Who's demented now??

London comes to me...

Me old cor-blimey geezers came up from that London: Gerry and Allen. 7 hour round trip. They met the old folks who thought they were wonderful (they don’t know them like I do).

Dad brought his fishing flies in as Gerry is a keen fly-fisherman too. He also cornered Allen to talk about cars - Allen was driving some huge Mercedes SUV.

My Dad - 'The Chatty Welshman'!

When they first arrived I was slightly discombobulated seeing familiar faces in my home environment - does anyone else get that or is it just me? People in their contexts or out of their contexts? A bit like a wedding where all the people compartmentalised in different parts of your life come together. Like a rabbit in headlights - felt slightly unreal, dream-like.

We did the Lambeth Walk through Wells - saw the cathedral, Vicar’s Close and Bishop’s Palace. I think they liked Vicar’s Close best. 

'Mad' Allen Osborn and Gerry 'Chopper' Boyle

A couple of Chelsea Smilers later we had lunch at the S&P. It was great. Lots of good-natured swearing and laughter. And also comparing notes about living in the sticks and the wacko racist nutjobs who do little or certainly less, to disguise their bigotry.

Really nice to see them. Much appreciated. 

...and I go to London

Despite the lovely day, I slept very badly that night. I just couldn’t get to sleep with underlying stress about travelling to London and so forth, and then I woke up way too early. 

I used to feel like that when I was running masonry jobs, thinking everything would go wrong. Lost a lot of sleep over a number of years.

Fell asleep several times on the coach trip on the way up. Each time I jolted awake, thinking I was about to pee myself. Anyone else get that?

Oh, okay then...

Got to Hammersmith pretty much on time. The MC on the coach has thankfully stopped making that joke about Ebaying lost property. Got out and jumped on the tube, to go to Piccadilly Circus.

Nice afternoon - but I had a heavy bag in tow.

The fashions in London at the moment are completely underwhelming. Baggy faded jeans, earth-shatteringly horrendous baggy woollen cardigans, beards and dresses, and ultimately look like you can only afford to dress out of a jumble sale.

Zero-style.

Ugly, unflattering clothes.

I walked to The Ralph Lauren flagship store. I'd recommend anyone to go in there. It really is something else. Like an Ivy League university from the 1930s in London.

As with all things, they’ve stopped making the one thing I always bought. In this case I was after RL Sullivan jeans, Buitoni-fly and no stretch. They even had a cardigan I was tempted by - half-jacket half cardigan. It was in cotton silk. 

I know, I know. Too many buitoni but they’re not plastic and at least it’s not regular soft fluffy wool. More like a jacket really.

Yes, that's what I will tell myself. It's not a cardigan, it's a jacket! 

(Remembers being admonished by upper middle class family 25 years ago: "It's not a sauce Geraint! It's a jus!")

I know, I know. Only £549.

Great plastic-surgery disasters of Mayfair

Filler here, filler there; filler everywhere. The unfeasibly rich doing their utmost to reclaim their former beauty and paying the price for their vanity.

Narcissus with botox.

Some are so grotesque they look like they're wearing a plastic mask. Demonic.

Body dysmorphia - must be.

No, you look great. Honestly...

Wimbledonia

That evening I stayed with Sophie and her daughter Olivia who I hadn’t seen for years, and who is now a confident young woman. 

All the young adults I knew as kids now seem more mature than me.

We had a lovely evening. I slept for 2 hours when I got to Sophie’s as I was shattered.

We had an amazing Chinese meal from Good Earth - a London chain. Just astonishingly good quality.

I felt like sending it to the 2 Chinese takeaways in Wells to show them how it SHOULD be done, rather than the care-free slop they produce which they then puke into the plastic containers.

I heard Sophie leave around 7.30 am. I had a shower, Oscar the lovely 12 year old brown lab was unresponsive at the top of the stairs, then had a banana and a cup of tea and left. What a beautiful road - huge bay windows - and front gardens. A conservation area too. Must have been built in the 1910s. Mostly occupied by families it seemed.

I looked up the house prices on Zoopla. Wow. 

The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery

Got into Russell Sq and did my usual of going to Pret for breakfast. Always a ton of foreign students around. Sat there and watched the world go by and do its thing.

Prof Warren said while I may or may NOT have dementia, the Semantic Variant diagnosis I originally had was incorrect.

