Perhaps if we bumped into people I would sort of, yes or it's like when you first introduce people he'd say something like 'Oh hello [name]' and then perhaps say to her or say to them together: 'Oh you did all those rambles together didn't you,' and my husband would say 'Yes' but he obviously didn't remember, so yes I mean things like that I would try and draw something which connected them together. But nothing as sort of formal as sort of, I don't know, it was done on a very sort of casual basis. I'm trying to think.

Possibly I've said things, I mean when my husband's, people have been a bit baffled by the response they're getting I might have said to them afterwards 'You do realise my husband's got a memory problem?' He said, 'I'm beginning to,' this sort of thing. Yes I try to find some common ground, if I'm having a conversation with somebody, perhaps if my husband's obviously forgotten I'll bring him in as well. I'm just trying to think of a particular one.

I bumped into someone, we were just walking across [place], not that long ago and I bumped into somebody we'd met on theatre trips. And I sort of said to my husband 'Oh we haven't seen [name] since we went to [town] have we?' and he said 'Oh no.' but he knew anyway what the situation was and he was very good, including my husband.

I mean people do, when they're aware, I think they, other people will go out of their way to try and find common ground or just sort of tune in to what's going on. What I do not like standing with one or two other people and my husband and excluding him. I mean that's just, that just isn't on. If he's there he's there and he's included. But I don't know if I've ever made a conscious effort. It's just the way things are really.

Well I think we'd just gone through a phase, just after we'd moved when I realised we had a very urgent sort of something going on, and I did suggest nicely several times 'Would you go and see the doctor?' or 'I think we need to go and see the doctor,' or I tried to persuade him that you know his memory was really poor and that perhaps we could get some help.

I remember really losing my cool one night and just saying 'I just cannot go on living like this, it's just too awful.' And it was just after Christmas I think I made an appointment to see his GP and I put him in the picture. I gave him some examples of what had been going on and you know how the changes had sort of become more obvious after the move and everything. And he said 'Well we don't have to think gloomy thoughts, there are other reasons why people become forgetful, we'll do a full MOT.'

So I did get [my husband] in to the doctor's with a view, I mean I was up front about it, I said 'I'm worried about your memory but the doctor said he hasn't seen you for ages and he'd like to give you a full medical.' He said 'Well I'm perfectly fit, I walk fifteen miles twice a week and all the rest of it,' and I said 'Well perhaps we'll just get you checked out, just to be on the safe side because I knew he had high cholesterol and I said 'You need perhaps to go and have your cholesterol checked if nothing else.'

So he did agree to go to the doctor and he let me go in with him on the first occasion and the doctor took lots of bloods and made another appointment and all the blood tests had come back pretty well OK. So he talked to [my husband] and [my husband] did agree eventually that he would go and see somebody about his memory.

At one time if I'd put tablets out for him he would take them. More recently, perhaps this year, he has played with his tablets and he will pop them in a spoonful of pudding or mashed potato or put them in a sausage or something. And unless I was actually with him and got him to take them I couldn't be sure that he'd had them.  

On one occasion, I mean this wasn't prescribed medication, it was cod liver oil, he actually opened up the capsule and drank it and then complained because it tasted fishy, it was quite horrible. And another, another time I found a tablet dissolving in the bottom of a yoghurt or something like that because he doesn't seem to take them unless I'm actually there and supervise, he doesn't always take them as tablets. And he's having increasing problems actually swallowing tablets. He was put on Brufen a little while back because he had a really bad knee, he had sort of arthritis in his knee and it was playing up and he was taken Brufen which has a sugar coating and should be swallowed straight down but he was trying to crunch it which wasn't really the idea.

And the same with the iron tablets. Again you're supposed to swallow them whole because apparently they're designed to dissolve in a part of the gut where it's most beneficial. But he would sort of crunch it up or he would put tablets in his sandwiches because he just didn't seem to understand the importance of it and I would get the instructions 'To be taken with water;' 'To be taken with food.' He'd just look at it, it didn't mean anything to him, seeing it written down. He didn't actually fight about having to take medication but the actual method was not perhaps what it said on the instructions. But I did try to make sure that he had it at the right time and in the proper method.  

