Friday, January 7, 2011

Dementia - my mother forgets me.

I phoned my mother in the nursing home in Adelaide today.  It was 9 am and she was lying on her bed.  She did not remember me.  She kept saying she did not have another daughter.  She remembers my sister.  It was hard to fight back the tears.  Eventually she seemed to remember me but the conversation was quite weird.  She thinks she lives in Mt Gambier and  is on a training camp and they have lessons all the time, and she is tiring of it.  She says she does not live with my father any more - (true) she does not, but he lives right next door.  She says he is in Adelaide, (true) and spends all day at the Bowls Club.(not true)

Dementia is cruel.  I learned today that if one eats more walnuts it helps to slow down or reverse some dementia.  I will buy some and eat plenty.