Question:

“So how do you cope with things like using the telephone?”

Frank:

“Up until er.. about the last…”

Pauline:

“Aye about two weeks ago he started using it.”

Frank:

“A fortnight ago I couldn’t do it.” “I couldn’t speak to anybody on the phone because as far as I was concerned, they were not interested.” “People think that you try to explain er.. that you’ve got a problem.” “I’ve got a problem and that’s the use of when I start.” “I lift the phone.”

“Mr McKeown?”

“Yes” “Before you (sighs and hesitates)

Pauline:

“If you calm down we’ll do this.”

Frank:

“Before.” (hesitates) “They, this gets into me but.” “I would go, before you go any further, I’ve had a stroke at the turn of the year and I’m.” “It’s difficult for me to communicate with you.” “Could you just speak to my wife?” “She will inform you of everything you need to know.” “She will inform you of everything that’s happening.”

“No, we can’t”

“What do you mean you can’t?” “ It’s the only way we are going to get communication working with us.” “I can’t understand what you’re saying.” “ I can’t follow the focus, what you’re saying” “You speak to my wife and my wife and I will get this sorted out.” “She knows my date of birth and everything, I don’t, so please can..”

“No we have to…”

“And eventually I just go to the stage where I’m not gonna tolerate you asking me secret communication.” “Forget it, I’m not going to talk to you.” “ But now that I’m starting to communicate again, as long as it’s no…” “ If I’m speaking…” “I could speak to you on the phone as long as I’ve done it slowly and I’m getting a response, a good response back at communicating with me.” “I will say, right , that’s fair enough.” “I’m willing to make an effort to …(hesitates). “ “I’m trying to make an effort to communicate with you.” “It doesn’t always work but I’m gonna , and I will try to communicate with them.” “If I have warned people that I’ve got a problem and I’m in the house, I will have to turn around and say, sorry I’m losing the plot.” “can you come back.” “ Phone me in a while or phone tonight when my wife comes in.” “ But I can’t , my brain is just stopping.” “It’s switching off, and it does.” “ It feels like that at times.” “You’re in the middle of a conversation and all of a sudden the battery runs down and there’s no way of communicating that back.” “ I can’t.”

Question:

“ Is it worse when you are tired?”

Frank:

“ When you are tired, when you get frustrated.” “ It does…tiredness does make a difference.” “But when I’m trying to communicate something in my brain.” “ I can speak just now because it’s a reasonably easy to communicate but if I was to start losing the plot, the whole lot, the whole part of my brain would switch off and I’ll get angry.” “At myself, no with anybody.” “I wouldn’t fall out with you.” “It would just be my brains not working and I want to be.” “And that’s when everything speeds up.”

Pauline:

“That’s when you have to calm down.”

Frank:

“And Pauline is good at reminding me to calm down.”

Pauline:

“ Because he’s now going on the phone, right, we’ve come to this conclusion that he is allowed to do certain things now.” “He’s not allowed to go on to anybody that’s really, really important that, sort of, he could end up telling them where to go.” “But he’s allowed to make certain phone calls.” “It’s basically to give him that bit of confidence because having the stroke has knocked him for six.” “It knocked every bit of confidence out of somebody that had a lot of confidence.” “It just knocked it out and for me suddenly to have to take over and do his life for him just didn’t work for him, and it still doesn’t.” “So it’s been allowed that he’s allowed to go on the phone so long as he’s got it all written down.” “So long as he knows exactly.” “If he tells me when he is going on the phone to, I’ve got a rough idea of what he’s gonna need.” “Yes, he’s gonna need his name, yes, he’s gonna need his date of birth.” “Yes, he’s gonna need the address.” “Yes, he’s gonna need his telephone number and what it’s about.” “I will then leave him to do this but I won’t be far away and it will be a case of listening to the conversation so that if I think that he’s getting stressed, then I can go and stop it.” “ At the beginning of the conversation now, he does tell people, can you take this a little bit slower with me because,. which he wasn’t doing at first.” “He was getting angry with them for not listening but he wasn’t explaining to them to start with.” “Now he’s actually explaining to them, yes I’ve got a problem, you need to slow it up.” “I need to slow it up and we might take a little bit of time to get there but so long as he does that , he’s fine.”

Frank:

“And I do believe that the personal touch is very important rather than…”

“I don’t think I’ve known anybody that would really enjoy lifting the phone and you get the (bleep) go to number one for…and if you want this.” “Go to number two if you want that, number three, and if you want something else go to…” “It doesn’t work.” “People are losing the communication.”