Its nearly one o clock in the afternoon and my wife is still in bed.  Once again we have had breakfast together in the marital bed.  This has been a pragmatic decision on my behalf to ensure that she eats and takes her blood pressure medication.  She has been trying to find clothes that she is comfortable in: a regular morning chore.  She has just told me:’I’m getting too old for this’.  I think she means that life with dementia is hard and that it is just too much for her: it is for anyone who still has periods of lucidity.

There is no doubt that few of her clothes fit at the moment.  Following stroke the weight fell of her already slim body.  She has regained a little with my ‘force feeding’.  After all who could turn down extra portions of my daily ‘Signature Dishes’ : lasagne is in the oven now and the sweet will be to die for.  My task now is to find ways of making life worth living so my beautiful wife has moments of pleasure within her nightmare.

We are all too old for dementia and when it strikes none of us will welcome it as the ‘Elephant in Our Room’.