Alzheimer's - Please sponsor me to do the Great North Run for Alzheimer's Society

[Waverley West]

Hi All

 

(I'm posting this on the assumption that it will be OK  with the mods, as Andy has approved similar posts from me in the past)

 

Basically, I'm after your money! Seriously though, I'm doing the Great North Run again this Sunday (8th September) and this time I'm raising money for the Alzheimer's Society. As some of you will know, my mum has been suffering from Alzheimer's dementia for several years now, so this run has a very close personal link for me.

 

A little background information on why I'm running for the Alzheimer's Society this year:

 

About four years ago, my dad and I started noticing that my mum (now 89) was becoming more and more forgetful. Over the years since, her memory has increasingly failed her. That has been only one aspect of the disease though and her personality has also changed enormously. I was always very close to her, but as her condition has deteriorated, it has become more about simply making sure she is cared for and I now feel more of a parent to her than she is to me, which is very sad indeed. She has good days and bad days, with us (Mrs WW and myself - my dad having passed away in 2015) being public enemy no. 1 and interfering busybodies, while on good days. she is incredibly grateful for what we do for her. We never know what to expect from one day to the next, which can be difficult to deal with sometimes.

 

She's still living on her own, but attends a day centre five days a week now. Her living on her own is very marginal now though, as she is not really up to the task of caring for herself anymore. We are now at the stage where we're going to have to insist that if she is to continue living in her own home, she will need regular help around the house. As she doesn't accept she is anything more than occasionally a little forgetful because of her age, we are under no illusion that it is going to be an easy task.  She has always been a fiercely independent woman and that's going to make getting her to accept help all the more difficult. Deep breath time.

 

I've often heard it said that you lose someone who has dementia twice over, once with the loss of personality and then again when they pass away. I must admit I can see exactly what they mean and I'm sure there are many people on here who have been or are going through exactly the same thing. Caring for someone with dementia is about so much more than them forgetting things. It's about losing a loved one twice over.

 

This is not intended as a sob story at all, just an account which I hope will raise awareness of what having a close relative with dementia is like. I'm well aware there are many people in worse situations and that it is only going to get harder from here.

 

I’m very late getting round to fundraising this year, as I’ve had a knee injury for most of the summer which has stopped me running since March and I have only decided to actually do the run over the past week or so (after three weeks of training!). This makes this year's run extra challenging for me!

 

I would be very grateful for any donations of any size, no matter how small, to help me raise as much as I can for the Alzheimer's Society.  I have a target of £350 and am currently about half way to reaching that target.

 

You can donate via the link below or simply PM me if you'd prefer.

 

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/donation-web/fundraiser?fundraiserActivityId=1121507&stop_mobi=yes

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this post.

 

If anyone would like to add their own experiences of caring for people with dementia, I'd be very interested to hear them.

 

Dave 

(Waverley West)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2019 by Waverley West

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

All the best with the fundraising. Three out of four parents with dementias and in care, my own mother now 18 years since diagnosis with Alzheimer and 'improbably still alive' according to the consultant psychiatrist who last saw her while she was briefly hospitalised having broken some fingers in a fall. She had the nursing crew in hysterics; a nurse herself, old school senior sister, administering rockets for the failure to make up the beds with mitred corners. As for the lack of proper headgear, well, disgraceful!

 

It's a  weird experience meeting your mother usually as a child (between five and seven five years old is the best guess) living in Orpington and very keen on stealing apples from an orchard. The funny aspect is when briefly she recognises me: "Oh you are so old, what on earth has happened to you?". I can see the funny side to this, but my sisters cannot, and really suffer.

[Waverley West]

Thanks, seems like you drew the short straw on the dementia front!

 

We had my mum to stay the night before last as she had injured her hand. She desperately wanted to return home, because she's so independent. She said she had to get back to her family to look after them. When we explained that her family was all grown up and had moved out and that I was the youngest of her children, she just looked at me (now 53) and said "But you're old and grown up!". Fortunately, like you, I can see the funny side of it.

 

She does unintentionally cause a lot of laughs like that, but we're not laughing at her, just laughing at life really. You have to sometimes. If you didn't, you'd go mad.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

That's the trouble with all of the elders now in their nineties (three digits looming). Stuff starts to break down, brains as it happens, on three out of six, but nothing much else wrong: the other three are all variously physically crocked but gamely soldiering on, and hoping to be carried out of their long time homes in their boxes...

 

I have just 'Araldited' an old plate. Quite why she hit it - by accident - five feet up the wall with her walking frame we weren't there to witness. Cousin quite upset, a few quid down the drain. Aunt is fine about it, her eyesight so poor that provided it is round and restored to the wall: 'Oh thank you, it's perfect!'. So lovely and grateful at this age; Julie was outright terrifying when I was a child...

[96701]

Bump.