot he had even asked about it. It got a bit frustrating because he asked maybe 3 times a day about the bank up the road that didn't exist and you feel like you are going insane repeating yourself telling him there isn't. Yes, people say you must just go with it but you cannot hold patience for that long especially when you are trying to work.

This was the change of life we were about to dive into.

from here on it will be about how he has been in just the last four years but in short. This will soon become a diary. You cant imagine the type of things they see or think about.

Till next time,

Cait xx

Hello!

I'm going to carry on now from where I left off!

Right, So I was talking about the man up the road, Derek who looked after his sister who also suffered from The alien invasion. He was truly special as he pretty much gave up his life to look after family members who ended up ill. His Sister was his last.

My grandpa once went up to the shop and didn't come back for a while... again. So there we were worried again and I took a drive up the road to the shop and no sign. I decided to stop off at Derek and true as bob there he was! Thank goodness! Thank goodness for Derek for befriending my grandpa and making him some coffee. It happened a few times and we were so glad and appreciative that someone was willing to pay attention to my grandpa. Sadly, at the end of the day my grandpa never remembers him anyway. If I wanted to go for a walk I would take my grandpa off and take him to Derek for some coffee so that he also got out.

Derek's sister passed on and then he had no one to look after and therefore didn't know what to do with himself. It was all he was used too. I don't think he was coping as he suddenly got very ill and at some point fell and broke his hip and then had a Tumor that was close to impossible to remove. He then sadly passed on too. Bless his special soul.

Back to my grandfather, It was sometimes quite funny watching him come in through the gate as he just had to buy a Citizen and The Star newspaper even though, they pretty much had the same news, and sometimes he would have bought biscuits or a chocolate and hide it (badly) in between the papers. It was his money he was spending so who knows why he felt the need to hide it.

The worry now was, is with people sometimes being dishonest you never knew if they could be ripping my grandpa off if they knew he had a bad memory and for all we know my grandpa lost sight in what was R10.00 and what was R20.00. How do we control this though without taking away his independence whilst he still had some. It is really difficult as sometimes you see that he is in a bad zone and the next day, perfectly fine.

My issue with this alien taking over... My grandpa is absolutely healthy.... Except, he's no longer healthy with his mind! and THIS! is what is devastating about Alzheimers.

Until next time :)

Cait xx

Hi There :)

I will be carrying on from the post before the lovely comment. We left off where I was talking about how my grandpa was maintaining with Alzheimers and him living in the house with us until we moved him into his little cottage.

We work from home you see, so having an extra person to focus on in the house was not easy and very distracting. My grandpa obviously no longer worked and didn't seem to think we needed to either. As I have said he was still doing okay at this point and I walked him up to the shop one day which atleast a straight walk up and back down again. He picked up this walk as a routine and at around 12:00pm-14:00pm off he would go to get his daily newspaper, maybe even a chocolate. He couldn't sadly take his little dog for the walk as for my grandpa being on a farm the dogs never needed leashes so trying to get him to put one on Rusty was another story and even if Rusty wouldn't run into the road... possibly... There was just too much risk.

This is Rusty, not the greatest picture :P

This is My grandpa about 2 years ago!

We one day got a phone call from some random person, shame, I sadly don't know the name but it was from someone who my grandpa had found after being at the shop. Apparently, My grandpa walked out the shop and went in the wrong direction ( one of our biggest fears). Luckily the person he stopped was innocent enough to help him and took back in a half right direction till he came across someone he felt could help my grandpa. This person told us where he was and thank goodness he was okay. Off we went to fetch him and bring him home. We never really had a problem again. 

We met someone one day who lived a few houses up and how coincidental, he was looking after his sister who suffered severely from Alzheimers. It was nice being able to chat to some who was in the same predicament and I am sure comforting for him to know he wasn't alone. His name was Derek and basically dedicated his whole life to take care of his sister... He was an amazing strong man.

I'm going to leave this post right here so I can carry on tomorrow and so that it's not too long :)

Please follow to see how things went on!

Enjoy x 

This is just a comment I received from someone today, I am so glad to know that, even if its one person I am inspiring or even just letting them know they aren't alone. It warms my heart! I am inspired to carry on with this knowing its helping someone else.

