Saturday poem: Facing fear

Fear hiding inside our heart Facing us to look within To search for new ways of being Fear instilled its ugly self Right back alongside our soul Taunting us to give in to it Fear put back in its place Rising above the negativity With love and laughter A new day born without fear

A stranger in my skin

It started like this… my dear husband said; ‘I didn’t know you had any black jeans?’ I replied, ‘nor did I, until I found them in my wardrobe!’ We laughed out loud, as I tried to recall when and where I had purchased them. And then I cried. They were obviously purchased in the last 18 months, as…

Primary Progressive Aphasia

Reblogged from the National Aphasia Association: Understanding primary progressive aphasia (PPA) PRIMARY PROGRESSIVE APHASIA is a rare neurological syndrome in which language capabilities become slowly and progressively impaired. This information sheet was prepared to help explain Primary Progressive Aphasia to the general public. What is aphasia? Aphasia is an acquired disorder caused by brain damage…

When Words Fail

When Words Fail: A Rare Brain Disease Causes A Professor To Lose Her Power Of Speech  Published on Forbes, Pharma & Healthcare  6/01/2012 @ 11:23AM by Alice G. Walton Before her interview, Joanne Douglas spends the day in silence. Hers is not a spiritual practice, but a cerebral one: Joanne needs to conserve her word supply, which…

Tuesday humour: Car parts theft at Bond University

A couple of years ago when visiting Queensland to speak at a WordPress conference, I heard a story about a middle aged lecturer near the Bond University. She called 000 on her mobile phone to report that her car had been broken into. She was hysterical as she explained: They’ve stolen the stereo, the steering wheel,…

Anniversaries, memories and dementia

WordPress.com sent me a Happy 2nd Anniversary message today, as it is 2 years since I registered this blog. The funny thing is it then took me another 42 days to work out how to get going, but this gives me an excuse to celebrate another 2nd anniversary! My blog seems to have developed a life of…

Saturday poem: Love

  Love Burning brightly inside my heart Gently holds the strings together Protecting them from despair It sparkles like glow worms Small dots glowing in the night Warming my bloody veins Filling them with patience Fired up to face anything Any blip on the human horizon No match for the Love inside my heart        

Dementia and self esteem

Unfortunately, I had low self esteem right into my thirties, like a dark cloud hanging out in the background of my subconscious. I was quite shy as a child, and always wanting approval as we rarely received positive feedback, no matter how well we did at something. My self esteem developed after many years of reading and attending…

Blogging, handwriting and Pen Pals

The art of handwriting and letter writing is becoming obsolete as we are all using text messaging, email, Twitter, Facebook and other types of social media. I have gathered lots of global friends via my blog, and now consider them to be pen pals, and am excited to be meeting a few of them soon…

The Dementia Swan

The Dementia Swan, gliding through the water, legs paddling us in the direction we want to go, until we don’t know where we’re going… Then they either stop, or paddle us around in circles! Most people rarely see the paddling under the surface, rarely understand the effort it takes to keep those legs paddling, the one…

Tuesday humour: 10 things to do in K-Mart

Many years ago an email did the rounds titled “10 things to do in K-Mart”, which I perhaps stupidly shared with my young teenage sons. Our family has an unusual sense of humour, and this seemed like a bit of good old fashioned fun!! It consisted of activities like this: hiding inside a rack of clothes, and…

Volunteering as an intervention for dementia

Volunteering ones time, energy and talent to organisations can be a valuable service to not only those we volunteer for, but for ourselves. Studies have shown the financial and time costs associated with volunteering and the personal, organisational, client and community benefits generated by the volunteer activity are significant, as well as a number of financial and time costs…

Today’s the day…

for the Big Lunch, where we hope to raise at least $40,000 for the homeless programmes run by The Big Issue SA! Here are a few pictures from set up yesterday and last night…