2023 was a tough year. Not just for me personally, but for our health systems.
My recovery program continues at home with monthly returns to the hospital for tests and meetings with specialist doctors and to receive IVIg infusions monthly, etc. My major hope for this year is to get back on the golf course.
The fact that I am still here portends that I will continue with my life. I have a few obstacles to overcome, but I am quite positive. Personally, my dementia and my autoimmune disease (Dermatomyositis – DM) continues. I anticipate finding answers to this disease in 2024. By answers, I mean that 2024 should get me back to a normal health for an active 84-year-old. My health prevents me from pursuing my interest in golf. That, too, is on my list of corrections. I do have a driving net in the basement that I can hit golf balls into. Not the real thing, but fun.
I had one very great accomplishment, at least for me, in 2023. This was the self-publishing of my 180-page book entitled My Voyage with Dementia. This book chronicled my health life from 2017 to December 2022. In 2024, I intend to add two years to the book, bringing it forward to the end of 2024. I am also continuing to write an opinion column every other week for the Advance Times. Another self-publishing writer in my neighbourhood (he is 95) keeps saying to me, “Keep writing, keep writing, keep writing.” He is older than me and very active, so I listen to his advice and keep writing. Making it to his age would be a terrific accomplishment.
I wish that I could be very positive about our health system. We seem to be short of personnel. I say this with the realization that my team is intact and working well towards my recovery. I keep hearing stories of the issues that other people have in getting attention paid to their health issues. I am lucky. Once I had a referral to the right specialist, I was on a positive path to recovery. It took one month in the hospital and a lot of tests. Thankfully, the tests worked and they found the problem and the recovery is now underway with expectation of success in 2024.
Keeping busy is important, so I have added new activities. My musical talents will be exercised with my ukulele, a saxophone, and a clarinet. Since I have a hearing impairment (augmented by a cochlear implant) I will not be able to hear whether my music is good or bad, but it will sound wonderful to my receptive brain. Needless to say, my wife has asked that my musical talents be restricted to the basement. I wonder why?
I also will be continuing my interest in art. Until three years ago I was reviving my interest in watercolour painting but I gave it up when the autoimmune disease hit me. I will get back to that in 2024. I have a large art table with all sorts of materials just waiting for me to put paint to paper.
My wife has converted much of our basement into an exercise gym. It is complete with a recumbent stationary bicycle, lots of weights and elastic bands, and a TV to keep the potential boredom away while we exercise. This gym is used very actively and allows us to continue to achieve the ‘exercise’ portion of the ‘Seven Pillars.’
There is no question that a careful lifestyle, coupled with a sugar and gluten-free diet, and at least one hour of exercise per day is going to be my way for this year.
This is what I intend to do to help my resolutions of coming true and returning to my ‘Good Life.’ My progress will be documented in these columns. Completing my book to December 2024 should give me motivation to keep cognitively focused.
I am resolved to keep on working on correcting my health issues. Some days I just want to sit back and let whatever is going to happen, happen. I am enrolled in three Alzheimer’s Society programs – Holistic Health, Minds in Motion, and Circle of Friends. All get me out and about and involved in life. Our local Alzheimer’s Society is really on our side. Dementia does not have a pharmaceutical solution (drug) for us. I have created my “Seven Pillars of a Good Life” that follows a non-pharmaceutical path to a ‘good health.’ It has worked for the last two years of the 10 years that I have been diagnosed with dementia (now called MCI). Living a good life should keep the wolves away.
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Bob Murray is retired from the graphic communication industry, living in Seaforth, and was diagnosed with Dementia in 2013. Follow his blog – https://myvoyage553264702.wordpress.com.
