My Mum, Alzheimer’s, and the importance of IUAD’s Day

My Grandma had it. That was the first time I ever heard the word: Alzheimer’s. 

She lived with us for many years, then one year fell and broke a hip. I don’t recall her ever coming out of the hospital, but Grandma was old – well, everyone is old when you’re a kid.

Then my Mum’s closest friend had it. When I saw pictures of her or heard Mum talk about her, I thought her friend looked like a shadow of her former self. Just hollow.

Now, that shadow has fallen on my Mum.

I don’t know why we wait to see people until they are ill. Don’t wait. Make the trip. Pick up the phone. Hug your loved ones.

What has shocked us most is the speed of it all. Like Grandma, Mum fell, breaking her pelvis first. 

We got her back to her ground-floor apartment – no steps – hoping to keep her independent. 

We even got her driving (admittedly against my brother’s and sister’s wishes), but that only lasted a few weeks. I got a call from a stranger; she was less than a mile away but had no idea how to get home. 

I took the car away that day. It felt mean, but it was necessary for everyone’s safety.

Ironically, shortly after I took the keys, she fell over her slippers and broke her hip. She hasn’t been home since.

The mental decline was just as rapid. It started with her not being able to use her phone or tablet, which we dismissed as age. Then she lost the concept of dates and time. 

We persuaded her to see a doctor, and sitting through those memory tests was when the penny really dropped. Simple questions, general knowledge, recall from moments earlier – she struggled with it all. 

Over the next few months, we watched her memory slip away, and in the blink of an eye, we lost Mum.

We moved her into a care home in February. We are lucky; the care is amazing, though I still feel guilty at times that she isn’t with us. But we quickly realised we simply aren’t equipped to deal with her condition.

And what a condition it is. My quiet, polite little Mum has been replaced by someone with an imagination in overdrive. 

According to her, she’s recently visited a strip club, a golf club, a police station, jail, and the dentist. All made up (I hope). She is often rude, abusive, and shouts things that are hilarious and unprintable. I ask myself: Who is this person?

The reality is, we lost Mum at the start of the year, yet now we see her more than ever. 

The family splits the visits so someone is there every other day. Not that she knows. We ask if she’s seen us, and she’ll say “No, not for weeks,” even if we were there that morning.

I don’t know why we wait to see people until they are ill. Don’t wait. Make the trip. Pick up the phone. Hug your loved ones.

I saw her for coffee and cake on Saturday. As I was leaving, she called me back. “Nigel, who is going to pick me up and take me home?”

 “You are home, Mum,” I said. “You are home.”

Just when you think you have done all your crying, she comes out with that, and it breaks you all over again.

This is why Insurance United Against Dementia is more personal this year than ever before.

We are at peace with the situation, but we are raising funds so that, sometime soon, we can find a cure - so other families don’t have to go through the same.