On Five on Friday for 4th of May

[danieldwilliam]

1) MLW was away this week visiting her mother. This always makes me sad as her mother is not at all well, or even really there and MLW has a long journey and an unrewarding visit with the shell of her mother and comes back a little angry and sad. I do not intend to live with the advanced stages of dementia.

2) The Captain and I have a nice time whilst she was away. We played computer games one evening. He was a little sad that it was bed time so I told him he could wake me up early the next morning and we'd do his homework and play on the Play Station. Sure enough he woke me up at 5.45 but only to help with his homework. I was sent back to bed at 6.10. We also had a lovely evening playing rugby on the Meadows for an hour and then playing Hive. Some good chats too.

3) One of my favourate people has had a baby and seems delighted by it, which is delightful. I am delighted. He is delighted. We are delighted.

4) Other babies in my life appear not to have understood that food is for eating and keep smearing it all over themselves but not actually taking any nutriment from it. This is causing my sister some concern but is providing a series of amusing videos.

5) This weekend features a rugby tournament in East Lothian. 8 teams in two groups. 3 games a piece. For the first time in the Captain's playing careers and my coaching career there is a final where the winners of the two groups playing each other in the "Final". Medals for everyone but the Captain is keen to win. Fortunately we have a pretty handy side going. We'll see how we get on.

Comments

[mountainkiss]

How will you stop yourself living with advanced stages of dementia? I mean, I don’t necessarily disagree with you though it’s complicated, but I don’t know how straightforward it is to do.

The baby is the best of best news.

[danieldwilliam]

If necessary by taking action whilst I am still in the early stages of dementia.

[andrewducker]

I feel a bit conflicted by this. I used to feel exactly like this - planning to go skydiving without a parachute, or similar.

However, having spent some time talking to experts on Alzheimer's (and similar), it seems that most people who have it can be perfectly happy. It's mostly distressing for their relatives (who have unrealistic expectations) - the people themselves can be content, so long as nobody is agitating them, and they are in a familliar situation with things around them to remind them of happy times.

So now I don't know. I mostly hope that it will be cured by the time I get old enough for it to be a possibility (and it doesn't run in my family in any case).

[danieldwilliam]

I'm sure that people can be happy. My mother in law is kept content with a ready supply of biscuits and the opportunity to swear in German.

However, I do not think I will take any value from the process of losing my faculties. The me who exists now (and is who is charged with making decisions about the life of the future me) very much values intellectual pursuits and gains self-worth from mental acuity. I do not wish to be someone who has lost my faculties. I also feel that I don't want to be a burden. I don't want my family to spend all my savings and all of theirs on keeping a me I don't want to be comfortable. I'd rather they spent the money on helping my great-grandchildren buy a house.

I hope it wil be cured by the time you and I get to that point. I suspect that what we'll see is a reasonably effective preventative.

[mountainkiss]

I do get that in principle. I'm not trying to be difficult. But I'm looking at Jeremy now and thinking "is there a time when he both had enough dementia to know he had dementia and little enough dementia to be able to kill himself", and I am pretty sure that the answer is no.

[danieldwilliam]

I see the practical difficulty. I am prepared to put quite a lot of effort and resource in to finding a way through that practicaly difficulty and I'm prepared to consider being risk averse, where the risk is that I end up living with advanced dementia for years.