Sunday 31 July 2011

JULIE DIED DEMENTED

Some months after Linda died, her carer was involved with helping Joe Lari of 3 Angels Care with people suffering from HIV/AIDS. There were several young women at the Centre and in the final stages of the virus.

They were thin with hair falling out making them look like old women of 85 years. There was no ARV in those days. The people on the drugs are now able to start a new life.

Joe had one extra young woman but no space. I volunteered to help her by allowing her to stay at my home. Her name was Julie (not her real name) She was the sister-in-law of a senior parliamentarian at that time.

When his brother died of AIDS, he took his sister-in-law wrapped in a blanket and dumped her. She was found and passed on to the Provincial AIDS Office.

She came to my house and lived for 6 weeks before she died. That was really hard work. I did not know what I was getting myself into.

She used to wander around. The problem is that with dementia, she may not be able to find her way back. Such people can wander like lost sheep. If they leave the house, they may not be able to return.

One night she asked to be let out of the iron security door to the kitchen to wash her clothes in the laundry.

I went back to work on the computer and suddenly realized that there was no sound of washing. She was gone. I searched the streets but with no success.

At about 3.00am, there was a knock at the door. It was Julie come back. She said she had never left but was sitting under the house playing cards with a group of men. This lady was demented.

Later she told the neighbour that she was playing and won K1500. Then the police arrived and arrested the white man. She went down to Boroko police station and bailed him out. It cost her K1500. He must have done something really bad.

Some days later, she advised that her room had been attacked by raskols in the night and they had stolen all her goods. But she was saved by the Prime Minister who came to the window in a helicopter.

These are what are called delusions or hallucinations. With delusions, we only think. With hallucinations, we actually see people as in a dream.

CBMB Research
These include HIV-1 associated dementia (Pulliam, Rempel), smoking/asthma (Fahy,
Woodruff), airway remodeling (Arjomandi), antibiotic resistance and ...

www.epibiostat.ucsf.edu/biostat/cbmb/projects/ - Cached - Similar

Columbus OH Neurologist Doctors - Dementia Symptoms, Types, Stages ...
10 Jul 2011 – Symptoms depend on the type of dementia the individual suffers. ...
Robert Ted Woodruff 750 Mt Carmel Mall ..... HIV is a type of virus called a
retrovirus, which infects humans when it .... Risk factors for TIA include
vascular disease, smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. ...
www.medicinenet.com › ... › dementia indexdementia article - Cached - Similar


AIDS dementia complex - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
AIDS dementia complex (ADC; also known as HIV dementia, HIV
encephalopathy, HIV-associated dementia and HIV-associated
neurocognitive disorder) is a common ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
AIDS_dementia_complex - Cached - Similar

Her health dropped over the weeks. My children said that Julie used to go through my trouser pockets and take money to smoke. She liked to sit outside under the house. Then the smoke would drift away. The cigarettes helped in her rapid decline in health.

Cigarette smoking by HIV infected individuals is associated with a ...
Cigarette smoking by HIV infected individuals is associated with a more rapid
... BACKGROUND: Cigarette smoking has many effects on immune function, ...

gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/102199827.html - Cached - Similar

Tobacco use and nicotine dependence among HIV-infected and ...
26 Sep 2010 ... INTRODUCTION: Urban U.S. populations are burdened
by intersecting epidemics of HIV infection, injection drug use, and
cigarette smoking. ...www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20875704

She preferred to sleep on the ground outside. So a mattress was placed under a tree. Then she would urinate and defaecate on the sheets and mattress. It would all stink. And she would stink.

I would carry her to the bathroom like a giant stick insect. It is not good for a man to be washing a woman’s private parts. All she had to do would be to cry rape and the trouble would only just be starting. Her dementia may start her thinking that way.

On her last night, I awoke to find Julie gasping for air. She could not breathe. It may be that the virus and smoking had finally destroyed her immune system and red blood cells. Her water-salt balance did not exist any more. It may have been tuberculosis.

She was suffocating. I sat beside her until she died. Then I wrapped her body in a sheet and took her to the morgue.

FAMILY POSITIVE LIVING - AIDS HOLISTICS
28 Mar 2011 ... his son Damon in about 1993. He was infected with HIV ...
Posted by HIV/AIDS: FAMILY POSITIVE LIVING at 16:46 · Email
This BlogThis! ...familypositiveliving.blogspot.com/.../
case-study-in-aids-dementia-dementia_1904.html - Cached - Similar

There are deep similarities between the demented responses of Julie, Linda and Damon.  All thought they were being hunted to be killed by evil forces. The story of Damon Courtenay was written by his father and family  after he died of AIDS in 1993.

Amazon.com: April Fool's Day (9780140272932): Bryce Courtenay: Books
The author of THE POWER OF ONE celebrates the life of his son Damon, a
haemophiliac, who died from medically acquired AIDS at the age of 24. ...

www.amazon.com/April-Fools-Day...Courtenay/.../0140272933 - Cached - Similar

No comments:

Post a Comment