When was the last time you really cried?  I mean like really?

In the spirit of Dementia Awareness Week here is a little more about the very serious event which changed everything, allowing us to get a diagnosis, just in a rather traumatic way (it’s never easy is it! Lol)

Now I am not much of a crier I will give you that. But I was watching a drama where one actors had to pretend to really cry down the phone, and then at the end of this drama another actor was meant to be inconsolably crying.

And I find I always relate it back to myself and let my mind wander, like how I could never do that as I can’t act, it’s always written all over my face what I think. But also when was the last time that happened to me, like actually and wonder how actors get in that head space.

When you were a kid and you could cry on demand, I always thought of my dad, don’t ask me why, I just did and maybe I could crack out a tear to fool a teacher. But the first and hopefully last time I inconsolably cried was Jan 2016 when I realised my dad was missing.

I had just done my CBT motorbike training and it was late but I got my mother to drop me off at my dad’s new place. I had to move him across the road from his old place as everyone was getting kicked out but at this stage he was showing signs of memory loss and confusion and in the hope to keep him independent, if he lives directly opposite where he lived it might be easier.

So I have my own keys and let myself in.  The light is on and it’s lovely and warm. So I automatically think this isn’t like dad, he is tight with every penny he spends on himself, including the heating. Now this I was a bedsit kind of situation and I come through the door curtain to see he isn’t there. I check the bathroom, the kitchen, even the laundry room at this stage!

Then I call his phone(s) and I hear them. They were under his bedding. Then I see his shoes he wears all the time and his coat. And his keys on the bed. But no father.

If I am honest I don’t remember a lot around the room or anything like that other than needing to be calm and ring around some people. I call one of his good mates who he often goes round to see and watch telly with and have the company. She goes on to tell me she had seen him last night. It was pouring with rain and he knocks at her house without a coat, wet through saying he doesn’t know where he lives. She tells me she sits him down, gives him tea and gets him warm. But he didn’t stay long, he just said that he is fine and he knows what he is doing and he leaves. What she was describing happened a full 24 hours before this. And I freak.

I think he must be dead, what if his cold little body has sat down in a corner last night and just frozen. That was it and I couldn’t breathe and my body automatically just bend over with emotion. There was nothing I could do to be rational about this and made noises I am not sure I realised a human could make. At this stage I am alone in my dad flat who I have jumped to the conclusion of him being dead. Or still walking around looking homeless not knowing his name and scared shitless.

I got my shit together to call another one of my dad’s close friends and to cut a long story short he came straight around and his wife called the hospitals and we found him.

Getting to the hospital I tried to keep it together but when he is very agitated and is trying to leave and saying the police are keeping him there and trying to pull out the drip from his arm, blood everywhere, it was all a bit strange and I needed a few minutes. But I am not sure what I would of done without one of dads closest friends who did a lot for him and me in the months after this, But it’s safe it say I don’t ever want to be that upset again. And who knows maybe he will (who am I kidding defiantly will) at some stage do this to me again, or maybe it will be too gradual for all that. Either way, we will see.

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