Dear LPG, 

I would like to tell a story today…

I am an older pensioner in my late 80s but I still get out of the house at least every other day, although I have to say that it is becoming a bit of a struggle.    Over recent years I have become one of three very close friends.  We don’t live too far away from each other and talk to each other every day. 

I often wonder what we find to talk about but it is surprising the subjects that are covered.  By the time we talk about this and that and then go over conversations we have had with the member of our club who is not on the phone at the time, those telephone calls last for an average length of 50 minutes which I only know because when I use my mobile phone it tells me how long we have been talking.  

We all live with children but the children get busy and there are large chunks of the day when It feels like each of us live alone.  we all know that we have a lot to give God thanks for although we do a lot of complaining while putting the world to rights with the receiver to our ear.

This being the norm you can imagine how worried I was to get a call from one of them who, immediately started saying all sorts of things that caused me serious alarm.  The phone rang quite early in the morning which was a bit worrying and the usually calm voice that I am used to hearing was hurried and showed signs of serious distress which could be heard strait away.    

She was talking about not being able to find her cat but seeing lots of others in the bottom of her wardrobe.  That news was interrupted by her telling me about the scorpions which were crawling around on her bed and according to her, they were big.  She kept interrupting what she was telling me to chastise some children who, according to her, were sitting at the bottom of her bed.  

I phoned our other friend and we decided to visit quickly although none of us are as quick as we used to be but with the help of our children’s cars, it took an hour or so to arrive.   

Her son was away overnight and walking is becoming really painful for her but she got to her front door and let us in eventually.  Then it was strait back to her bedroom where she was worried about the cats pooing at the bottom of her wardrobe and she continued pulling the contents out in a bid to find them.  We two could see nothing at all but there was no convincing her.  we were torn between telling her this and upsetting her more or going along with it.  In the end we said something about our eyes not working well on the day.  We were being asked to help her get the children out of the room while my daughter was accused of sitting in a chair on top of one OF them, and she could not understand why we could not see the scorpions properly.  

We phoned two of her daughters and sat with her but the looking for cats and pointing out of scorpions continued while we waited.

This is a friend who is perfectly lucid most of the time and, I know that dementia happens but surely not over night! 

In the end, we two friends left her daughters to it because we and our child-chauffeurs seemed to be confusing the issue even more.  It was on the way home that I remember thinking that we had lost the third member of our club overnight, but not so.

111 was called and we soon heard from her daughters who told us that she was suffering from a urinary tract infection.  A couple of days later, after some treatment, she was absolutely fine again.  She tells us that she remembers all the things she thought she was seeing, and knew that it was all pretty impossible, but to her it was all so real at the time.

For our friend it was scorpions, children and cats but I have since heard about someone who suddenly found that their bed was a boat which he needed help to steer away from the sharks.   For yet another person who has been affected, it was a case of thieves she could see in her back garden.  According to her they were aiming to break into her house and the scenarios go on… 

Having seen the effects first hand. I thought it worth mentioning just in case this ever happens to the friend of an unsuspecting LPG reader.  

DO, Bellingham

LPG found a little information…

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