Alastair Stewart has admitted his frustration over his wife of 45 years, Sally, being forced to tie up his shoelaces for him as he battles vascular dementia.
Though the mum-of-four has happily taken on the role of carer for him, Alastair revealed that he was wracked with “guilt” over the “demeaning” and “soul-destroying” situation.
The 71-year-old, who worked for ITV News for more than three decades, among other channels, explained that his wife now has to button his shirts, arrange his ties and check his diary to ensure he doesn’t end up arriving somewhere hours earlier than planned.
“The thing I have found most difficult to deal with is how the diagnosis has reduced Sal, the love of my life and mother of my children, to the role of carer – it is demeaning and soul-destroying,” he shared in a new interview.
“I know she does all this out of love, but if you’re the one whose shoelaces need doing up, it’s not an easy ask,” he continued to Saga magazine.
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“It’s not an easy thank you, either. It’s complicated. I find it difficult because I feel guilty.”
Meanwhile, he described Sally as a woman of “enormous calibre and talent”, explaining that she’d already become established in TV production when the pair first met, whereas he was a “rookie trainee”.
Even more heartbreakingly for Alastair, he was forced to resign from the job he loved after the stresses and strains of live TV became too much for the dementia-sufferer.
He described his role with GB News as “taxing on anyone’s brain” – but fortunately the channel decided to keep him on with a contributor contract, meaning he can still work but without the strain of full-time hours.
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He added that at age 71, he feels he still has “a lot to give” and that he is “incredibly confident” in his family – both his wife Sal and his four children – and their abilities to take good care of him.
Meanwhile, Alastair seems to be showing incredible resilience, revealing that two consultants who each spoke to him for several minutes told him they “would have no idea” he had dementia at all.
It was his wife who first spotted something was wrong, after she asked him to reset the kitchen clock and he struggled to read the time from it.
That led to him turning up for work at unusual times – “sometimes several hours early” – while his GB News colleagues noticed he was becoming increasingly unkempt and struggling with his spelling and grammar.
He had an MRI scan, which led to “a series of minor strokes” being discovered, which resulted in his vascular dementia diagnosis.
Despite that, the damage to his short-term memory is not “catastrophic” – and there are ways that the newsreader has been able to take control of his condition to make him feel more empowered.
Formerly smoking up to 40 cigarettes per day, he is now “proud” to reveal that he’s quit, and he is actively working on ways to prevent his blood pressure from soaring.
“As someone who loves language and has made my career from it, there is no getting away from the fact that when a professional looks you in the eye and says you’ve got dementia, it’s a shocker, no matter how much you are prepared for it,” he divulged.
However, he isn’t fearful about when the future holds, and “onwards and upwards” has become a motto designed to get him through.
The full interview with Alastair Stewart is available in this month’s Saga Magazine, out now.
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