An Echo In My Blood

4th May 2012 Friday

Up till now I haven’t met anyone else with semantic dementia, or their partner. Everything I’ve heard or read about the frontotemporal dementias hasn’t really fitted my husband’s symptoms - except the loss of meanings of words. Which isn’t nearly as bad as some of the things he could have. So I’ve felt in a sort of protected bubble.

Today I met a lovely woman whose husband has had semantic dementia for much longer than mine. They are 8 years further down the line of this ‘living bereavement’ as she calls it. Her husband now needs much more care -  which he has at home. Some of his symptoms are similar to my husband’s. Only worse. Or better depending how you look at it.

We talk in a noisy cafe with lunch aromas wafting up the stairs. She is kind and helpful, offers her experience and support.  And for the first time I hear an echo in my blood, a faint pulse calling from a future that I’ve told myself won’t happen. Now I see that it could.

And it makes my heart go out to my husband - who I think is struggling much more than I realise - the effort it must take to try and understand everything, all the time. Which may explain why he gets so tired. So this afternoon, when we come back from our walk, he says,

I’m just going to have a little lie down. You can come and join me if you want. 

And I say I will. It suddenly seems more important than doing the hoovering.