Judy - Interview 22

Age at interview: 71

Brief Outline:

Judy had a period of sleeping very badly, whilst looking after her brother who had dementia, she is now sleeping much better. She generally sleeps about 4-5 hours a night, but has always done this so feels it is the right amount of sleep for her.

Background:

Judy is separated and is a retired retail assistant. She has five children and 15 grandchildren.

More about me...

Judy found that when she was looking after her brother, who had dementia, that she barely slept at all because she was concerned he would be up and wondering about the house at night.

 

Judy often gets up at about 5 am, so finds that by midday she is very tired and may fall asleep for half an hour or so whilst watching TV at lunchtime, but Judy includes this in her daily total sleep time. As far as she can remember Judy has never slept for more than 4 or 5 hours a night, but feels this is okay for her. A perfect night’s sleep for Judy would be 11 pm to 9 am with only a couple of interruptions and very occasionally this may happen, but not very often.

 

Judy used to have terrible cramp in her calf at night, but the nurse at her doctor’s surgery advised her to drink tonic water and she finds this really works.

 

Judy wears hearing aids during the day, but takes them out at night, although sometimes she imagines she can hear noises and this can keep her awake. Judy has always liked to read in bed and will continue reading until she falls asleep, and this is something she has done since she was a child.

Judy cared for her brother, who had dementia, until her sleep was so disturbed the doctor...

So he was wondering around in the night here?

 

Oh gosh yes, absolutely, and then sometimes he wouldn’t get up in the morning, and he wouldn’t get up and have anything to eat, and as I say in the end, it got so stressful that the doctor said he has got to go, and that is what we did. But he was quite happy where he was, but he lasted a lot longer than we thought he would.

 

Were you working at the time as well?

 

No I gave up work to look after him. But, even when he was well I didn’t sleep that well.

 

Really, so even before he was poorly?

 

Yes, before he was ill, I was 64 when that happened, and I was going for retirement anyway, but I just to give up the job straight away and there was an awful lot to do as far as his place was concerned. When I look back on it, I don’t know how I did it, but I did it, and then we brought him up here which was so much easier for me, but he got worse, and you never know if you are doing the right thing or not. 

Judy felt guilty about moving her brother to a home when she could no longer cope, and she...

Did the doctor give him anything to help him sleep at all?

 

No, not really. He had, because you see he had dementia and he had Parkinson’s Disease as well, so he didn’t have a lot going for him bless him. So, and of course once he just, he couldn’t do anything for himself really, he couldn’t even feed himself in the end.

 

Yet, you said interestingly that it carried on being difficult once he had moved out into the home, what way was that?

 

Because I felt guilty about him being in a home, I felt I should be looking after him, and they don’t look after them, of course they can’t, they can’t, they can’t do one to one, like I was doing, you know, but yes you do feel guilty and everybody that I know that has to do it says the same, you just can’t, you carry the guilt around with you, so you go to see them as much as you can.

 

And he was happy there?

 

Oh gosh yes.

 

But you still felt guilty?

 

Of course you can’t, because they weren’t looking after him as well as I did! But then you can’t expect them to really can you, they have got lots of people to take care of, but on the whole they were quite kind to him.

 

So your sleep carried on then, even though he was settled in this home, because you were worried about him?

 

Yes, it was still pretty bad, I was still sort of wandering about in the night, and reading again, and making my eyes ache, yes, very conscious, and I found that I sometimes slept for an hour, and then woke up, and once you have woken up then, you are wide awake,

 

You couldn’t get back to sleep?

 

Yes, so I decided that perhaps I would be better off having a little doze earlier in the day, so that probably did help quite a lot.