Comment: Cailyn Dawtrey" hi Cait... i just read your blog ! very inspiring...brought tears to my eyes.

my grandfather passed away exactly two weeks ago today, from cancer and im struggling more than i ever thought i would.
Although it is not the same nor am i comparing myself, it is similar in the fact that it was a deterioration and something slow we all had to watch happen... your blog has inspired me...

it gives ppl knowledge and shows ppl (and has definitely shown me) that we arent alone in our suffering...

maybe ill even start my own blog about my experience one day...
you are very strong to be able to talk about it... i know that as of now, i do not have the strength but i hope that one day i will... just thought i should tell you, pls dont stop! ill definitely keep reading :)"

keep posted for the next post :)

REALITY.

This post, well this is when our lives, our being my mom and I, changed drastically. By this point we had sold up the farm as well as our old house so that we could find a new home that had a cottage or a flatlet for my grandpa to stay in. This wasn't easy as we had to find something in our tight budget price range and also somewhere that's not too far from school as I was in grade 9 when we moved. 

We managed to find a house that had a double garage that we could transform into a cottage as we had a bit of money from the farm and house. My grandpa stayed in the house with us for a while and it wasn't to bad having someone else since my mom an I were the only two for a long time. we had taken my grandpa to a place called, "The Memory centre" in Rosebank to have him tested for Alzheimers. Yes, He did have it yet he was brilliant at the tests they did that we couldn't even get right like minusing 8 from a 100 continuisly . This was the early stages though. They had put him on trials as well as the medication aricept for about two years. There were a few side effects on the trials which then ended. We had kept my grandpa on Aricept for about two years although we were told it would maintain them but at some point that would hit a sudden drop. My mom had said once that it was financially hard on us as medical aids consider it a "Family Problem" and don't pay a cent. We also wondered if it was fair prolonging something that my grandpa hated so much and denied that he had even had Alzheimers Disease as he would've preferred to have passed on. So, we stopped the pills. 

It didn't even make a difference. 

My grandpa stayed maintained on the same level for quite a while and with that being the case we got the garage converted into to a cottage asap so he could have his own space... and we could have our space back. Its been going well as he can make his own coffee still although it seems as though by this point he could no longer put a sandwich together as if it was too difficult to put one slice with another. That was okay though, we had our help. Maria, Our house worker would make him breakfast, lunch and we would call him over for dinner. My grandpa rarely said a word so we never knew what was going through his head. 

Luckily, through all of this... Rusty, my grandpa's dog, his only joy never leaves his side. 

A Great companion.

Enough for now :) Next post will carry on from here.

Enjoy x

The Invasion

Finally! oh! how I have missed blogging! It has been so long and I feel terrible for not continuing the story about "The invasion of Alzheimers!" BUT.... I am back and I will be blogging regularly. I will be carrying on from where I left off. Enjoy.

I apologize for such a delay and I will make it my mission to get a post done more than once a week. :)

Right, lets get going

The invasion, This is when we came to realize my loving grandfather was being invaded by an alien. In the last post I described how I started hearing the same story at least three times. Well, the memory loss moved onto directions.

For a long while my gran and grandpa used to go to Monte Casino every second Sunday, until of course, my Gran sadly past away. My grandpa would then go alone... Every now and then we would get a call from him saying he doesn't know what road he had taken and we had to try and figure out where on earth he was. After a while, it was every now and then to every time he went. We then started meeting him half way and even that was becoming difficult.

It started to become a worry, knowing that every time he left his farm he could end up somewhere that isn't safe or just lost where he wouldn't be able to give us an idea as to where he could be. Monte Casino slowly became an every two week visit to once a month to maybe twice in six months. It was almost as if he had forgotten he ever went. The trips to the Krugersdorp shops that he would also go to every Sunday came to an end and instead, would shoot down the road to a stop shop. Unfortunately it was becoming quite costly going down the road as some of us know how those prices are higher than most places, so this is when we had to start taking over the shopping and meet him halfway to give it to him. He lived about half an hour to forty-five minutes away

Yet, his routines remained the same on the farm with walking around the entire farm, looking at trees, to walking in the geeses camp to having the afternoon drink in the snookerroom. 

By this point we knew that it was time to make a decision. As hard as it was, it needed to be done.

From here on out, my grandpas life as well as ours changed drastically and my Mom and I somehow had to learn how to take care of someone who wasn't the same person for much longer.

