A big life change

Peter’s story

When my wife Linda was diagnosed with dementia, our lives changed suddenly. It was 2016 and Linda was caring for me after I’d had a stroke. I’d noticed she was having issues with her memory and for a while we put it down to stress. But as I got better, she seemed to get worse.

Eventually Linda was diagnosed aged 64 with posterior cortical atrophy – a rare form of Alzheimer’s that doctors said was caused by repeated minor blows to the back of the head. This could have been from a minor car accident about 40 years ago, and more recently when Linda fell a few times in icy weather and hit her head.

Almost overnight our roles seemed to switch and I became Linda’s carer. We lived in Canada at that time but in 2017 we moved back home to be near family in the Dumfries area.

Linda has always been fiercely independent and in the early stages of her illness I tried to support her to do as much as possible on her own. But as her condition progressed she needed more and more help. This could be very frustrating for her as she was so used to doing things for herself.

As well as caring for Linda day-to-day with the help of family, one of the biggest challenges was getting to grips with social services and learning how the system works. That was a steep learning curve and was a lot to deal with on top of everything else going on.

We had good support from Alzheimer Scotland who gave us lots of useful information and we also attended groups at the local centre.

Linda was hospitalised in 2023 and things were so stressful that I ended up in hospital with exhaustion. It was then I knew Linda needed full time professional care. It was a tough decision but I knew that I couldn’t look after her if I didn’t take care of my own health.

Linda is well looked after in a care home now and I visit her as often as I can. I’ve learned over the years that it’s important for carers to look after themselves. I try to make sure I sleep enough, eat well and get some exercise and time to myself.

Linda and I used to do so many things together, but I’m slowly getting used to doing things on my own, and try to make time for days out with family and friends. I can’t change what’s happening with Linda and there’s no good me sitting at home feeling sorry for myself.

I also started volunteering for Alzheimer Scotland and hope that by sharing my experiences as a carer that I can help others in a similar situation.

It can be a huge change in your life to adapt to but help is out there, so don’t try to go through it alone.