Mick Simpson is calling on Campaspe community members to get involved as he prepares to walk 190km to raise awareness for dementia.
The Memory Walk and Jog fundraising event holds great importance for Mr Simpson, who has organised to walk from Kyabram Memorial Gardens to Parliament House in Melbourne from May 31 to June 8.
“In late 2018, I was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia,” Mr Simpson said.
LBD is a disease that is characterised by abnormal deposits in the brain called Lewy bodies.
LBD affects chemicals in the brain, which in turn, could lead to problems with thinking, memory, movement, behaviour and mood.
Sadly, there is no cure for LBD.
Mr Simpson’s own experience with LBD changes from day to day.
“Every day is different. When you wake up in the morning, that’s when you know what the day is going to be like,” he said.
“My memory is getting a bit worse now, but you keep struggling along.
“You can't let it get you down, you just have to keep going.”
Mr Simpson has a strong sense of determination to spread the word about LBD.
“While I can do this walk, I will do it,” he said.
Mr Simpson finds people’s reluctance to admit that they have dementia heartbreaking.
“It’s a very frustrating disease and there’s a lot of people out there that won’t talk about it,” he said.
He said people had a certain sense of pride and therefore refused to acknowledge they may be suffering from a condition such as dementia.
“There’s a big stigma around it,’’ he said.
“It gets to your heart a bit when you know that people won’t go in and get it diagnosed or recognised by their GP.”
Mr Simpson will starting his journey at 8am on May 31.
He hopes the walk will encourage people to realise it is okay to seek help.
He will finish at Parliament House in Melbourne to speak about his experience with dementia and raise awareness.
Mr Simpson has completed the walk for dementia three times.
“I did a walk from Echuca to Kyabram in 2019 and I’ve done one from Cobram to Ky, as well,” he said.
“It doesn’t really matter where we start or finish as long as we get the word out there. That’s what this is all about.”
Mr Simpson is also worried about the increasing number of people being diagnosed with dementia.
“Unfortunately, since I’ve started these walks, the amount of people suffering with dementia in Australia has pretty much doubled already,” he said.
“They reckon by 2050, there’s gonna be around a million, but I think there’s gonna be a lot more than that.”
Mr Simpson won’t walk the 190km alone, with family and friends going along for the journey.
“My young nephew, he is going to be in the car behind me, and I don’t know who else is coming with me yet, but generally there’s a few of us that all go together,” he said.
Mr Simpson encouraged people to join him for the walk, even if it was just for a short leg of the journey.
Warramunda Village Aged Care, community care services and staff from the Kyabram hospital will walk down the street with Mr Simpson at the start of his journey on May 31.
“I’m not expecting everybody to come all the way on this one, but if people want to meet me somewhere and walk a few kilometres they can,” he said.
“That’s what made it fun on the last walk because people were joining in.
“A lot of farmers joined in and walked with us for a few kilometres.”
“If that happens again, I’d be very appreciative because at least we know that the message is getting out there.”
Last time Mr Simpson walked, it was covered on television from Parkes, NSW, to Bairnsdale in south Gippsland.
“The word really got out and around from that, it was really good,” he said.
Mr Simpson will stop overnight in Nagambie, Seymour, Broadford, Kalkallo and Coburg.
He said Lions clubs would be helping to support the cause in some capacity, whether that be walking part of the journey or waiting for him at his stopover points.
“I’ve left it up to them to arrange it,” Mr Simpson said.
The biggest portion of the walk was be the first leg — 30km from Kyabram to Tatura.
“We’ve got to get people to open up about this because it bloody helps,” Mr Simpson said.
“There’s more than enough help out there if they want it from the hospitals and home care organisations, but you need to want it, to get it.”
Mr Simpson wants the publicity around the dementia walk to be as big as some of cancer awareness campaigns.
“We’ve just got to keep harping on about it,” he said.
“It bloody frustrates you sometimes when you can see that a person is going through it, but they won’t acknowledge it.
“That can be a lot to do with the era that people come from as well.”
Mr Simpson said there were now cases of people from younger generations being diagnosed with dementia.
“People think that it’s just an old person’s problem, but there are 20-, 30-, 40- and 50-year-olds that are now getting it and nobody knows why,” he said.
“I’m asking people to come out, support us and help us get it out there.
“Everybody’s busy, I know that, but a couple of kilometres is not very far to walk with us.”
Anyone who wants to donate towards Mr Simpson’s walk for dementia should visit fundraising.dementia.org.au/fundraisers/micksimpson
All donations go towards dementia research.