By my LBD friend Curry Whisenhunt on February 12, 2017 (LBD = Lewy Body Dementia):

When most people hear the word dementia, they are of the mindset that it is an aging process and only effects the memory…….

Most of you know I was diagnosed with a form of dementia, it’s called Lewy body dementia. Yes at the age of 56 I recieved my diagnosis, believe it or not I was relieved to be diagnosed, I had gone through 8 months of different test with 5 different Doctors, and I’m one of the lucky ones who got a “quick” diagnosis.

I was a over the road truck driver and hadn’t felt well in about 2 years. In January of 2016 I started hallucinating fairly regular, they ranged from a man riding on my driverside trying to get in, to broke down semis in the middle of the highway in front of me, they were very vivid, looking back now, in the previous 2 years I had been through at least one delusional period where somehow I had driven the truck approximately 60 miles while I was having an episode, and had hallucinated people and animals walking in front of my truck while going down the road.

I had lost my breath for 70 straight days, I stay confused and in a fog constantly, I have trouble concentrating on anything very long, oand remembering things short term, I suffer with severe depression, I’ve acted my dreams out a couple of times, my eyes water 24 hours a day, it got to where while driving I would have periods of not knowing where I was all of a sudden while going through familiar areas. Along with all of this, now days I have periods where I freeze up, unable to move arms or legs or my head, I can see but not hear or speak when I freeze up. Some will wonder why I am telling all of this, well, it’s because I want people to know that Lewy body dementia is not just a memory thing, there are so many other things that go with it that people who are close don’t even see.

We can be fine one minute and totally confused and unable to complete a sentence another minute, we have what they call “show time” which I suffered from at Christmas, where I was mostly fine while all my family was here, but when they left, I crashed and went to the darkest dark place I could go and stayed there several days and am still trying to pull all the way out of it. Just going to town wears me out and I’m liable to sleep 2 or 3 days afterwards. It seems as though the bad times last longer as this thing goes, but the good Lord does give me some decent days. Some of you have heard all this before at different times, but I just want people to realize that it’s not just a memory thing, it can be a living hell, not just for those living with LBD but also those who take care of us, it affects the entire family and close friends.

The main reason for this story is to let people know Lewy Body Dementia isn’t just a memory thing, all the other things I spoke of go with it, plus, some I haven’t experienced yet. So if you’ve heard my story before I apologize. I just want folks to know, as some reading this will suffer this same illness in the future I’m afraid. I know this is long, but there’s even more I could say about this but will end this here.
Curry’s index for blog pages is at https://truthfulkindness.com/index-persons-with-dementia-pwd/curry-whisenhunt/

 

Curry: Feel free to use anything you like tru  (2017-05/21 via FB-PM)

Tru: For picture to go with it, should i use your current FaceBook profile picture?

Curry: That’s fine yes ma’am (2017-05/21 via FB-PM)

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