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Open letter to grandmother with Alzheimer’s
A letter written by a granddaughter to her granny with Alzheimer’s touched so many people across the county when Laura Byrne went on the Keith Finnegan Show on Galway Bay fm to read it on air. Laura, who lives in Portumna and studies in Dublin, was writing about her granmother Julia Carmel, who celebrated a special birthday that her illness meant she knew nothing about. Here is that letter in full:
My Nana is 80 today. She doesn’t know that because she has Alzheimer’s. She has not recognized us since the age of 72. She has not been able to speak since the age of 76.
She has not been able to feed herself since the age of 77, and she has not been able to walk since the age of 78. All of these things, she now forgets how to do.
Born in the year 1935, she had a tough life. She raised six children in a tough part of inner city Dublin, as well as running her own business. All the hardship aside, there wasn’t a person more positive or uplifting.
She took care of us when we were little. She took care of us when we were sick. She took care of us when our parents were sick. She taught me how to tie my shoelaces.
Unfortunately, Alzheimer’s is not just forgetting someone’s name, mixing up which grandchild is which, or forgetting your own age. It is much more than that, as we have experienced over the past eleven years.
Her husband passed away six years ago. Due to her condition, she could not even attend the funeral. We told her he was gone. She did not understand. She no longer knew his name, or who he was after 50 years of marriage.
Julia Carmel at 17 years of age
It is heartbreaking to see her son embrace her, and to see nothing register on her face. She does not remember how to return a hug. She cannot say hello, and the man sitting beside her is now a stranger, no longer her child to her.
I cannot fathom how it must be to not be able to voice your thoughts or feelings. When you are ill, who is going to know? How long before anyone realizes?
No longer vibrant or active, my Nana is now confined to a padded wheelchair and sometimes a padded bed with railings. She no longer has the power to keep her own head upright, and stares at the floor or ceiling on a daily basis.
With Alzheimer’s patients, there is often an aggressive stage they go through. My Nana was no different.
On one visit, I was greeted with screams and shouts as she shook in her bed. She pushed me away, all the while cursing me. I had been rejected. I was 16. I left the room teary eyed and red faced. I am her granddaughter but she does not know that. I took a few moments outside her room to catch my breath and compose myself.
Then I returned to her bedside, kissed her on the cheek, stroked her hair and held her hand. This time, I was greeted with a small faraway smile. It was like I was a completely different person to a few minutes beforehand. Because, to her, I was.
Now in these past few years, she has become a lot more relaxed and subdued. But again, with time, comes rapid deterioration. On visits, we are lucky to receive any eye contact, let alone a smile. There are good days, when we get a few seconds of eye contact every so often. She may smile, and we may even get a little giggle out of her.
Those are the great days, and the days that make it worthwhile and balance the rest. Then there are the not so good days, when for an entire hour she will make no eye contact or reaction. It’s like you have become invisible and are not there.
I like to sing, and I like to think I got that from my nana. For as long as I can remember, she always sang; in church choirs, around the house, and she had a beautiful voice.
I have fond memories of being sung to sleep by her, so sometimes when I sit with her now, I sing. Not too loud so as to startle her, but lightly. For some reason, this sometimes creates eye contact. She may look up and look around for the source, and when she finds me, she locks eyes.
Other times I sing, and nothing happens. I sing to what feels like an empty room, and my voice resonates off the walls back to me, a horrible tin echo. But it is worth it for the times she hears me. She does not recognize us, and we struggle to get any reaction out of her on every visit, but it is not her fault. She does not know what she is doing or what is going on around her.
Every single day, I try to remember her the way she was. I do not want Alzheimer’s to define her. She is a person separate from the disease, even if we do not see that person anymore. Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease I wish there was a cure for, and I will never stop hoping that one is found.
Every family that goes through this, I feel deeply for. It is crushing to look at someone who cared for me when I was young and vulnerable, and see how vulnerable she has become.
There is no stopping this disease. There isn’t even a way of slowing it down for her anymore. It is too advanced and has too much control.
When someone dies, we cope by grieving. It is a loss. What do you do when you’ve lost someone, not physically, but they are no longer really there.
Today is her birthday but she does not know. I am her granddaughter but she does not know.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
