Friday, March 2, 2007

A worrying evening

I have previously mentioned a friend who is suffering from Parkinson's Disease and Lewy Body Disease. His wife is off to a family wedding in Sydney and he reluctantly agreed to spend a week in respite at a nearby care facility.

The family took him to the centre at about 5pm yesterday. By 6pm he had thrown a chair through a plate glass window and escaped. Six carloads of friends were mobilised in an effort to find him before dark. He is not capable of walking far and we were hopeful of finding him close to the care centre. By 8.30pm we all had given up, hoping that some nearby resident had taken him in and settled him down with a nice cuppa. Then around 9pm his wife received a phone call from a lady who had noticed a bruised and disoriented elderly man shuffling around the Perth bus terminal. She managed to get his name and phone number from him and rang his wife. He was collected by daughter number 3 and her partner.

I have just talked with him and he told of his little adventure and how he had to walk some distance and cadge money off people for a bus fare. He is being looked after by a roster of his children; which was probably the way to go in the first place.

My feeling is that he had surmised that his wife had made arrangements to leave him there permanently and decided that he wasn't having a bar of it. I will visit him tomorrow.

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