I said I felt slightly fraudulent - so do I have dementia or not? My behaviour certainly changed and I got crazy angry until the Sertraline kicked in. And I do have problems with elision of words. My brain fog is as real as ever and despite my neuropsych tests it's increasingly opaque. 

He assured me it’s nothing to feel fraudulent about. The hospital is all about anomalous cases and they want to put me in a PET scan as the last MRI scans have shown the atrophy in my lobes has STABILISED!

There is something going on and they want to get to the bottom of it. 

A PET scan will show more the workings of my brain rather than just its volume, but is subsequently also prone to more of an interpretation - such is the complexity.

I did my yearly neuropsychology tests and was told it was pretty much the same as last year’s - it certainly felt harder. More brain fog, less cognisance that I’d got the right answers, and subsequently less confidence. 

I felt I was giving a best guess rather than knowing I'd got the right answer.

So who knows what I've got? 

And that was it for another year.

 

It's Gopher Day all over again!

"Asda; call Viscount Rothermere!"

Disclaimer: there's a lot of product placement in this edition!

The other day my sister came to set up an Alexa unit. Is that what they're called? Apparently its official title is 'Amazon Echo Dot Smart Speaker.'

Alexa will do. 

(Dad is shouting "Alexa!!" as I type this!)

I couldn't remember her name. Wanted to call her 'Asda'. I knew it was wrong. Alex? I can remember Siri (Apple) and Cortana (Microsoft and Halo) but for some reason 'Alexa' eluded me. I can see the first 2 or 3 letters in my mind, know how it should feel as I mouth the syllables. I know it's a short, 2 syllable word starting with 'A'- it's obviously a name. 

I just couldn't grasp it.

(I’ve realised since typing this it’s a 3-syllable word, so that should be a good aide-mémoire should I forget it again!)

As regards my illness, I was waiting for a quantum step downwards (it's never upwards) and this appears to be it. Or maybe it's excessive beerage. Heavy drinking is essentially brain damage-inducing anyway, but I do think this is part of the dementia.

I haven't drunk THAT heavily for a while.

So I was trying to tell an old friend of the last thing I saw at the theatre which was 'Groundhog Day: The Musical', at The Old Vic. All I could see in my mind was Punxsutawney Phil being held up and his cute but gormless face, Bill Murray and the letters G-O-...hence 'Gopher'. 

Had to back track and sidle-off to the left and right in my brain, then managed to seize on the elusive 'Groundhog'. 

Know your rodents from your marmots, young lion.

Some of these words are just becoming more elusive, but I consoled myself that it took me ages to remember Frontotemporal Dementia, and that was 3 years ago.

Did I tell you I'd cleaned the driveway?

I cleaned the driveway. 

Dad was excessive in his praise of my prowess with the pressure washer.

I said 'Don't thank me, thank KARCHER!"

Took me an hour and a bit. 

How to impress girls.

Repetition, Deviation, er, er...

In fact, I am forgetting things, as I told J the above story 3 times before she told me I'd repeated myself. 

I was up in London for a meeting with the neurology bods. 

It was a bit pointless really as they'd got the photometry scans (3d scans of my brain) 2 years apart, but had yet to measure the differences. That would happen in 2 weeks. 

They could have postponed the meeting till then. I mean, they may have post-doctoral theses coming out of their bums but common sense seems to have been the price to pay.

Anyway, as usual I had to undergo a neuropsych test which I blitzed. I also pointed out a typo on the card I had to read out which had eluded everyone previously, wrote a sentence and was complimented on my handwriting, and also knew the date when asked which the neurologist had to check.

When the Prof came in he said you've probably (WTAF??) got dementia but we don't know what type.

Well, we all know I've got a dementia but it has been previously described as atypical of atypical. And as we know the brain is so complex the variables are unique to that individual.

I definitely have Pillockitis.

Udder tings...

I have been walking Tomos every weekday. He's a splendid fellow. Today I sang him 10cc songs in the style of Nico. 

You should try it at home yourselves, once you've done a professional risk-assessment of course.

I have met lots of very nice dog-walkers, and Tomos is highly sociable and wishes only to run and run with other dogs and then fall asleep at his home. 

He is a very lovely dog, and very popular.

I know other people's dogs' names, but not the owners'.

(That was an apostrophe workout!)

At the weekend at J's I met up with J, Stanley, Chippy and Wilbur. Wilbur sadly, like many of us today, also has dementia. He has tranquilisers in the evening to stop him barking at nothing at all. I looked in his eyes and he's not the same dog anymore, which is sad. His barking used to set off the other 2, but even they don't fall for it anymore. 

