Extreme Knitting Redhead: It's all go now

Monday, April 19, 2010

It's all go now

Last week was rather busy with media stuff - On Friday morning I did a live interview with Danny Pike on BBC Radio Sussex which I'll try and put on here later ( not having much success so far!). They had being doing a live interview/phone-in with Gordon Brown and I came on after that. Many thanks to my boss who allowed me to do this in his office at work.

Then there was an interview with the Kent and East Sussex Courier plus an added bonus in that the Hastings and Battle Observers both printed the Press Release from the Alzheimer's Research Trust.

On Friday evening Mike and I drove over to Brighton to do a quick live interview with Simon Parkin, the weatherman for ITV Meridian. That was fun!

Apparently vans are in short supply at the moment as everyone is out and about following politicians ahead of the General Election so I think this one deserves a photo.

On these occasions there is always a lot of hanging around waiting - not at all glamourous. Mike and I got there early to avoid the friday night rush on the roads. This meant there was even more hanging around to do and after we'd walked around the park we just went and sat in the car until it was nearly time.

Here's the team.

The microphone was attached to me.

I explained that knitting involved 2 sticks and crochet only had one hook. It's not easy explaining everything in about 1 minute!

I took one of my scarves with me which Simon wore and we chatted briefly about my plan to crochet around the London marathon.

Sadly this lead to a bit of confusion at the Brighton marathon as people kept shouting "Hey Redhead, where's your knitting?!"

We stood in our places to check the light/shadows/sound levels etc.

Then it was the live broadcast. I prefer live broadcasts as you don't have time to worry about what you're going to say.

More about the marathon to follow, suffice to say it was FAB.

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Mum's Story

In 1997 my mother, then aged 81, had a series of minor strokes. Shortly after that we started to notice behavioural changes notably memory loss and confusion over everyday items. We thought it was just old age finally catching up with her. Then she started wandering and had violent mood swings. Although she already lived with us it became obvious that she couldn't be left alone for long and so I left my job to care for her. The next few years saw a gradual decline into the blackness that is 'vascular dementia'. My normally placid mum became violent and aggressive. She had psychotic incidents where she would see imaginary people (children hiding in her wardrobe, Russians sitting on the stairs, women stealing her clothes) and she would shout at them and sometimes throw things too. She was so convincing that we used to go and check that there wasn't anyone there! When my sister died mum did not know who Judy was or that she was her daughter. There came a point when I suddenly realised she no longer knew that I was her daughter and this was a terrible time for me. In the last 2 years that she lived with us, life for us all became almost unbearable as she needed 24 hour care - she couldn't be left alone at all because she would either wander off or hurt herself, she never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time during the night, she became incontinent and incapable of doing anything for herself. Finally my husband and I realised that we could no longer provide her with the care that she needed and she went to live in a special care home where the team did a splendid job caring for her in the last few months of her life. There she lived a zombified existence unaware of who she was, what she was or where she was. It was heartbreaking. She died in March 2005, the day after her 89th birthday.

Thank you for taking the time to read mum's story and I hope you'll dig deep and sponsor me using the link below to help find a way of beating this destructive disease.