That's a very recent, very recent thing. Until possibly three months ago he was taking tablets with a drink and without any problems. But as I say, you don't chew cod liver oil and complain that it tastes fishy.

In general, do you have any thoughts about surreptitious medication?

What are we talking about here major 'tranqs' or?

Do you make a distinction?

Difficult one. I think if somebody is a danger to themselves or other people perhaps there is a case I mean if you tried all the possible avenues of discussion and persuasion and involving anybody who might have some influence, some positive influence on the person and they're still saying 'no.' I think if they are a danger to themselves or other people possibly yes there would be a case for it but it would have to be the very, very last resort. I don't know. Maybe if it prevents some even worse form of treatment there might be a case for it. I'd be very uncomfortable with it though. I certainly wouldn't want to think that anybody did it without my knowledge, I would have to be very involved in the decision for my husband and for myself obviously. I just hope I'm never faced with that. 

I think I might have joked about putting  tablets in a spoons full of jam. I don't think I've ever done it. A difficult one but I think you know in absolute extremes maybe there is a case for it. But I certainly wouldn't want anyone to be given medication just for the sake of keeping them quiet and making their lives easier. The same with catheterisation, if you can't be bothered to toilet with patience you shouldn't be looking after them.

About a year ago we were, again we were on holiday and I noticed he got out of bed quite quickly one morning and he wet on the floor, just a little bit and that, that happened increasingly, until January this year he was wetting the bed virtually every night. I had a 'kylie' sheet which I put on his side of the bed. But then, about that time he started going for respite [at] an NHS resource at [place].

And the second time he was in there I went out and got single beds! I couldn't get, because our bedroom's so small, we had it fitted around the double bed, I had to get two, two-foot six beds and we actually had to put them together, but I now put a plastic sheet between the two mattresses, just to be on the safe side.

And he's also become frequently incontinent, bowel wise as well so that, that has made a huge extra sort of workload for me. I start every day with getting him out of bed, stripping his bed, getting him in the bath, nowadays I need to be around most of the time he's in the bath or he just wallows. So I'm sort of up and downstairs for the first half hour or so of each day.

Yesterday when we were out, he'd dirtied himself and I, he had a funny turn when we were out um, he virtually collapsed on me and I had an awful job to get him back. And I just let him sit, so of course by the time he was actually mobile again um, he had to be showered and we, we have this quite a lot now. Every, every trip out is, within minutes of walking he says 'Oh I need the loo' I say 'Let's go back then'. 'No'. So I know by then its probably too late.

I mean we use pads all the time. Night-time we have the biggest ones they can provide but he still manages to soak them and the bed. And I was washing quilts two or three times a week as well as the other bedclothes. And I say that, that is probably the biggest thing at the moment.

He's just going, trying to, he's actually escaped twice, from a secure unit, which made me very concerned. The day after he moved in I was out in the morning, got back and there was a message on my answer phone, would I ring the home - excuse me - so I rang the home and they said 'Well it's OK now he's turned up but we needed to let you know that he'd gone missing.' I was so stunned I couldn't really react. I thought, the day before we'd taken him in, there were swipe cards, keypads and my grandson who'd come with me had said 'At least he won't escape from here, will he?'

I just could not believe it when they told me and what really scared me, he'd walked from the unit along a pavement and then along a country road, it must have been a good mile on a summer's Sunday morning, no pavements and turned up in the local pub. And the pub owner realised there was a problem and rang the police and the Unit had already rung the police so they put two and two together. And he'd managed to con a pint of best bitter and then realised he didn't have any money and the care home manager went to pick him up and took him back.

I say, at first I just said 'Thank goodness he's safe and fancy him finding a pub.' Because he'd never have, it was just pure luck, he'd never have got there. But then I began to think when I put the phone down - hold on he was walking along that road on a Sunday morning, no pavements, no road sense I just was absolutely devastated really.

The [name] Unit where he goes, they're just wonderful there. The whole set up is, is very, I don't know the right word really: they're all batty! but in a, in a professional way. They can be quite sort of uninhibited in joining in sharing but they manage, I mean watching [name] who is the manager there, manage [my husband], she is just so good with him. And you know she can get him to go to the toilet and get him to wash himself. I can't get him to wash his hands after the toilet, but she can!

