Bruce Willis has FTD. What is in store for him?

My wife was diagnosed with Frontotemporal disorders (FTD). Let me share with you what FTD did to my wife, to me and to my son. The first thing you need to process in your brain is this: There is no cure for FTD. It gets worse and you need to deal with that reality. As soon as the doctor realised that she might have FTD, she wanted my wife to be admitted to Sunshine Hospital for tests to determine her condition through tests - and I was present at these tests and examinations.

Even at that early stage, my wife was confused. She cannot tell the time, is unsure of dates, and years, and cannot work out answers to simple additions and subtractions. The ten days in Sunshine confirmed her FTD and it was at this juncture that the doctor told us that from now on, she needs 24/7 care - that someone must be with her at all times, and from now on, she will start to lose many of her abilities...to walk, to talk, to recognize us, her memory and within a few years, she will be an invalid - so I would have to be ready to have her put in a home so that she can have the 24/7 care that she needs.

One thing I and my son decided there and then, at that early stage: we will not put her in a home. We will take care of her ourselves. 24/7. We will be there for her at all times.

And what the doctor says will happen, did happen.

Within a year she stopped talking and soon after that, stopped walking. By the second year, we had to feed her most of the time and by the third year, she became an invalid. We had to do everything for her. We cannot remember when exactly she stopped recognizing or responding to us because we were talking to her all the time...and presume she understood what we were saying because she would look at us and a flicker of emotion can be seen, but soon we realized that she had stopped smiling....and nothing - not even a flicker of recognition came from her eyes for us....but we kept talking to her.

Every day, I hugged and kissed her and told her that I loved her. Every day. Every day my son was there with her and we both took care of her. She no longer knew us. She no longer knew herself. She did not have an opinion. She could not tell us if she was cold, hungry or angry. She could not understand anything we said. But for my son, she was still the mother he loved and for me, she was the dear wife I married when I was 21 in London over half a century ago. And as a mother and a wife, she had our love and our care 24/7.

When her end came one early morning at the St Vincent Hospital in Fitzroy, after saying our goodbye to her at the hospital, I remembered, on our back to our house nearby with my son, I remembered a sense of relief that my son and I had not failed her at the time of her greatest need for us. And that made the five years of taking care of her all worthwhile for me and my son.

So for sure, in a few years, Bruce Willis will be a shadow of himself today. Only the love and care from those he loves will keep him fed, cleaned, and comfortable. Everything he needs for himself, for his well-being, he has to depend on others. It is a big ask for his wife and his kids. From what I and my son have gone through with my dear wife, I only have this to say. Choose your life partner well. Enough said.