As is usual at the start of the week I decide to get to bed at 9.00pm in order to watch the anthropological programme on ‘Humans’ but I inevitably fall asleep after a few minutes. I am also following the Michael Mosley programs on ‘Secrets of the Super Agers’ and did discover that, up to a point, you can think yourself both younger and older than you actually are. If you attempt to have an active social life and take cate of your diet and health, particularly by walking regularly, then you actually do start to look younger and con convince others who do not know you of this fact. The reverse is equally true in that you can think of yourself as older and more frail than you actually are and so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, I had often suspected that this might be the case but the fascinating thing about the Michael Mosley approach was that he was always striving to find some hard science behind his observations. What a tragic irony it was that after writing so many excellent books on diet, exercise, life style and the ageing process with the aim of stimulating all of us to lead happier, healthier and longer lives that he himself would die about a year ago by inexplicably making a journey back to his hotel under a full blazing Greek son and succumbing (and dying) from the subsequent heat exhaustion. I still have many of his books on my bookshelves and they evoke a tinge of sadness on each occasion that I look at them. The morning is quite a busy one as I have to fit a routine lumbar x-ray in our local hospital amongst other things. I am also looking forward to a flying visit from one of my nieces who is calling in following a summer camp sojourn in the West Country and, like last year, as her route home lies so near our house she is taking the opportunity for a visit.
On the Sky News website, there is a compilation of the death of every single Palestinian since the start of the conflict with Israel. Sky News claims that they have verified each of the deaths which now stands at over 60,000 the majority being women and children. The graphics and analysis are of exceptional quality and make for a sobering read but the Israelis insist that they only ever target Hamas fighters. When video clips do get shown of Gaza then the whole society seems to have been reduced to rubble and one has to wonder what there is left to bomb or destroy because it is hard to find a building left standing or undamaged.
This morning, after I picked up my newspaper, I made a fairly quick visit to the local Wetherspoons where I met a couple pf my usual Tuesday morning friends. But I knew that I would have to depart after only a few minutes as I needed to go off to my local community hospital for a routine X-ray of my pelvis. This was all very straightforward and as soon as I returned home and watched a little TV, I thought I go ahead and prepare a risotto lunch. My niece was calling in on her journey home from the West Country and my son and daughter-in-law were calling round to see her so we enjoyed the risotto together whilst my niece and daughter-in-law both teachers, but in the process of either retiring or winding down, swapped notes with other about the retirement process. Then I took my niece to one side and offered he special medal that Meg wore constantly and a depiction of the Virgin of Guadalupe, given to Meg by our son’s Mexican ‘parents’ when he undertook his scholarship in Mexico nearly 40 years ago. Meg wore this medal every day for years and years and was very special to her but the silver chain upon which it hung had broken with constant use so I am going to get this special silver chain replaced. My niece was incredibly emotional when I offered her the medal but I said that I would get the chain replaced before I finally offer it to her when we go up to Harrogate in about three weeks’ time. I also discussed with my niece which of her sisters should receive which pieces of Meg’s remaining jewellery as a personal memento. I also had a very special brass cross (religious artefact) which Meg and I had bought for my mother when we were in Rome on holiday decades ago and it had passed back into possession after my mother’s death. Again, my niece was delighted to accept this and it gives me a great deal of pleasure to gradually dispose of some of Meg’s possessions amongst family members who really appreciate them. After my niece had left to continue her long journey back up to Yorkshire, I took the opportunity to ask my son and daughter-in-law about their observations of the last few months of Meg’s life. One perpetual question and is one that I am asking myself is the following : do dementia patients realise that they are dying? The short answer is that we really do not know but we can infer a great deal. As we know that as dementia advances, patients may be aware that all is not quite right. But then their body is shutting down and, as happened with Meg, they are asleep for much of the time. So, the consensus view is that dementia patients do not really have an awareness of what is happening around them as they lack the cognitive processes of a non-demented person. All that I can say is Meg seemed to o a pretty contented death, surrounded by family and friends and with few signs, if any, of any evident distress. This I find comforting, reinforced by the fact that I did as much for Meg as was possible and I think her quality of life, even in the final months, was relatively high surrounded as we were by a lot of music which I knew she had appreciated and enjoyed over her lifetime. We seemed to have a huge helping of Mozart (of course), Beethoven, Bach and composers such as Fauré. I suspect that Meg really enjoyed and remembered some of the Joan Baez (Mexican-American folk-singer and at one time lover of Bob Dylan) tracks when I played them only a few weeks before Meg left us in May.