They know he's a demented.

DOGS KNOW.

Sir Michael Take

My new favourite spoof person on social media is the above mentioned fellow, and former MP for Dorset West. 

When Trump was elected Armando Iannucci declared 'satire is dead.' Well certainly the lines are more blurred than ever before. 

He has been quoted by The Daily Mail and GB News a few times. 

He has a wife, Bunty, who he tries to shield from coarse language, Ant and Dec, socialism and immigrants.

Did I tell you I'd cleaned the driveway?

Oh. Okay.

Yes, we're ALL Neurodivergent now

 What's your diagnosis?

Many of us have got a diagnosis these days. Lots of adults are being diagnosed rightly or wrongly with ADHD. There are lots of people on the autistic spectrum too. It seems to be getting larger. It's almost galactic in its proportions these days.

It's easy to dismiss all these things now as the latest hook to hang your coat on, as though we're all automatons devoid of free-will and and our neurological make-up is to blame for any discrepancies in our behaviour and societal misdeeds. 

Our behaviour is usually a mixture of nature and nurture, though we still have the fight or flight from our reptilian brain, there to keep us alive in extreme circumstances.

And while it's easy to mock the trendy new penchant for diagnoses later on in life, it doesn't half give you some relief. What I mean is, it can go someway to explain why you are who you are.

Disclaimer: I'm not a trans person. I've always been happy in my body and never for one moment doubted I was a male. However, I do exhibit a lot of classically non-masculine behaviours. Masking is one of them.

As a child I felt very awkward socially. What I said wouldn't go down well with the other kids - I was a follower not a leader. I was a cry-baby, and the following of others became outright copying.

A kid came to the school and I really wanted to be his friend. He seemed so confident and life was just easy for him - I thought. I don't know how he put up with me to be honest. I would have been a bit freaked out. The only things I didn't copy in the end were his taste in music (all that Goth crap!) and I couldn't get my hair to do what his did.

There were other kids I tried to be like too. But I wasn't tough or working-class or good at sport. So I didn't fit in with them either. 

I just wanted to draw things and play with Lego and play Dungeons and Dragons.

Why did I never fit in to one 'friendship group' as they call them now? To be honest I never saw the need for social cliques and I didn't really understand them, but I knew I ought to be in one. I would look at them and think - well, I like these people, and she's nice from that group - he's a nice person in that group, but you have to choose a group or you're an outsider. If you do choose a group you then like 3 of the people but the other 3 are arseholes and you just have to put up with them. 6 to one and all that.

So when I went to art school I reinvented myself with long hair (which I'd I'd always wanted) and trying to be cool, which tbh I wasn't very good at. I guess I was a late bloomer so when I was older (out of school) I was a lot more popular with the girls, which was nice. But it was all a bit of an act.

You're probably asking what does all this bollocks have to do with neurodiversity? Here's a list of my worst traits.

• Easily-distracted: can't concentrate on 70% of lessons, can't even start to revise, loathe exam times, can't read a book, 
• Lack of concentration: silly mistakes, lack of focus, 
• Copying others, behaviour, dress-sense, style,
• Oversharing, inappropriate information, too much information, wrong time, wrong place, faux-pas
• Inappropriate behaviour, saying the wrong thing, being outrageous, being obnoxious
• Oversensitive cry-baby, stress-monkey, worrisome, sleep-deprived, self-loathing
• Insensitive -smart-ass, gob-shite, harsh, hurtful

That's me. Now I'm not trained in any of this and I haven't had any diagnosis other than that of FTD, but I share a lot of the above traits with people with ADHD and those on the Autistic-Spectrum and seemingly always have done since I was little.

And while I may or may not have ADHD or be on the spectrum, at least by analysing myself and identifying the above, the elephant in the room is there for me to see it. Now I know its there I can train myself to be in the moment and identify when it is operating and either stop it or work around it. It's actually really handy for the person, not as an excuse as though to say "Yes, sorry I was being an arsehole - it's my neurodiversity" rather like the drunk would blame the bottle, but to acknowledge the signs and signifiers of behaviours and either mitigate for them or withdraw myself from a situation.

It's actually really pleasing to have this - it makes life easier and it makes liking myself a lot easier too. I'm kind and sweet-natured most of the time. I'm perceptive, a relatively original thinker and I am a very good judge of character. I'm an oddball and many of my friends are oddballs and characters. I'll help anyone who's a friend. I'm generous with my time and money. I'm all right in other words.

