Why the Title 'Two Sisters and a Demented Mom'
Why the title Two Sisters and a Demented Mom?
My mom (prior to dementia) was a blunt, very pragmatic woman. When my sister and I were talking about titles for the blog and she said ‘we should have a title that describes us, I said how about Two Sisters and a Demented Mom?’ We laughed (for quite awhile) and agreed it was the best title and mom would love it.
How did we get here? Who the heck knows. My dad died June 2004 and for the next two years my sister and I wrote everything off to grief. In the spring of 2007 was when we really began to notice something wasn’t right and we needed to get my mom to the doctor. It took us the next 2 years to get her to a geriatric clinic where they ran 3 months worth of tests. At that time the diagnosis was Front-temporal Dementia. The major difference between FTD and Alzheimer’s is FTD affects judgment, cognition. And so often the lack of judgment is around money. Last year they added early onset Alzheimer’s – mild to moderate.
What wasn’t’ right? Well, she had been repeating herself for a little while. Not just telling the same story over. At my sister’s birthday one year, we sang Happy Birthday four times because my mom didn’t think we sang it. Many of the items in her refrigerator were expired for a long time (over 6 months) – we initially wrote that off to grief (read previous blog by Voyageur to have understanding of our parents’ relationship). At times, she couldn’t remember where I lived, or how to get there. She forgot major holidays (in particular Easter).
How did we get the diagnosis? I had already moved away by then, and my sister can probably better explain how she was able to finesse our mom to go see specialists. The hardest piece was how many family and friends kept saying to us ‘she’s too young’ to have any type of dementia. We stopped listening to those voices and became fierce advocates for her. As fierce as she was when raising us. We listened to our collective gut J and are making sure she leads the best possible life. Laughter is how we get through this, for all three of us. And the title describes us to a t – Two Sisters and a Demented Mom.