One of my students scheduled a Zoom appointment with me (because that’s what we do now, right?). She’s a freshman and she has a new job at a memory care community. She wants to do a good job. She loves the residents. She has great questions for me about how to handle difficult situations. Have […]
Category: caregiver
Dementia Caregiving and COVID
I haven’t given COVID as much attention in my blog as it deserves. I’ve started many posts and abandoned them because they felt inadequate. To be fair, I have gotten a bit of hate the few times I’ve written posts about COVID. Examples: I thought you were smarter than this. COVID isn’t any worse than […]
Why It’s Okay to be a Proud Caregiver: A Story About My Grandma
This is a story about caregiving. And it’s a story about my grandmother, Betty Catherine Terry Vickers Mohesky. She was a caregiver, and she rocked it. Let me acknowledge that loss is undeniably linked to caregiving. My grandpa had multiple chronic illnesses. He had cancer. He had diabetes. He eventually had his leg amputated. For […]
Dementia and Mental Energy: How Do You Choose to Spend Your Limited and Precious Mental Energy?
Mental energy. Why are we not talking more about mental energy in relation to dementia? A few days ago I listened to an insightful and unexpectedly funny panel of individuals living with dementia talk about their experiences. The entire conference was great, but no other speakers could really compete with the panelists. As they sat […]
When Dementia Knocks: Update
Hi friends! Just a bit of a blog update. You can now find me online at WhenDementiaKnocks.com. Tell your friends. In addition, I started a Facebook page with the title When Dementia Knocks. This is a place to post my blog as well as provide some other dementia resources. If you’re a Facebook person and […]
Hey Dementia Community: Stop Telling Me Your Challenges Aren’t a Big Deal!
If it wasn’t a big deal, why was she telling me about it? She said that having to cancel lunch with a friend because her husband (who was living with Alzheimer’s) was having awful anxiety was no big deal. She said that her friend could stop by later. That she wasn’t that thrilled with the […]
Dementia, Big Stick People, and Little Stick People
Someone I met recently had a stroke years ago, and doctors are now telling her she has dementia. She lives on her own, and within the walls of her apartment, she feels quite capable. She can cook. She can clean. She takes care of her cat. She can even work her own DVR. But things […]
Anticipatory Grief and Dementia
Anticipatory grief. I first learned the term when I was in graduate school. I threw it around a lot when I was volunteering for hospice. Now that I work with families impacted with dementia I apply the term frequently. It could be described as the emotional response to the pending death of a loved one–but […]
Dementia and the Tired Brain
This blog post was a struggle to write. It usually takes me about 45 minutes to complete a post. Today I’ve been sitting here for well over two hours. And I am on the second paragraph. You see, it’s the week of finals at the university where I work. It’s stressful for college students, of […]
Loving Two Women in Dementialand
Then…one day about four months after Ann passed away…without meaning to…Art met someone.
It was the sister of an old friend. Her name was Juanita. He didn’t intend to start dating her. In fact, he never saw himself in a relationship after Ann’s death. But he liked Juanita.
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