Mary: It doesn't bother me being old, I mean I think to myself eighty eight is one hell of an age
really isn't it, you know, eighty seven, you know. How did I get here you know, what has
been happening and then of course I remember all these things that have been happening
you know.
That was me at the age of three and that's subsequently when I was training as a nursery nurse.
I had been concerned for about a year and I have several times said to my doctor 'I'm
worried about my memory'. Finally she said well I can arrange for you to go and see this
doctor, they did tests and they would ask you questions and things which a lot of them
I could answer perfectly well, other things that I, the ones that I could never do were
particularly 'I'm going to mention three things to you' and I just knew I couldn't remember
them at all.
CT brain scan report dated February the, February 2011 which revealed marked disproportionate
atrophy of the brain the over all appearance would support a clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.
Well it's, it's a sort of death sentence thing you know. It's not, you don't drop dead but
you just gradually fall to pieces. Bits of your brain just stop working all the way around,
I've looked at photographs of it but somehow it doest actually mean very much, because
I can't, I just know that, that's what's happening and its absolutely bloody maddening, you know,
you can imagine.
I can pick up the bus, there's one bus that comes along here and goes round into the main
street and goes on to Leamington and I go in and I can, there are buses all up on both
sides of the street with those and the same here and they are every 15 minutes which is
brilliant. You need to put your hand up; I have had them go shooting passed because I
didn't get my hand up in time.
When I have held up my little ticket thing sometimes there's a, there's a sort of shutter
down and they look at you and I am not quite sure what I am supposed to do with it you
know. There's nothing to put it on and you have to hand it to them and I never know which
way up they want and one or two of them joked and sort of said other way up you know and
the ticket doesn't come out and then I don't know why. What I do notice is they vary very
much in how long they give you to get to your seat if your getting on perhaps that's the
other thing because the buses are incredibly jerky and they're having to stop all the time
along here and going through town and so on you know your knowing it's going to stop in
a minute and then there will be the big jerk and I always joke with people you know that.
I did land ups on one time and landing up on one poor man who was sitting there on the
end seat you know and I'm in his arms more or less, not that he seemed to mind you know
it was, it made me very careful so I do hold on to things all the time.
Normally there's the driver and one of them I did see with a very old, very little frail
woman went to get out and she was going very slowly and he was waiting to go and he shut
the door and her hand got caught in it and I though that is terrible. He opened it again
and she seemed to be all right but I thought my god, so whenever now I always say to people
you know if there are several people getting out I say I'm, you know do go first because
I am rather slow and I say to the driver I'm afraid I am rather slow because one or two
of them don't seem to be very aware of it there not actually looking at you at all they
just wanted to get on, you know.
Well I'm quite normal a lot of the time it's just that I can't very well remember things,
you know and I just say that now that's why I prefer to tell people because it explains.
I suppose it is really patience on there part and particularly on this route because there
are so many retired people here.
Interviewer: What would be the main thing you would improve?
Mary: Oh that they would all be nice and jolly and greet you with a smile and courtesy really
you know that's the word isn't it.