As a qualified care nurse, IRIS STEPHENS knew what was in store for her and husband Jim when he started showing symptoms of dementia. She watched as the “gentleman” she loved became forgetful, upset and had to be looked after in a care home, where he got worse, lost weight and was found collapsed on his bedroom floor. Here, she tells her story:
"I KNEW the day would come when I would never hear Jim’s voice again. He had been suffering with dementia for several years and anyone going through this will know just how hard it is to constantly look after someone who is forgetful, doesn’t know where they are and cannot understand why they can’t do the things they used to do.
Something had not been quite right for a while.
He started driving straight past me when he was supposed to be picking me up from my work.
Eventually, I had to take him off the road because he was getting quite dangerous and that was hard.
Unfortunately I had to tell him a little fib, that he hadn’t passed his driving test, so he would accept me taking his keys.
Unlike some people with dementia who can get violent, Jim never did. He was always very sweet.
But looking after him on my own and two of my grandchildren who were both under seven years old at the time, was difficult. I had bad leg pains and high blood pressure and caring for someone on top of that was hard work.
But I never lost my temper with Jim. Even those nights when he would keep waking up to use the toilet or say ‘I’m going home’ and walk out the front door, I kept thinking, a day will come when I won’t hear his voice again so I appreciated everything about him.
One day I remember saying to him: ‘Jim, you are getting ready to leave me, aren’t you?’ I don’t know how much he understood but he said ‘yes’. There were lots of tears in the room from both of us that day.
It is hard to see someone who was so wonderful and handsome change. Physically he was fine but mentally his brain was just not working as it should.
We met when I was 20 and he was 44. We were living next door to each other at digs in Romford.
He was working for Essex County Council and I worked in electronics and we got to know each other slowly.
He was a gentleman, a really respectful, pleasant, nice person, and very clever too. It wasn’t supposed to be a romance, it was something that just grew.
It took another 19 years for us to get married. We were watching a Panorama programme about long engagements and jokingly I said it’s about time we got married.
I was surprised when he turned around and said, well if you organise it we’ll get married. I was happy as we were. We had three daughters and we were really happy.
I couldn’t be bothered with all the hassle but he was insistent and he said he wanted me to have his name. I have to admit that once we did get married, we just had a register office do with two of our daughters, it felt so right.
Jim wore a suit he had from doing jury service in court years earlier so we just had to buy him a new shirt. I just wore something I already had.
At the end of the day you could have given me £1 million or his name and I would choose his name every time. It felt wonderful and I will never change it. But when Jim got to his mid -70s he started getting forgetful and the dementia set in.
It got to the stage where I had to make such a difficult decision. I had Jim to care for and two young children to look after - things were getting so bad I found it hard to let the grandchildren see it. I didn’t want them to go into the care of social services and as Jim was the hardest to care for I decided he could be moved to a care home.
I couldn’t cope any more. We looked at several care homes and decided on Ashcroft, in Eight Ash Green.
It seemed like quite a nice one and we were welcomed in. But soon after he started there I saw him deteriorate quickly, he was losing weight and suddenly looking much older. When he had been there about a month the situation came to a head.
I visited him along with my grand-daughter, daughter and son-in-law. When we went into his room Jim was lying on the floor, half dressed. My grand-daughter was just screaming. I had to demand they put sheets on the bed and get him into bed.
He was too sick to be out of bed – what were they thinking? We called an ambulance and the paramedics said they had not seen anything like this. His bladder was bloated where they should have fitted a catheter but didn’t and his lips were cracked they were so dry. It took a month for Colchester General Hospital to get him well again.
Then he was perky, clean and even sitting up. A solicitor told me I could sue the home for compensation but that’s not what I wanted. I gave them a year to sort themselves out and I think they did. Jim died peacefully at the hospital.
In a way I am glad because I didn’t want him to go to another home and they wouldn’t let him come home with me because of my own health problems.
At least he died with some dignity. I still miss him and there will never be another man in my life. It’s like when we were together there was a lovely light, and now he is gone that light has gone too."
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