Gail describes a really frustrating day, but got through with a little help from Hubby.

Hi it’s Gail and over the last week or so I’ve had a couple of bad days. Not with a fuzzy head but with more confusion and not being able to do things or forgetting how to do things, and today I went out with my camera and I was all excited about going to the park. And I had everything set out and everything ready, and I had my camera and the food for the birds, the dog leads – I had everything ready. So all I had to do were put my coat on, get everything and go in the car.

And when I got to the park and were walking through and I set my camera going and pointed my camera at the first thing that I saw, and everything were blurry! And I thought ‘oh I’ve had this before’ and there’s a little switch for the eyepiece so that you can, the view, it’s like a pair of glasses really but you can alter it to how you see things, and I thought ‘it’ll be that’. So I messed about with that, and no it wasn’t that. It was still blurry. So I carried on taking photos and I played them back and they looked awful.

So now I’m getting quite frustrated with myself, and this has happened a lot recently – getting frustrated with things that I can’t do anymore. And I spent about an hour and a half in the park just going round taking photos and I couldn’t, just couldn’t get it right. And so when I left the park I was rather disappointed with myself. I was more sad that my photos hadn’t, hadn’t been successful when I know I can do it.

And it’s, it’s, ugh, it’s so frustrating because you can’t remember how to do certain things – you forget things. And we all talk about the positive things and how wonderful it is and how wonderful doing crafts are and… But we don’t talk about these, these things that happen to us that, on a daily basis I might add, and it’s getting more and more now where I am forgetting how to do things.

And I came home, and hubby could see when he came in from work how upset I was because I hadn’t got the camera working properly. So he sat there straight away and showed me a little button that I’d just, well I’d pressed the wrong button so it had knocked everything out. And something very simple just a little button that I’d knocked but could my brain remember about that button? No it couldn’t.

Anyway, all sorted. So we’re all up and running again. So I’m out taking the photos, come back into the house and now they’re uploading onto my iPad. So now hubby’s got the camera again and I don’t know what I’ve done with his camera this morning. Obviously I’ve been pressing buttons that I’m not supposed to do! But it took us nearly all afternoon. Anyway, by tea time, the camera is working again.

So this is me and my dementia for you: yeah, pressing the wrong buttons and forgetting what to do. But we’re all good, we’re all working today. So I hope you’re having a good day. I just can’t get out with my camera today ’cause it’s raining but never mind, tomorrow will be a better one. Hope yours is a better one!

Thank you for listening to me. Bye.