Australian Women's Book Review Volume 14.1 - School of English ...

JM
When you first think that he might have Alzheimer's?
KJ
Several years before he was diagnosed he started forgetting things, and we started going to doctors. It
wasn't until ¼ he was working right up to the time of the diagnoses as an art director and he was
designing a book and he made a huge mistake, he forgot to get a estimate on the type and we were
suddenly in the hole for $30,000 and it was something that he would have never have done. It wasn't ...
when people ask me about the first signs of Alzheimer's it's not forgetting your car keys, it's often huge
errors of judgement. And that point we went back to the neurologist and he did lots of cognitive testing,
but they also had a new test, a spinal-tap test of amyloid-beta protein and his was through the roof.
JM
Didn't the neurologist say some heart stopping words to you at that session?
KJ
He did, he said you're going to have to say goodbye to the man you love, and at the time I thought
`you're being melodramatic,' but you don't just say goodbye, you say goodbye every minute of every
day for seven years.
JM
We've been having a radio diary over the few weeks and we've had a woman over a two years period
holding a tape recorder and she kept a diary of what happened when her husband was diagnosed with
Dementia. She describes the mood swings as being tough, was that an experience for you?
KJ
Oh, absolutely, in the end we really had to medicate him, I describe it in the book, as you said it is
loosely based, but he spent a lot of time crying, a lot of time raging and you never knew what exactly
he was going to do. But one day I was trying to show him how to do something and he just flew at me
and tried to throttle me and at that stage I want back to the doctor and told him and more medication
was ordered up, anti-psychotic medication basically.
JM
But you say in that incident in the book that the character waits a few days before they go to the doctor
because of shame. What's that for?
KJ
Yes it was, and even though I knew it was the disease you can't believe that it's happening.
JM
Did you feel betrayed by life? You'd got it all together, you'd met the man you loved, you'd `landscaped
your life,' I think is a poem phrase from the 70s, and then this. Did life betray you?
KJ
He felt betrayed. He felt that finally he'd got his life together and met the person that he'd wanted to
meet, I didn't have the luxury to think about anything much. I had to go to work and earn lots of money
to pay for his care, and ... not betrayal, I mean I'd made my decision, I was going to look after him, I
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