It's all right being a weirdo, oddball, nerd. In fact it's actually rather good.

The End of Dungeon Mastering

I've been running 2 campaigns for months and months. In fact, my Monday online group has been in the same campaign for over 2 years. But both are ending pretty much in the next couple of weeks, and I will be a player once more.

I'm a little worried that my brain will atrophy quicker now I will be sitting back letting someone else do all the hard work DMing, with all the planning, research and writing involved.

I have 2 new characters I want to use: a gnome wizard called Bibble Babble, and a Gloomstalker Ranger/Assassin for the longer in-person Sunday campaign.

Not to be confused with Babble Bibble!

I can't wait.

I will be back to DM though. It's been really good and I think I am a better Dungeon Master than I was before. You never stop learning, despite the fact you may have a leak in the knowledge banks...

Am I a fraud?

No news isn't necessarily good news...

I was going to write about Bruce Willis's recent diagnosis of FTD, but I won't because we had a meeting with the Neurology team as a follow-up to my lumbar puncture in late November and I know more about us than him.

The neurology team had sent a letter we hadn't received as a follow up from the lumbar puncture. They told us in its absence, that the tests had shown up no signifiers. This is more than likely, good news.

They did a quick neuropsychology test which as usual I performed with flying colours.

They said the MRI from 2 years ago and the most recent one showed no obvious increased atrophy in the frontal or temporal lobes, but did in the Hippocampus. They are going to use an AI program to 3d model one image over the other to get a more accurate picture of my brain.

They said they didn't know for sure what my dementia was - Behavioural or Semantic variant or other, and that in time it will show itself, but for now my dementia symptoms (searched long and hard for that word!) are atypical with any one dementia and are mild.

I'm due an MRI scan in July again.

As for the replaying of events over and over in my head and me shouting out for them to fuck off, that could well be a psychiatric problem.

When we got home I checked my email and paperwork. 

Despite my illness I'm still very organised compared with most people.

I put all my medical correspondence in the green box file. The letter isn't there, nor do I ever recall seeing it. They said they'd emailed it too. Nope. Been waiting months for it too. I would have known if it had arrived.

Who cares for the carers?

J has taken yesterday really badly with another sleepless night. 

No definites - no tangibles - from the best neurology department in the country.

She no longer has a husband. Just this child. What is the future? How can she plan? This isn't what she signed up for. And am I making it up? 

She's not so sure it seems. 

Geraint earlier today

That old adage of walking a mile in someone else's shoes. Very difficult to do of course. The nearest thing I can do to communicate where I am is write this blog.

What with work, family and the house, and the lack of sleep that induces, J doesn't have time to write a blog.

This aspect of the disease and how it affects others is horrible.

I don't want to put words in J's mouth, but it's clear to see how awful this is for her.

So do I have dementia?

Well, I'm finding reading more difficult. It's more of a mechanical process and I don't always ingest the message of the writing. I will sometimes start at the last paragraph then impatiently dart to a previous paragraph, then to others, not completing the article, and then move to a different article entirely which will hopefully garner my undivided attention.

I can't cope with work. Haven't really been able to for years. Fyfe was doing everything by the end.

I leave lights and the oven hob on. I discover unfinished tasks, and search for things I never used to lose.

I need to make notes about a D&D session so I know it really well. I open my notepad and the notes are already there. A vague recollection of doing it; the names and contents are familiar, but I don't know it well enough to run it, but I end up doing it anyway because I can't knuckle down to study for the reasons above. 

More mistakes but the players don't know and are  - hopefully - still enjoying it.

I'm just being rude when I think I'm being funny. I can't do light and noise like I used to. I just want to get out of party-situations, which I used to love.

I don't want to go out or do anything, apart from games and TV. I obsess about something for a while then another thing after that. 

I'm more absent-minded and my short-term memory is going. I lose words, take ages to find them straining my brain, then forget them again in seconds.

I flap at anything unfamiliar. I can't deal with stress at all. I feel the physical effects - brain-stalls, headache and blood-pressure sky-rocketing almost instantly. I can't take this in. Got to get out. So I walk away.

Is it part-Alzheimers, part FTD, part Semantic Variant? I think a bit of all of them. 

But even putting one name to it - does that even really help? As we know dementia can have a name but it brings out very different behaviours in the sufferer. 

Floating in the void.