The Week I Learned, Again, That Alzheimer's Is Rubbish
Well, helllooooooo, I’ve been waiting to see you all week.
Before I tell you about me, how are you?
I mean, like really how are you?
The world feels pretty fragile right now, and while we think things can get any more tricky, boom, along comes a tornado, broken car or mini-budget that backfires us into a holy shit show, and well, it feels heavy, man.
So, when I say, how are you, it’s from the heart, and I hope that you are OK and maybe, just maybe, my news might bring a smile to your face.
JDIF
I am kicking this week’s newsletter off with the confirmation that sometimes you have to f****g do it, on how I learned this week. While I have written and had three books published, an eclectic mix of hip dysplasia, PR and relocating, the one book I’ve always wanted to write is a novel. While I have a lot of ideas in my head, when it’s come to get any further than a synopsis and a few plot outlines, I’ve gone out and found something to do with my time. The reality of writing a non-fiction book is that it’s based on facts. It’s like writing around 12 essays and then bringing them together with a foreword and an index. There you have it, a book written, ISBN slapped on the covers, onto Amazon, Waterstones, and all good outlets it goes, and then sales coming in. A novel, well to me anyway, feels like a much bigger beast. This week, however, I decided I would do this and have just shy of 12,000 words written in the draft, which feels good. Yes, there are at least another 70,000 words to write and let’s not start on the edits and rewrites, but it feels good to dusty off Audrey, my main character, and getting her working for her keep because she’s been taking up space on my laptop for long enough. I learned that I could write fiction, but I also learned that working in a coffee shop or in the clubhouse at the Devon FA while my son works on his footwork.
Mornings With the News Are Great
For as long as I can remember, I had watched the news with a coffee when I got up in the morning. Even as we moved through the pandemic, going through one lockdown after another, I would tune in. While I know that hearing the number of updates and heart-breaking stories was doing me no good, it was a habit that had become so ingrained I knew exactly when the weather would come on and where there would be a switch to the regional news and would often time my caffeine boosts to fit with the sport, in which I generally never have an interest in. Last week when working with a new coach last week, I thought about how I could better spend my mornings with the twists and turns of Truss and the team, combined with energy hicks and reporters checking in from war-torn Ukraine; we weren’t going to cut it anymore. I still wake at the same time, but now I come down, get my coffee ready, put on Absolute 90s because I am clearly still living in ’91, and journal. Call me a cliché, but with a new Roxie Nafousi journal and three months to the end of the year, I decided to start looking at the good in the world, and while the bad won’t go away, it doesn’t have to come climbing into my home each morning and to put a shadow on my day
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Chicken Soup is Good for the Soul
It wasn’t Covid; I did plenty of tests, but whatever virus I picked up a couple of weeks ago floored me. Aches, nose bleeds, a sore throat, pains in my face and a cough made me sound like I was back in Tokyo smoking Marlboro Reds like they were going out of fashion faster than the Yen, and it was pants. I went from having no appetite to eating junk, with plenty of water, vitamins, and herbal tea, and finally, I felt like something more nutritious. Chicken soup has been hitting the spot, and while I haven’t been making it from scratch, I did roast a chicken on Thursday afternoon (well, my husband did as I was at the footie mentioned above session), and once seasoned and cooked, I added it to, don’t hate me, a Knorr chicken noddle packet soup. Yes, you can tell me it’s full-on stuff, but you know what, it did the good, and I will be making it again.
Alzheimer’s Is Rubbish
My dad is in his early ‘70s, and rather than walking along with Norfolk beach with his dog, having milky coffees on Cromer piers and tending to his garden, he’s in a care home because he has Alzheimer’s. My stepmother was sadly diagnosed with MND last year and died this May, and the past year has been challenging. She could no longer speak or walk, and he kept forgetting she would be ill; it was all too much for everyone. He is now in a fabulous care home in Berkshire, but it seems too early, too final and too sad, especially as he no longer remembers his partner, maybe no and again in a more lucid moment, and it was too traumatic for us to tell him she is no longer her. As with all mental illnesses, because you can’t see anything and they are so very clever at manipulating in the moment but forgetting in an instant, it’s an almost daily worry. We talk about trying to ease the taboo around mental illness, but this beast of a disease can play tricks on the minds closest to the sufferer, and some days, it just feels really hard. I learned this week that I don’t have to do everything and that sometimes he will get cross and swear at me but he is safe and well cared for, so for now I won’t beat myself up about it. That said, I often feel like Sarah in Love Actually, feeling like I have to answer the phone every time he rights, even though I know I could well be on the receiving end of yet another painful recollection of where he is, what’s going on why I am wrong.
I am sure that I did learn more this week but with this update already a day late and a cute little MINI Countryman waiting for a test drive (I learned once again, to my peril, that Evoques are money pits like no other) so I shall sign off and bid you a fabulous weekend.
If you fancy sharing what went on during your week, I’d love to hear from you, and I hope you will come back soon.
Natalie