Loving Laughter Eases Pain Of A Tangled Mind
The Age
Sunday September 3, 1995
When Frank Nelson locked his wife in their bird cage with the finches, she laughed.
She also laughed when he took all the handles off the windows, when he wore six hats at once and when he followed her around, ``dancing the kitchen two-step".
``If I didn't laugh, I would go insane," Nellie Nelson says. The laughter helped her to cope with the horror of Alzheimer's disease, a degenerative illness in which the nerve-endings in the brain become tangled, and with which Frank was diagnosed soon after his retirement.
Nellie and Frank Nelson had a lot of time to love each other and laugh together. They met in Western Australia during World War II and were married in 1945, she in an ankle-length satin gown and he in a khaki uniform.
For the next 31 years they worked together in clothes factories, first at the women's wear specialists Latoof Cahill in Brunswick and Euroa, then at Jones Workwear in Seymour. Mr Nelson was manager, Mrs Nelson assistant manager. They had three children.
``He was the boss, the man who fired the bullets. I was the ding-dong in the factory," Mrs Nelson says.
In 1987 the couple, aged 60 and 63, retired with great visions for their future. Mr Nelson, a successful greyhound trainer, would continue to race his dogs and Mrs Nelson wanted more time to sew and sing.
But within a year, Mr Nelson could not recognise his wife.
Within two, he was diagnosed as having Alzheimer's disease and for the next seven years Mrs Nelson cared for her husband at home, surviving on a pension and $32 a fortnight domiciliary nursing grant. Mr Nelson died 12 months ago of cancer.
About 240,000 people in Australia have dementia, and one in eight Australians will develop the disease.
This week is Alzheimer's Awareness Week with a focus on dementia in rural areas and the effect on carers.
Like many people with Alzheimer's, Mr Nelson became forgetful and irrational bit by bit. Then one day in 1988, the couple were sitting at their kitchen table and ``he said to me, `What is your name?' I said, `What do you mean, what is my bloody name. It is Nellie; what did you want to know that for?' "
When Mr Nelson could no longer read or write, she bought him coloring-in books. On bad days, he would color the clowns black.
Apart from morning nursing visits, the couple were mostly alone. Mrs Nelson says few friends and family visited because they were unable to cope with the change in such a vigorous and gentle man.
But Mrs Nelson believes some parts of her husband remained, especially the love.
The night before he died, Mrs Nelson sang to him as she often did. She chose one of her favorites, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and as she started to sing, Mr Nelson lifted his finger and ran it, gently, down her cheek.
© 1995 The Age