My beloved wife Lorraine can no longer walk or talk and is doubly incontinent. She is currently living in a hospital bed in our front room in Surrey. The woman I loved is still there, even though Alzheimer’s disease has taken so much from her. Lorraine may not recognize me – sometimes she looks at me and doesn’t even see me – but she still giggles at the sound of my voice and smiles as we play our favorite classical music. Spartacus and the Phrygian Adagio from Spartacus. We are both 77 years old now and ours is a love story that has lasted almost 60 years.
We met on a farm in New Zealand in 1969. After working as an engineer in the UK, I decided to travel; I traveled overland from North Africa to Syria and Afghanistan, eventually arriving in Nelson, a city in the north-south of New Zealand. Island. I found a job picking tobacco: Lorraine, a Kiwi, was picking apples.
I remember sitting on the kitchen floor and watching her walk in: Wow, I thought. Lorraine was a total knockout, but she also had that girl-next-door quality that I loved; She was friendly and quick to smile. Growing up in Invercargill, Lorraine was brought up to learn Scottish country dancing as well as the Haka, which she would perform throughout her life when the All Blacks were playing.
We returned to the UK together and made our home in the countryside near Croydon in Surrey, eventually marrying in 1980. Neither of us particularly wanted children, but we loved our dogs, our fluffy Wheaten Terriers and Lhasa apso. We devoted ourselves to the business we started in our second bedroom and eventually produced document binding machines used all over the world.
Our company has taken us to many magnificent places. In 1986, we received the BBC Radio 4 Small Business Enterprise Award, presented by Prince Charles. Music was a great passion for us; We often ended the evenings dancing late into the night at Ronnie Scott’s in London. And we loved to travel. Lorraine would buy a dress from every place we visited. The “St-Tropez dress”, the “Marbella dress” and the “Barcelona dress” hung in the wardrobe.
But we also loved our home life. We lived next to a golf course and I loved hearing Lorraine drive back in her Toyota Rav 4 while the dogs were barking. Since they were both keen and fast readers, we often played a game where we thought of a long word and checked to see if the other could spell it.
In 2010, at the age of 64, Lorraine suddenly appeared to lose her sense of smell. She soon began speaking in a strange way: in incomplete sentences instead of short sentences. “Am I going…?” She would say she, then she would walk away without finishing what she was going to say. When I pointed this out, Lorraine was aware of this but couldn’t do anything about it. While this was frustrating at times, I wasn’t worried; I got used to it and became adept at understanding it.
But other things started to change. Always choosing the perfect outfit for the occasion, Lorraine has become lethargic about her dressing style. She would prefer old, holey sweaters instead of a newer, more stylish top. Barcelona and St-Tropez dresses no longer meant anything to him.
Lorraine was in the kitchen salting the potatoes two or three times, burning her arm on the stove without realizing it, and leaving the gas on for dinner.
Frankly, it didn’t occur to me that there was anything wrong with Lorraine. I guess I just thought it was a natural part of getting older; I had barely heard of Alzheimer’s disease and certainly didn’t think it was related to us. Moreover, these strange events lasted only a few minutes a day and were “normal” the rest of the time. So I made practical changes: I switched from gas to electric and narrowed down Lorraine’s wardrobe.
Finally, in 2012, I took Lorraine to the GP for pain in her right hip. The doctor noticed something alarming in Lorraine’s behavior and referred us to a memory clinic. The psychiatrist there told us this could be the beginning of Alzheimer’s. How can this happen? I was curious. How could this happen to us? Lorraine was always a very healthy person.
At the clinic, Lorraine was taken to a different room to take a memory test. Rated 16/30. I thought that sounded pretty good, but the consultant said that ideally he would answer all the questions correctly. When Lorraine was asked to name the president of the United States (then known as Barack Obama), she replied: “I don’t know, but he has a dog named Bo.” She couldn’t name the photos of an elephant or a tiger.
The doctor kindly told us that Lorraine had Alzheimer’s. I asked if she could take any pills and she told us she had taken pills but they weren’t working and “there was nothing to do” she said. As you can imagine, I was very upset, but I decided to put on a cheerful face and that’s been my attitude ever since. Since Lorraine never knew there was anything wrong with her, I decided to continue living our lives as normally as we could.
I said okay, Lorraine has Alzheimer’s but we will continue to do the same things as if she didn’t have it. We continued to travel throughout the rest of the 2010s. We spent the winters in Tenerife and spent most of the epidemic there. We were happy most of the time, but there were also difficult moments for me; Like the time I took Lorraine back to Kaiteriteri beach in New Zealand. It was where we first met: I wanted him to remember, and was heartbroken when he failed to do so.
We made other adjustments as well. Even before her diagnosis, Lorraine did not enjoy being with a group of friends, for example in a restaurant, and often wanted to go home early. But even when Lorraine was in a wheelchair, I would hold her hands and we would dance around. We joined the local Alzheimer’s Singing for the Brain group run by the wonderful Peter Edwards.
Unfortunately in the last few years Lorraine has deteriorated considerably. He is currently trapped in a hospital bed in his living room. I sleep upstairs and regularly wake up at night to go downstairs and check on him.
This time last year. I realized we needed the help of professional caregivers and eventually found a great agency called Helping Hands. It now takes two people to wash and bathe Lorraine; The same people come three days a week from 9 am to 9.30 pm. The rest is up to me.
Our life together now is different than I expected, but I am completely devoted to my wife. He is still “there” and to this day he perks up when I play music to him; He especially likes my playing. Memory from Cats on guitar. Last year, I worried that if I died, no one would know Lorraine’s story, so I made a video called “Lorraine’s Farewell.”
I see this as another phase in life. It’s like when you finish a professional sport like hockey or rugby. You hang up your boots but life goes on; it just goes into another state. There is no such thing as “poor Lorraine”. I consider us both lucky: we have a bond that will last a lifetime.
As told to Miranda Levy
Alzheimer’s AssociationIts new campaign, Long Goodbye, starts on March 22
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