How the heck do you remain strong - year in, year out?
Seven years now of painfully witnessing my mum mentally and physically change from a beautiful lady who loved looking after herself, who never went out without make up on, clothing carefully co-ordinated with her jewellery/accessories to a little old lady who looks 10 years older than her actual 82 years old. Bent over and frail with osteoporosis, bright red eyes from glaucoma and cataracts, excessive hair on her face from the hormone blocking breast cancer medication and the now vacant stare of someone with advancing Alzheimer's. Someone who starts eats crayons like a 2 years old and sits staring at her hands like they are alien to her.
I see her most days and thankfully she often still knows my name but that's about it. She has a team of carers coming in throughout the day because she's now double incontinent following a fall in the summer and a month long hospital stay where the staff allowed her to constantly soil the bed. She went in continent and now has no bladder or bowel control.
You can not hold any conversation with my mum anymore (although I talk to her all the time as I'm convinced she understands me), she tries to talk but the words don't come out and that absolutely breaks my heart. How frustrating to be locked in your own body.
And that's my poor mum's life from now on.....carers wiping her bum, changing her pull ups and her daughters and husband doing everything else. Just sitting in her recliner day in and day out.
I know I'm very lucky to have had my mum in my life for all of my 52 years but if the truth be told I'd have much preferred her to have gone quick from a sudden hear attack like her own mother did at 76.
What kind of life is a life with advanced dementia? Bloody heartbreaking one for all involved, that's what it is.
Utter respect for anyone involved in dementia care and/or caring for loved ones. What a thoroughly wicked disease - it's a robbing bastard.