In my beginning…

… is my end (T.S. Elliott)

[image error]Aslan

I wasn’t going to make a big song and dance about my recent dementia diagnosis but everyone has been so very kind and lovely that I had to write a BIG thank you note.

In case anyone missed it, my brain is deteriorating rapidly and my last MRI scan showed the results normally associated with an 80-year-old. This is only going to get worse and my time left is limited. Details – the blood vessels in my brain are getting very thin indeed and so the chances of a major stroke or heart failure get higher and higher.

I’ve had post-stroke symptoms for some time. You may remember where I told you that at my last MRI in 2014, the specialist and I couldn’t decide if I was post-stroke or early Multiple Sclerosis and we almost tossed a coin for it. At least now I know it isn’t MS. I will become progressively more clumsy, disorientated, forgetful, and incapable. That’s OK, I’m used to it by now.

The only time I got scared was when my darling GP said “WHEN you have to go into the “Home” in Champlitte” rather than “if”. It’s a geriatric facility and although I know most of the people in there now, chances are they won’t recognise me. No, sorry, I’m not going in there.

When the time comes, and I will know when it does, I shall go home to Narnia. I know I will because Aslan has promised me. I’ve done my best to turn my lil village into a Narnia so one day I shall go back there.

[image error]I have lived my life knowing I won’t make old bones and doing nothing at all to prevent that prediction. I smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish and accepted every dangerous bet made to me. I’ve flown planes, ridden motorbikes, abseiled, wind-surfed, competed in three-day events (horses) and generally done all I can to get dropped on my head. It started at the age of 15 when I when feet first down a cliff, landed on a rock, buggered my spine and fractured my skull which all resulted in a three-day coma which was good practice for the three-week one I had after my last serious motorbike accident, where, of course, I also landed on my head.

I will be reaping as I sowed and…know what? It’s fine. I could have been careful and good, not lived aboard a boat or chased my dreams around the world but it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun, I wouldn’t have learned as much and therefore…I have no regrets. I’ll leave as I’ve lived, maybe not a Hell’s Angel anymore but one helluva Hell’s Granny.