Elsie's Experience and Volunteering at Dementia Adventurers

Speaker 1 0:01 Hi, Elsie, thank you for being willing to share your story with us. Speaker 2 0:05 So can I ask about your volunteering experience with St Michael's and at the wellbeing hub? Please. It's absolutely brilliant, because when my husband Wally had Alzheimer's and I'd looked after him for 10 years, I got quite isolated, and I came to church, was introduced to the group here, Speaker 1 0:27 new friends, new faces, wonderful. So I'd just love to take part, and it just just gives me purpose in life. Speaker 2 0:36 What's your favorite bit of volunteering at St Michael's in the hub? I Speaker 1 0:41 haven't got a favorite bit. I love absolutely all of it, from jacket potatoes to serving teas to playing games, the whole lot. Can you Speaker 2 0:49 tell us about Dementia Adventures? Because it would be lovely to about dementia Speaker 1 0:53 adventurous. Yeah, it's a small group at moment, because it's still quite new, but it's lovely to talk to the people caring for the people with dementia, because that's obviously very important. Swap experiences makes little tips, helpful or not, and it's nice to be able to talk to them, sort of on their not on their level, but on the way that they can understand, because they need to be spoken to more slowly so their brain can work it all out. It's nice when you see that flash of recognition in an eye that tells if they've engaged with what you've been saying to them. Yeah. Speaker 2 1:33 Do you think your own personal experiences help with what you're doing? Get Dementia Adventures? Absolutely. Hugely. Yeah, hugely. Do you think there's enough provision for dementia experiences, and more importantly, or as importantly, their carers? Speaker 1 1:49 No, I don't think there is, because I felt very lonely, very isolated, and I did have a memory nurse come, but she only came once a month. And yeah, she could be helpful tips and whatnot. But on the whole, I felt I was very alone. My husband got so that he was very anti social, really. He didn't want to speak, he didn't want left alone. He didn't want people coming into the house. So I was very, very much alone. Yeah, so Speaker 2 2:17 you do the Dementia Adventures, and obviously people do attend it when you were there with your husband, wouldn't Dementia Adventures have been really useful for you. Speaker 1 2:27 I think it would start at the very end. My want to engage, and I couldn't come without him, because he wouldn't accept anyone else to come in and look after him. So yeah, but it's the stigma, and that needs to go, because people who knew him well that was fine, but people who didn't know him would look really askance, not recognizing that he had got a memory problem. Speaker 2 2:58 Is there something you would like to say to those slightly higher up the chain, what did? What? What advice would you like to offer them? Speaker 1 3:06 I don't think I'm in a position to offer them any advice really. Yeah, I don't know what more they could do, because it people's circumstances are so different, and the way dementia develops is so different, and I don't really know what more in my circumstances could have been done. Yeah, because even even when the memory nurse came, it got so in the end, he didn't even want her, so he just isolated himself and isolated me, and there's nothing we could do to break out of that, right? Yeah, apart from going for a walk, more walks, more walks. Maybe, if it had been a walking group and we both could have gone together, then you would have done that. I think, I think he would have done that. Speaker 2 3:58 Excellent. Thank you, Elsie. Elsie, anything else you want to tell me at all about the experience of volunteering with St Michael's or the volunteering groups at St Michael's, all Speaker 1 4:10 I can say is, I get so much out of it for myself. It's just brilliant, Speaker 2 4:16 fabulous. Thank you so much, Elsie, for sharing your story. You're very welcome. You.