Life before and after
I've just been reading these posts and many of these comments resonate so much today in terms of what life was like before and after.
The Paralympics in 2012 sticks in my mind as we took my much-loved parents and it was a wonderful and exciting family day out. A year later things started to change and fast forward to 2016, we have recently lost my lovely Mum to Lewy Bodies in her early 70s and my father who has just turned 70 is now a shell of his former self after being diagnosed with vascular dementia in his late 60s.
While I feel very grateful for the time I've had with my parents in these last few years and the many precious moments we've had during incredibly difficult times, I still cannot believe quite how much dementia has decimated our family - and so quickly.
Dementia brings with it so many different emotions - loss, anger, love, guilt, despair, loneliness and makes you question what life is all about and whether it can ever feel normal again.
I guess you have to take small steps at a time, deal with one thing at a time and hold on. I now find that the most simple and gentle things help find a new sense of calm like nature around you, the sunshine, a chat with a friend or reading a good book.
It helps to know you're not the only one out there who has experienced this but at the same time, I really do feel for anyone else who has been or is going through this.
Life can feel like it has fundamentally changed but I think we do start to slowly adjust to whatever that new 'normal' is, that we are so much stronger at dealing with this than we give ourselves credit for at times, that we can start to remember the happier memories again and our families do start to find a way to cope with this.
