Adam Piercy
Adam's running for dementia
Fundraising for Alzheimer's Society
Story
Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page and thinking about sponsoring me.
I guess I should start by talking about why I am doing this! Back in 2014 my old man John Piercy was formally diagnosed with Semantic Dementia (frontal lobe dementia), just a few months earlier he had attended my daughters christening and was relatively normal, well as normal as my dad could be. He was always somewhat eccentric, out going and a bit of a party animal but his behaviour had begun to become erratic and out of character, he was becoming forgetful and more worrying, submissive (he loved a good row, wonder why i got that from!!).
My mother persuaded him to visit the doctors to see if they could figure out what was wrong. From my daughters christening to when he was diagnosed a year later he had deteriorated to the point where he could no longer read and was forgetting simple things like how to turn on the TV. It was truly shocking whenever I visited to see his declining mental capacity.
Here we are just four years later, my dad is still only 59 years old and he is unable to remember my name; he can't bathe or shave himself; he cannot remember one moment to the next; he is constantly moving between rooms forgetting where he is going; he cannot dress himself; he does not know when he has eaten enough so can eat until he is ill; he cannot cope with change; he confuses a bird for a dolphin. In short he has been diagnosed with the mental age of a 2 year old.
My mother is a hero for caring for him at home and my little brother has moved home to help, an act that I admire daily for its compassion and love.
My father was a wonderfully kind hearted person who gave more of himself to other people than he should have! He and my mother fostered children from when I was 10, in all they cared for close to 200 children over a 12 year period. He worked in social services helping young adults get back on their feet when they had not had the best of starts. He put a roof over peoples heads when they didn't have one and in one case supported a close family friend through University.
My dad is still with us and for that I am thankful, though the man who he once was is no longer. It is impossible to grieve yet you have lost the person you loved. It is impossible to move on because they are deteriorating before your eyes. It is heartbreaking.
In November 2016 his father, my granda Eddie Piercy passed away, he suffered from Alzheimers and I will never forget taking my dad to see him a year or so ago, I had with me my little boy who was 4 at the time and my dad with dementia and my granda with Alzheimers, the conversation was riveting!
My granda was my hero, a wonderfully kind man with a terrific sense of wit. He was independent to the end, living on his own with carers coming in to help. I discovered at his funeral that one of those carers was my cousin, he gave up his job as a plumber to become a dementia carer and gave up some of his free time to care for our Granda. He would go round in his nurses uniform, help my Granda then get changed and become Andrew. He knew that my Granda would never have let him help if he knew it was Andrew. the site of the uniform helped him become someone else and allowed my Granda to accept the help. Whether he knew or not we will never know, I like to think he did. What a truly wonderful thing for Andrew to do.
Behind every sufferer of dementia are stories like these, people like Simon my brother, my mother and Andrew. Individuals who are selfless with massive reserves of compassion and love.
I knew I wanted to do something, living 300 miles away with two young children limits me from being able to be hands on, so I want to raise awareness and help do my bit to find a cure for this tragic disease. I want to celebrate the carers, the people who give up their own life to care for their loved one! I want it to be something that would push me out of my comfort zone and test me physically and mentally.
My wife challenged me to run the half marathon, she knows how much I hate running, literally hate it. What is the point in just running? I run to get to a ball not run for the sake of it. Running to the corner shop kills me and I have the lung capacity of a moth! Now I know some of you think a half marathon is easy! Consider this though, I can't run 5k yet never mind 20k! So please join me on my journey.
Anything you can donate will mean so much to me that I will be eternally grateful to you. It may be that I have not seen you in years or that I saw you only yesterday, regardless if you donate you will hold a special place in my heart that will never be broken.
Thank you for reading this and donating you truly are special!
Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.
I guess I should start by talking about why I am doing this! Back in 2014 my old man John Piercy was formally diagnosed with Semantic Dementia (frontal lobe dementia), just a few months earlier he had attended my daughters christening and was relatively normal, well as normal as my dad could be. He was always somewhat eccentric, out going and a bit of a party animal but his behaviour had begun to become erratic and out of character, he was becoming forgetful and more worrying, submissive (he loved a good row, wonder why i got that from!!).
My mother persuaded him to visit the doctors to see if they could figure out what was wrong. From my daughters christening to when he was diagnosed a year later he had deteriorated to the point where he could no longer read and was forgetting simple things like how to turn on the TV. It was truly shocking whenever I visited to see his declining mental capacity.
Here we are just four years later, my dad is still only 59 years old and he is unable to remember my name; he can't bathe or shave himself; he cannot remember one moment to the next; he is constantly moving between rooms forgetting where he is going; he cannot dress himself; he does not know when he has eaten enough so can eat until he is ill; he cannot cope with change; he confuses a bird for a dolphin. In short he has been diagnosed with the mental age of a 2 year old.
My mother is a hero for caring for him at home and my little brother has moved home to help, an act that I admire daily for its compassion and love.
My father was a wonderfully kind hearted person who gave more of himself to other people than he should have! He and my mother fostered children from when I was 10, in all they cared for close to 200 children over a 12 year period. He worked in social services helping young adults get back on their feet when they had not had the best of starts. He put a roof over peoples heads when they didn't have one and in one case supported a close family friend through University.
My dad is still with us and for that I am thankful, though the man who he once was is no longer. It is impossible to grieve yet you have lost the person you loved. It is impossible to move on because they are deteriorating before your eyes. It is heartbreaking.
In November 2016 his father, my granda Eddie Piercy passed away, he suffered from Alzheimers and I will never forget taking my dad to see him a year or so ago, I had with me my little boy who was 4 at the time and my dad with dementia and my granda with Alzheimers, the conversation was riveting!
My granda was my hero, a wonderfully kind man with a terrific sense of wit. He was independent to the end, living on his own with carers coming in to help. I discovered at his funeral that one of those carers was my cousin, he gave up his job as a plumber to become a dementia carer and gave up some of his free time to care for our Granda. He would go round in his nurses uniform, help my Granda then get changed and become Andrew. He knew that my Granda would never have let him help if he knew it was Andrew. the site of the uniform helped him become someone else and allowed my Granda to accept the help. Whether he knew or not we will never know, I like to think he did. What a truly wonderful thing for Andrew to do.
Behind every sufferer of dementia are stories like these, people like Simon my brother, my mother and Andrew. Individuals who are selfless with massive reserves of compassion and love.
I knew I wanted to do something, living 300 miles away with two young children limits me from being able to be hands on, so I want to raise awareness and help do my bit to find a cure for this tragic disease. I want to celebrate the carers, the people who give up their own life to care for their loved one! I want it to be something that would push me out of my comfort zone and test me physically and mentally.
My wife challenged me to run the half marathon, she knows how much I hate running, literally hate it. What is the point in just running? I run to get to a ball not run for the sake of it. Running to the corner shop kills me and I have the lung capacity of a moth! Now I know some of you think a half marathon is easy! Consider this though, I can't run 5k yet never mind 20k! So please join me on my journey.
Anything you can donate will mean so much to me that I will be eternally grateful to you. It may be that I have not seen you in years or that I saw you only yesterday, regardless if you donate you will hold a special place in my heart that will never be broken.
Thank you for reading this and donating you truly are special!
Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.