Hello, I am Christie and my mum, who is 87, has dementia.
Mum was a nurse, a college lecturer, a single parent with me, strong and competent and has always been on top of life .
These past two years, something has changed. She has become smaller, hunched, had a couple of falls and had to be persuaded to walk with a stick for her own safety. She has also been forgetting things - times of appointments, what day of the week things are meant to be happening. She stopped managing shopping as well as she used to - her fridge and cupboards are suddenly practically bare. And she started saying she had seen everything before. Any TV programme - "I've seen this", any funny Facebook clip you show her on your phone "I've seen this already, it's been on telly," and even people in the street, "This man is always walking round this corner carrying that bag." It was a bit of a joke at first, to be honest. But she didn't think so, she was so serious about it.
Then just before Christmas, she came home from town having taken out a contract on a mobile phone, and a tablet and she didn't understand what she had done. I asked her if she thought she might have some sort of memory problem that we should perhaps go to the doctor's about. She reacted in anger: "Don't tell me I've got Alzheimers! Don't say that! It would just finish me off! And anyway, I'm fine for my age, you should see So-and-So, they are far worse than me. It's just my age! There's nothing wrong!" I told a few other family members and everyone kept telling me she was absolutely fine. I was so upset that night, I stayed at her house, and in the night I climbed in bed with her like a kid.
After a lot of thought and worry, I decided to write to Mum's GP with a list of all the things that worry me about her behaviour and to ask if something could be done. I didn't get a response at the time, but a month later the GP phoned me, saying she would break confidentiality because of a safety issue that had arisen - Mum had fallen in the bathroom and the GP wanted me to check safety in the house. The GP also said Mum appears to have a mild cognitive impairment, but that she can't do any tests at the moment because of lockdown.
So now we are in May and I am coming to terms with the new situation. Rightly or wrongly, I am treating her house and mine as 'one household' and coming to see and stay with her at least twice a week (I am observing social distancing and I currently work from home). Mum is still fully independent but she can't amuse herself any more. She doesn't want to watch tv, read books, draw, do any of the things she used to. All she wants is one to one attention from me, to talk, to do things with me. When I am working, she is just sitting in her chair, waiting for me to finish. She sometimes shouts up to ask me if I've finished working yet.
So that is me, and that is where I am at right now. Thought I would say hello.
Mum was a nurse, a college lecturer, a single parent with me, strong and competent and has always been on top of life .
These past two years, something has changed. She has become smaller, hunched, had a couple of falls and had to be persuaded to walk with a stick for her own safety. She has also been forgetting things - times of appointments, what day of the week things are meant to be happening. She stopped managing shopping as well as she used to - her fridge and cupboards are suddenly practically bare. And she started saying she had seen everything before. Any TV programme - "I've seen this", any funny Facebook clip you show her on your phone "I've seen this already, it's been on telly," and even people in the street, "This man is always walking round this corner carrying that bag." It was a bit of a joke at first, to be honest. But she didn't think so, she was so serious about it.
Then just before Christmas, she came home from town having taken out a contract on a mobile phone, and a tablet and she didn't understand what she had done. I asked her if she thought she might have some sort of memory problem that we should perhaps go to the doctor's about. She reacted in anger: "Don't tell me I've got Alzheimers! Don't say that! It would just finish me off! And anyway, I'm fine for my age, you should see So-and-So, they are far worse than me. It's just my age! There's nothing wrong!" I told a few other family members and everyone kept telling me she was absolutely fine. I was so upset that night, I stayed at her house, and in the night I climbed in bed with her like a kid.
After a lot of thought and worry, I decided to write to Mum's GP with a list of all the things that worry me about her behaviour and to ask if something could be done. I didn't get a response at the time, but a month later the GP phoned me, saying she would break confidentiality because of a safety issue that had arisen - Mum had fallen in the bathroom and the GP wanted me to check safety in the house. The GP also said Mum appears to have a mild cognitive impairment, but that she can't do any tests at the moment because of lockdown.
So now we are in May and I am coming to terms with the new situation. Rightly or wrongly, I am treating her house and mine as 'one household' and coming to see and stay with her at least twice a week (I am observing social distancing and I currently work from home). Mum is still fully independent but she can't amuse herself any more. She doesn't want to watch tv, read books, draw, do any of the things she used to. All she wants is one to one attention from me, to talk, to do things with me. When I am working, she is just sitting in her chair, waiting for me to finish. She sometimes shouts up to ask me if I've finished working yet.
So that is me, and that is where I am at right now. Thought I would say hello.