I haven't been on the forum for a while. The last time was just before my own crisis of not knowing how I was going to cope with my mother who had recently been diagnosed with mixed dementia. The shock/grief/worry sent me into a flat spin and I had to take time off work to initially cope.
A year on and I'm much stronger, back to work and I have accepted the diagnosis, and there is a better routine now involving carers. But hey, how my mother has changed!
She sees me as a different person, describing me as being hard as nails to the carer (I'm so not!). She can't remember major family events and doesn't have much in the way of emotions one way or another. She can't read the papers, or follow storylines on TV and she can't make a decision on anything. She has to be prompted to take her meds, to eat and she resists showering saying she is always too tired. She sits and occasionally repeats the same story again and again about a dog she had as a child. I ask her about what I was like as a child and she can't say that much.
I try to involve her in everything, taking her out, going to family events but it seems like she gains little from it all now. The blessing is that she doesn't realise she is this bad.
The real bad bits are still to come and now that has caused me a fresh flurry of worry, how to cope, how and when will this end. I thought I had toughened up but now I'm not so sure. How do you prepare yourself for what is to come?
A year on and I'm much stronger, back to work and I have accepted the diagnosis, and there is a better routine now involving carers. But hey, how my mother has changed!
She sees me as a different person, describing me as being hard as nails to the carer (I'm so not!). She can't remember major family events and doesn't have much in the way of emotions one way or another. She can't read the papers, or follow storylines on TV and she can't make a decision on anything. She has to be prompted to take her meds, to eat and she resists showering saying she is always too tired. She sits and occasionally repeats the same story again and again about a dog she had as a child. I ask her about what I was like as a child and she can't say that much.
I try to involve her in everything, taking her out, going to family events but it seems like she gains little from it all now. The blessing is that she doesn't realise she is this bad.
The real bad bits are still to come and now that has caused me a fresh flurry of worry, how to cope, how and when will this end. I thought I had toughened up but now I'm not so sure. How do you prepare yourself for what is to come?