And the whole atmosphere there is lovely. I mean I've been in and out times, unannounced and the atmosphere there is always good. They're very respectful to the clients but they can have a lot of fun with them. And its just, you know I'm just so lucky you know I think to have it and now as I said I've been offered four days. I don't know, I think I want four days but I'm, gonna have to get my act together and do something myself. I don't know.

And [the respite unit] where he goes, that, that is a sort of resource everybody should have but it's probably going to be closed because it's so expensive. It's a five-bedded unit in [place] and it's used for day care as well for 

Are you still observing things like birthdays and anniversaries?

Oh yes, of course. Well he had a birthday just before he went in but yes that's very important. And I've suggested to his children that they send things. Only one of them sent a birthday card this year and I was a little bit hurt by that. And they, one of them said 'I thought it would confuse him.' And I thought well he still likes, if I take in letters for him, he likes to open them, he might not make any sense of them but you feel important if you get a letter through the post don't you.

And one of his grandchildren has sent him a letter, a very nice letter saying 'This is your granddaughter [name] speaking, I'm your son [name]'s daughter,' just to make quite clear who she was! Beautifully written, it was a very nice letter.  And his daughter, she sent a letter, a photograph of the children, a school photograph and a postcard which I've put up in his room.  I got a frame for the photograph.

No I think it's important for me as much for him actually. You know I wouldn't want to forget that. Nothing else is coming up until December but hopefully we'll do something for our wedding anniversary, and certainly Christmas. Well I'll face that when it comes, but I don't quite know how we'll deal with Christmas. No I mean it's, maybe it's for me as much as him, well I'm sure it is.

In lots of ways we've been much closer over the last few months because having to do some very personal things for him, and we've been able to laugh, laugh about them sometimes and - though we did go through a stage a little while back when he would shun any sort of physical contact. He'd sort of shake me off or not seem to want any contact but now he's far more amenable, he seems to enjoy being hugged. And if we're out he's always holding my hand very, very tightly.

And we, I don't know we still, this was one of my big difficulties with putting him into this nursing home was because we did still seem to have that, that sort of bond and I didn't want to lose that. When I go and see him I mean I still sort of flirt with him a bit, he sort of responds to a bit of flirtation and he responds nicely; possibly a year or so ago he wouldn't have done, he'd have just sort of shoved me off, 'I can't be bothered with all that,' sort of thing. But in a way just very recently that, that sort of bond seems to have become, become closer even when I visit.

But I suppose, it's difficult to pin a time on it but I suppose for a number of years his personality traits were becoming more focused, both the good and bad ones did seem to be almost coming to a head. But more recently you don't see very much of any of these sort of things. I suppose he does still sort of charge off in his own direction, I suppose that's a bit like making big decisions without, without consultation.

It's really hard to put time scales on things like that. You're sort of aware of a gradual trend and the sort of peaks and troughs but as to actually putting dates on it, it's really not possible. And again only having known him for sort of fifteen years and only being married for sort of thirteen and a half I don't know just how much the changes were taking effect before that.

I think, I think there have been times where I've sort of been aware of how his behaviour has been and I sometimes perhaps I was thinking of his, his illness as being partly responsible for what was going on but partly it was like a sort of, personality and his behaviour which had been I say somewhat cavalier, sometimes and perhaps not the most socially acceptable.

But again I'm getting a more sort of mellow view of some of the things that were happening. But you know I guess some of it is going to be personality and some of it is going to be the, the illness. I think I'm taking a more benign view of it now.  Maybe more of it was illness. Certainly anything that happens now I just you know I just can't take it as deliberate or you know aimed at me. I think possibly a year ago, possibly even six or seven months ago I was taking it more as a personal affront sometimes. But perhaps it wasn't, wasn't deliberate.

But certainly, thinking back I suppose I was saying sometimes well this is [name] and this is the illness. Some things were, were sort of, I did feel were different. And I was certainly getting a lot more emotional about what I felt was the, the slights or the dismissive behaviour. Now I just you know, well this is it. I can be a lot more philosophical about it.