He was 70 years old at this point and we decided to throw a 70th birthday for him as well as a farewell. The farewell being to the beautiful farm he had once built up and to the special people who had been there and the memories that we will carry with us for life.
 It was a farewell for myself to say goodbye to a place a grew up going too and having fun with my Favourite granny and my uncle and the walks with my Oupa.

Life was about to change.

The next blog will be about how the alien invaded even more over the years.

It Starts...

So, I sadly blogged exactly a week ago... It's one of those weeks when you start typing and something will pop up in your mind to remind you of something you haven't done yet. You put a hold on the typing and off you go to do it. That one thing leads to another and another and just never stops. 

So now, I am sitting here again, attempting to finish this post. I will do it!

I previously said that this post will be about what we think triggered the aliens invasion. 

About Ten years ago a tragedy happened in our family. It was the year 2002 and everything seemed to be okay from my eyes and I was about 10 years old. Then in a day everything seemed to go wrong, starting from the 8th of April 2002. My grandpa being the man he was never really worried about sickness or anything that could interfere with his work. He had phoned my mom that day and told her to phone her mom. After my mom had done so, my gran had gone into hospital and it all seemed okay.

Four hours later, she was dead. Her death was caused by a blood clot. As simple as that.  It of course affected my grandpa, yet he still carried on with life until the next tragedy happened only three months later. It was a normal day at work for my grandpa at his tractor business, walking around, making sure everything was running smoothly. His son, aged 39 (my uncle) Worked there too. My uncle was the Golden boy to my grandpa, he built the farm and opened his business hoping that one day his son would take over from him. That dream for my grandpa came to a screeching holt on the the 10th of July 2002. 

A Freak accident had occurred... a tractor had gone over my uncle and  my grandpa had sadly witnessed it all. My uncle was in hospital for about three weeks and within those  three weeks was in an induced coma. His body couldn't take it any more and was breathing via machines. They then told us it was time to say goodbye on the 1st of August 2002. At this point my grandpa now had to turn the machines off that kept his son breathing. It destroyed him.

After this tragic year, on a farm where once his wife and son lived, my grandpa lived alone with his dogs. He slowly started changing there and at work. I noticed it sometimes when I would visit him on weekends. Once walking around the farm talking about different things, became walking around the farm hearing the same story at least 3 times....The Alien had started to invade.

To be continued....

In the next post I will describe how the symptoms of the invasion started.

The First Time.

Here we go... Bare with me! This is the first time I am blogging and I'm actually pretty excited about it. I am a 19 Year old girl living in a humble suburb in South Africa. It's just my Mom, my grandpa, my doggies and I.

 I've decided to start writing a blog to share what it feels like, from my side to have a grandfather that has been invaded by an alien called Alzheimers. I have learnt many things about this cruel alien force and yet there is still  so much more to learn, ( I've heard that way back when, there was a movie called "Invasion of the body snatchers.)  This title to me sums up what the  Alzheimer's Disease is.

My Grandfather is 75 years of age. As a young girl I grew up visiting him and my late gran on a farm in the cradle of Human Kind that he had built up from scratch. It was his dream to retire there and live out the rest of his days in peace and harmony as he saw it. He had opened A Tractor business that he ran for 40 odd years, as well as an  old school Mercedes Benz that he was proud of. Remembering driving down to the shop and how to him, he could make the car drive by itself! Now that I know a bit more about cars, I now know it was cruise control.  I watched him walk around his farm with his Magnum Ice Cream and his Best Friend, Rusty the Jack Russel and a few others at the same time on Saturday afternoon and After the Sunday morning trip to the shops. He was truly proud of what he had built up and would tell me all about his peach and nectarine trees. He had planted these pine trees which too me, were enormous Christmas trees all around his farm to show exactly where his land had ended. It was at least an hours walk around and for me at the age of 8-10 it was a million hours!

He was a very proud man and you could see it with the way he walked, the way he talked, and the way people spoke to him. The amount of years he was there in Honeydew, he was known far and wide for his knowledge on Tractor history, which was self taught. Although, with him being quite arrogant with pride, it was quite hard to get close to him. 

This was before the alien took hold of my grandpa.

The next entry will be about what we would consider possible triggers to the invasion...