Assessing assets City of Nanaimo looks at infrastructure costs. PAGE 7 Auditor starts New officer’s first probe set for municipal spending. PAGE 13 Food Matters People must stand up in support of food security. PAGE 3
Buccaneers win big PAGE 26
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VOL. 24, NO. 112
NANAIMO
Dealing with dementia
JENN JEN N MCGAR ARRIG A GLE L THE H NEWS BULLE ULLE LETIN TIN
Constanta Jarvis doesn’t let fear take over when faced with challenges from her disease BY JENN M C GARRIGLE THE NEWS BULLETIN
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ome days, buying groceries can turn into a humiliating ordeal for Constanta Jarvis. On occasion, the 75-year-old Nanaimo woman has had to hold out her hand like a child and allow the cashier to pick out the coins needed because halfway through counting, Jarvis forgot how much the cashier said she owed. Meanwhile, the lineup is getting longer and other customers are getting more and more frustrated as she struggles to pay. “And you’re feeling stupider and smaller by the second,” said Jarvis. Jarvis has dementia – a progressive degenerative disease of the brain characterized by loss of memory, judgment and reasoning, and changes in mood and behaviour. She was diagnosed with vascular dementia – caused by strokes – in 2004, after struggling in the years leading up to the diagnosis to do all the things she previously enjoyed such as interior decorating and design, drafting and gardening. “I just seemed to be having troubles in all aspects of my
life,” said Jarvis. “Nothing was consistent. Some days you would be performing quite normally.” She describes her experience with the disease as like swimming along and then all of a sudden, realizing that you can’t swim anymore, that you’re in dangerous territory and you don’t know how to get out of the situation without looking foolish. Jarvis can remember all of the places she’s lived, but some of the names are gone. Paperwork is her greatest challenge – she has problems understanding business letters, understanding and filling out forms, and keeping track of it all, so she keeps as organized as possible. She sometimes has to set aside a novel because she’ll be halfway through reading a sentence and realize she didn’t remember the sentence before. “Sometimes I have to just leave things for weeks,” said Jarvis. “The secret is not to give up on yourself, not to let the fear take over.” Around family and strangers, she tries to avoid the topic of her disease because she can tell that others are uncomfortable about it. ◆ See ‘BIGGEST’ ‘ /5
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