I’m hosting a Cuppa to raise funds for all people living with dementia.
My mother called it the 'long goodbye'... and for us, as a family, living with my father's descent into dementia was agonising. My mother sought the support of Dementia Australia and the information and counselling they provided helped us through the hard times.
So...
I'm taking part in Cuppa Time for Dementia to raise funds that support more than 410,000 Australians living with this condition right now.
But I need your help!
Please support me so we can continue to help people with dementia by providing the services and support they need every day.
Dementia is the leading cause of death among women in Australia. And overall it comes in at number 2. That's why we need to do something now.
Let's create a Dementia-Friendly Future for tomorrow and help people impacted by dementia today.
When you support me, your donation goes straight to Dementia Australia. It will help them:
- Provide a 24 hour support line
- Offer counselling services
- Create and provide important information about dementia
- Help people plan their nexts after a diagnosis
- Fund much needed research into prevention, treatments, and a cure.
Let's tackle dementia, together.
Thank you for your support.
My Updates
Sundowners
Thursday 3rd Oct I flinch when I hear the term 'sundowners' applied to a pleasant beverage while watching the setting sun.Increased general confusion as natural light begins to fade and increased shadows appear.
Agitation and mood swings. Patients may become fairly frustrated with their own confusion as well as aggravated by noise. Patients found yelling and becoming increasingly upset with their caregiver is not uncommon.
Mental and physical fatigue increase with the setting of the sun. This fatigue can play a role in the patient's irritability.
Tremors may increase and become uncontrollable.
A patient may experience an increase in their restlessness while trying to sleep. Restlessness can often lead to pacing and or wandering which can be potentially harmful for a patient in a confused state.
He had every symptom. He told me in a rare moment of lucidity, “My brain is a little funny”…he never really understood his illness or the measures we had to take in coping with it. He viewed the world with worried eyes and my heart slowly broke.
It's in the eyes...
Wednesday 11th Sep
I learned the hard way, how to recognise somene with dementia. It's in the eyes... that lost, frightened and confused look as the world about them tilts and shifts on its axis and the familiar becomes the unfamiliar and the dearly loved become strangers...
In May 2010 my beloved father, Arthur, died with and of dementia/alzheimers.
On Christmas day 2006 I was standing with him in the kitchen and he looked at me and asked "Who are all those people in that room?" He meant the living room ... and his family. That was when we knew it was not just Dad being muddly, he genuinely did not recognise his own family.
Of course hindsight is a wonderful thing!
I realise now that we had been ignoring the obvious symptoms and just putting them down to old age and Dad getting a little 'muddly'. Along with aphasia (loss of speech), he began to imagine conspiracies (the next door neighbor was planning to kill his cat).
On January 15 2007, while I waited in the first class lounge at Hong Kong Airport (after a birthday trip with my husband), my mother rang with the diagnosis – Alzheimers. Through tears I wrote in my travel diary… “How are you supposed to feel when the reality hits home?...I was going to lose my father in spirit long before the body…Alzheimers is a death sentence without a death…”.
In future posts I will write more about Dad's descent as he developed one of the worst forms of Dementia... Sundowners.
(Pictured: Arthur - Christmas 2006)
ShareThank you to my Sponsors
$260
Anonymous
$58.02
Valerie Dripps
Wonderful cause Memories of your Dad!
$58.02
Alison Brideson
$58.02
David & Jun
$58.02
Amanda And Richard
$52.75
Phillipa Clark
Such a good cause and one close to my heart also.
$52.75
Carol Challis
Hopefully a cure will be found one day.
$52.75
Carol Challis
$50
Fiona Lowe
Thanks for a lovely MT xx
$31.65
Sonia Wilson
$31.65
Josephine Jansen
$31.65
James Digby
Have a cuppa for me! We'll be sipping chai in India.
$31.65
Liz White
$30
Sasha Cottman
$30
Genine Wallinga
$21.10
Barbara Mitchell
$10.55
Anonymous
Here's to research breakthroughs!
$10
Morning tea proceeds ❤️