The sadness of the decline of a very busy lady - My Mother

by Joyce Spence
(Rotorua, New Zealand)

My Father died at the age of 40 due to bowel cancer in 1951.

It was my Mother that ended up with Alzeimers which started when my sister and I were in our 30's when we had small children which made things more difficult to being able to get away to help her.In the end we had to place her in a home where they looked after her.

I read in a book years ago that Aluminium pots caused Alzeimers disease which we were brought up with Mum cooking in Aluminium pots and fry pans as a lot of our generation did. Could this be the one of the causes for hot only Alzeimers and the reason they are expecting so many of us to get Cancer too.

My Mother had to take care of my brother born in 1935,very intelligent man and his children are in the Mensa group.

Our Fathers death affected all of us but mostly my brother who became a manic depressive a few years later. He died a couple of years ago of Prostrate Cancer which was very painful for him.

My sister was born in 1945 and is showing signs of Parkinson's Disease which one of our Aunties on Mums side had also suffered from.

I was born in 1948 and so far so good except with having back problems - collapsed disc in 1979 and in 2014and 2 years ago I had 3 discs fused, a composite bone graft and 6 s/screws to keep it together! I also have constipation and acidity which I would be very happy to give away both of them.I drink lots of water but cannot tolerate dairy.

I lost my bunch of keys a few months ago, left it for 3 months expecting them to turn up and it drove me mad. I claimed for ins as I had to get locks changed and the car had to be taken to another area to get a key cut specifically for the car.

About 2 months later something drew me towards a special tin beside my garden seeds by the back door. I looked in there and there were the keys. I must have dropped them in there cos I didn't want to take them outside and by the time I came in I obviously did not need the keys so didn't even consider that they were not in their right place till I found they weren't the next day. I could not find them as they were not in the usual place. However,I have 2 sets of keys for the car and house now and have the 2nd set in the 2nd draw in the kitchen- easy to find.

Anything like that scares me but as people have said it is when you are not aware of what is happening at all that is Alzeimers where as I was very aware of what was happening that's for sure so so far so good and I am NOT going to get Alzeimers.