The roller coaster of life
Strap yourself in Get ready For the ride of your life Have no doubt Some days will be brilliant Some will be dull A few will be ghastly But rest assured You will survive them all Until you die…
Learning Life from Illness
I’ve had a bit to do with illness, and in my experience, it is the stories written by people who are sick, or have been gravely ill, including sick doctors, that are often the very best teachers of knowledge of how to care for sick people. They go beyond the medicalisation of illness and human…
Ramblings from the UK on dementia, life and grief
The week I was in the UK I managed the symptoms of dementia on my own most of the time, except when they were noticeable!! Why it is so hard to ask for help, to mention what is happening, rather than to hide it is mostly beyond me, other than the fact I was fiercely…
Facing the inevitable decline of dementia
On Monday the husband of another friend who had been diagnosed with younger onset dementia was buried. Of course, this has been part of the reason I have fudged a few blogs this week… We found out he had died on the last day of the Alzheimer’s Australia 15th national conference last Friday, and it…
Getting younger…
I read an article titled ‘In search of a good ending’ in the Medical Journal of Australia this week, written by Ann Gregory and Ruth Armstrong (Med J Aust 2013: 196 (4) 175). The first line stood out like the proverbial dogs balls; ‘Despite much development and increasing complexity in health care, humankind’s mortality rate…
Dreams, goals and dementia
“Shoot for the moon, then even if you miss, you’ll still land among the stars.” One lovely blog reader (Thanks JH) added this as part of a response to a recent blog, and it gave me such a lovely visual and feeling of bouncing or dancing amongst the stars I simply had to write about it. Whenever…
Attitude, Johhny Cash and dementia
“Choose your attitude. Your attitude is your reaction to what life hands you, and only you can choose that reaction.” I have had a copy of this poster stuck to one of my kitchen cupboards for ages, finding it useful on the days when I find it hard to have a positive attitude. Attitude is…
The impact of not planning for your end of life.
With or without dementia, this type of planning is imperative, and probably should be discussed in the senior years of a teenager’s school life, at the same time they are taught about voting and driving. If young adults were encouraged to think about life and death more fully, it would be something they might even…
Facing the future with dementia
An online friend has given me some topics to write about, and today I thought I’d try a NaNoWriMo style writing of this one; “How do you feel about what the future holds for you – the future in 1 year, in 2 years and in 5 years? How does it make you feel? What…
Writing lists and dementia
In my early life I never worried about many things, and didn’t ever seriously consider the idea of living until I die. I did not live my life racing towards death, or ticking off things on a bucket list. In fact I didn’t have a bucket list. But I did have lists, and lists about lists, of…
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