Soul Stealer

Alziemers is a cruel disease. It steals not only your intellect, your memory, and your dignity. It steals your very being, not only the outward persona seen by others, But your inner self, the very core of who you are. It steals your soul. Alziemers is not an opportunistic thief, not one who acts impulsively. No, it hunts by stealth a little at a time becoming a parasite living from your being, taking you hostage and moulding you. You become in essence a slave to the disease. It controls you, and in so doing controls the lives of those you leave behind.

It may seem strange to speak of leaving others behind, and yet that is exactly What happens. Physically you live, your loved ones can come and visit, but you are not there. Like a terrible hallucination your outer shell is there, you can be touched, held, fed, bathed and clothed, but looking into your eyes one can see that you have already left. What is left behind is an empty shell. Alziemers is a slow withdrawal from this world.

This is a disease which sneaks in quietly. So stealthy it is that at first it goes unnoticed. The first signs can be, or at least seem to be comical in the beginning. The ” Senior moments” which we tend to laugh off. The odd mistakes such as keeping the bleach in the refrigerator, and the milk under the sink in the cleaning box. We shrug it off, put it down to the fact that we were in a hurry, or had alot on our minds at the time. Then we have a period of lucidity which can last for weeks, even months, and so we think no more about it. I describe Alziemers as a hunter because it acts like one. It sits, and watches and waits. You are the prey, and it plays with your emotions as a cat will play with a mouse, letting it go and catching it again. Just when you feel that all is fine again it strikes. This time it is back for the ” Kill”.

At this stage you realise that something is very wrong, and you are scared, the periods of lucidity, and those of the short term memory loss seem to intermingle as though in a dream. A terrifying and confusing dream from which you will never wake. People you are close to are also beginning to realise that something very serious is taking place, and they take action.

You find yourself on an endless treadmill now. Taken to see Doctors and Social Workers. These people behind their imposing desks ask you questions which make no sense to you. ” What day is it today?” ” What is the year?” ” Who is the Prime Minister?” You cannot answer, even if you knew the answers you cannot understand the reasons for asking them, they all seem out of context to you, and you just want to go home, go back to something which still feels familiar at this stage, somewhere you can feel safe. You are taken home, perhaps the Family cook tea for you, and then leave you alone, for at this stage it still feels safe for them to do this.

Once alone you have no recollection of the day, you can not even remember that you have just eaten with your Family. You have drifted into the past. No longer are you the pensioner living alone, the one who had been so strong just a few years ago, nursing her Husband through a long illness which finally took him from you. In your mind now you are the Mother of teenagers, the Wife waiting for the Husband to come in from work. You go to the cupboard and take out a strange concoction of ingredients, and begin to ” Cook”. It all goes into saucepans on the stove top, and the oven is full on. Milk mixed with salt and pepper, eggs thrown in for good measure, they all boil over the rim and stick and burn on the stove top. The pans burn dry, the heat from the oven is oppressive.

Thank God for that oppressive heat. It is this which urges you to open the door and wander out into the street. Thank God for the kind neighbour who sees you there in your nightdress, and goes inside to investigate, and to save the house from destruction. It took some time, but sadly the hunter has claimed its prey. How long before it Brings peace?