A mum in Edinburgh has explained the 'relief' she felt from putting her husband in a care home after dementia tore their lives apart.
Lewine Mair, 77, shared how her talented husband started to forget his keys and leave taps on before she had to start hiding car keys from him when he accidentally drove to the Borders.
Following a number of terrifying experiences the doctor told Lewine, 'You aren't coping and can't be on red alert 24 hours a day - he either needs carers or a care home.'
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The mum of four will always recall the chilling incident that was the penultimate event that lead to her husband spending the last years of his life in a care home.
Lewine remembers hearing the doorbell ring late one New Year's Eve and assumed it was revellers messing about report the Mirror.
She was sitting in front of the TV with her now adult children in their home on the outskirts of Edinburgh, while her husband Norman had gone to bed early.
But to her surprise, when she opened the door, there was husband Norman, dressed in his favourite sweater, out in the cold with no coat.
Someone in the neighbourhood had recognised him about half a mile away on the roadside in the pitch darkness and when they stopped to see if he needed help, they realised he didn't know where he was going.
Shortly before the incident in 2012, Norman, who had a flourishing career as a rugby star before becoming an award-winning journalist covering Scottish rugby and golf, would be up four times in the night asking his wife for his golf cubs - which he did have - and his gun, which he didn’t.
But concerns about his well-being started much earlier in 2007 and a few years later, he was forgetting where he'd put the car keys.
He blamed their misplacement on Lewine - who ended up having to hide them from him to stop him from driving on doctor's orders.
By 2010, he was leaving taps and the oven on, and Lewine had to hire an electrician to adapt their kitchen to make the automatically turn off after 30 minutes.
A year later, at the age of 83, Norman had a cognitive awareness test which confirmed he had a mix of Alzheimer's and dementia.
"I had to hide the car keys to stop him from driving," Lewine explained.
"But once he found them and set off up the road, where he thought he was going to a driving range, but ended up at the borders.
"When he got back, I could tell he was frightened of what he'd done. He recognised what he did wasn't right.
"His way of dealing with it was... he was more inclined to say, 'That was a daft thing' for me to do - he put the blame onto someone else.
"He didn't want to believe it was him. He didn't want to believe anything was wrong."
One in three people are expected to develop dementia within their lifetime, with many more facing the reality of loving and caring for someone with the diagnosis.
Following the medical advice and after years of torment as his disease slowly took over his very intelligent and witty brain, Lewine agreed to put Norman in a care home, which was an unbearable decision to have to face.
They'd been married for a lifetime after meeting at a tournament they were both reporting on when Lewine was just 18 and he was 17 years her senior.
It had taken a toll on her caring for him every day and all day, with them both exhausted. He also had developed problems with his feet, and needed respite.
She dreaded the move in January 2013, questioning whether she'd done the right thing, but to her relief, Norman didn't seem to notice.
"It was a horrible thing to have to do," she admitted.
"He didn't know he'd moved anywhere. We thought he'd be difficult about it. But he didn't even notice. He didn't want to admit anything.
"After the first day in the home, I rang the matron, and asked 'how was he?'
"She said he didn't get up in the night. He slept well. He didn't know where he was but he didn't mind where he was, and he was happy.
"It was such a relief. And that's something people should know.
"They are probably worried sick about putting somebody in a home but they might find, like me, that my husband didn't even realise".
Despite Norman doing well, the mum-of-four still had nightmares, to begin with. But once she saw how he was with other patients in the care home, she came to realise there were still moments of joy to be cherished.
They became so abundant that as a writer, she started to jot them down, which led to her grandchildren encouraging her to write about her experiences of caring for Norman and her daily visits to the home with her own book.
There was never a day Norman didn't have a visitor, as the home was just up the road from their house.
If she wasn't able to visit, her daughter that lived nearby would go, along with Lewine's grandchildren - who would light up the room.
During their visits, Lewine would play the piano in the lounge - giving her first-hand experience of how transformative music can be for those living with dementia.
"I played old songs from the musicals and straight away their feet started to tap," Lewine reflected.
"Residents loved the music and it amazed me. I could see it for myself how it helps dementia patients and actually making it happen was a wonderful moment.
"Norman wasn't musical at all but the staff would say 'your wife is playing.' At home, Norman would probably shut the door but in the home, he asked me, 'how long have you played?' and I replied, 'All of my life, why are you asking?'
"He said, 'well because I like it. I like it all.'
"The atmosphere was terrific. I was able to watch how everyone interacted which was really interesting."
Without fail, one of the resident's husbands would get her up for a dance, while the care home manager was always on hand to offer a calming cup of tea, Lewine says.
Three years later, Norman died in 2014 at the age of 86, due to exhaustion, he'd fallen and broken his hip, and didn't allow himself to recover.
In hospital, he was trying to take tubes out of his body and back in the home, he was constantly up and down out of his chair.
Eventually, his body shut down after becoming too tired to carry on.
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Lewine misses his "eccentric ways" the most and says watching dementia take over his personality was heartbreaking.
"It's a terribly sad affliction when you see it take people who've got wonderful minds and Norman was a brilliant writer. He was so clever and funny as well.
"It is of course horrible to see anyone going downhill with dementia but what I realised is that you can't look on the dark side all the time.
"In the home, you've got to see there are lighter moments as well. People seem to think every care homes are patients looking at nothing. It wasn't like that at all."
She hopes her book will put other carers at ease about moving their loved-ones into care facilities, as they're known to have a 'bad rap'.
Lewine insists she never set out to deliver a strong message with her book but hopes it helps others going through it.
"I was just trying to give care homes a fairer rap as they've been badly treated for a long time," she added.
"I realised the more I was writing was that 'this will cheer people up', it's not all doom and gloom."
Tapping Feet is available now on Amazon. A third of the profits from sales will go to Head for Change, the book’s charitable partner.
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