I don't want to rewrite this because I think it is a very clear picture of how you slowly lose someone to dementia - but I want to beg anyone who is thinking of donating to do so - me jumping out of a plane is not really relevant( although I will because I said I would), but it is just a way to draw attention to both the pain felt by the families of those who get it (double grief as first you lose their essence and then you lose their presence); and the horror felt by those who suffer it as they find their whole life slipping away from them. 

The Alzheimer's Society is transforming the landscape of dementia forever. Until the day we find a cure, we will create a society where those affected by dementia are supported and accepted, able to live in their community without fear or prejudice.

Above is what the Alzheimer's Society have to say about their aims - this is what I want to say.

My mother loved films - you could ask her who was in a film, or what was that film with a particular star where such and such happened and she could give you chapter and verse.   She would have given Barry Norman a run for his money.   So when she began to not recognise certain stars, or forgot their names I knew there was something wrong.   I tried to persuade her to see her GP but, because of the stigma of dementia, would laugh it off, or tell me that other people told her they forgot things too.   But, although, as I lived a considerable distance away, I did not see her as often as I would have had I lived nearby, I talked to her on the phone every single day and I could tell that something was wrong.

Eventually she agreed to see her GP who gave her what is known as the MSE; for those who have not come across this, frankly by the time you cannot "pass" this you are so badly affected that there is little help you can actually get.   However, I persisted (because I am very stubborn), going with her to her GP several times and he sent her for various tests which ruled out other causes.

And then we had the episode that within the family we refer to as her "falling off the roof".   A relative called round to find her sitting on her sofa, distressed and confused and telling him she did not know what she was supposed to do.  I went over to my mum's place and stayed there whilst I sorted out the situation, getting a Social Services Assessment, arranging her meals and shopping, setting up a routine for her with daily sheets that she could complete (and if anyone wants a template I would be happy to provide one) which gave her structure and, again, making a GP appointment.   This time I insisted he refer her to The Memory Clinic who confirmed that she had dementia.   The Dementia Nurse explained the condition and what we could expect the future to be.   It did not look good.   When I asked her about the long time it had taken to get my mother there, she sadly admitted that this appears to be a problem and that, for whatever reason, people are not referred as early as they ought to be.

Over the next couple of years my mother's personality and abilities deteriorated and I was now on the phone to her three or more times a day, often for an hour at a time, just to support her so she could remain in the home she loved.   As well as checking on her situation (and this often reduced us both to giggles) when I would ask her if she was dressed and she would say yes, then I would ask her what she had on and quite often the reply was "my nice (colour) nighty" and I would have to chivvy her into going to get dressed, I often got woken by a phone call in the night with a plaintive request to help her to turn the television over; or a call in the summer months at 4.00 a.m. asking me if it was nearly teatime or not yet breakfast time.

And then I got the call to say her carer had found her on the floor after a fall and she had gone into hospital.   She was discharged from hospital after a few days but it was felt she ought not to go back home so we found a residential home for her and told her she was convalescing.   By this time her memory and personality was so far from who she had been she had even forgotten she smoked (for the previous 50+ years at least 30 a day and sometimes more than 40) - she had become a very different person from "Bolshie Bren", capable and efficient.

The Residential Home was fantastic - I cannot praise too highly the amazing staff who looked after her in pleasant home-like surroundings.  But it wasn't her home, with her own rooms, her choice of television, her choice of meals..

I last saw her on her birthday in March 2020 when I took along an album of photographs I had put together from her childhood to her grandchildren.   She did not really know who I was - when I told her my name she told me she had a daughter with the same name (I was half expecting this having been warned it is a common issue) but she did recognise me as a child from the photos.   Not so, my brother and sister who she described as "a boy" and "a baby" when she looked at their photographs.  She was not herself any longer, even though occasionally that person might be glimpsed as an image is seen through a fast moving train window - here one moment and then gone.   Her doctors assured us that medically speaking she was healthy and fit and there was no reason not to think she could not carry on for years - they did not seem to want to admit she was no longer really there by then.

What happens is that slowly, but consistently the person you knew fades away into someone else, and it is hard to remember the important day to day memories of her, not just the positive ones, but the ones that go down in family history as the "you'll never believe this but ..." memories - in my mum's case she insisted on putting two sprouts on my sister's plate for her to try even though she knew my sister hated sprouts (it's okay I would eat them because I love sprouts) until when my sister was 16 I finally said - look, she's 16, don't you think she knows whether or not she wants to eat the sprouts! - it drove us mad, but you would give anything to be driven mad by that again.

Last December COVID took away her body, but dementia had already taken the real, essential Bren from us. So with the anniversary coming up I felt I wanted to do something to raise funds for the Society to support their work in researching ways to stave off the effects, their work in supporting people to stay with their families in their homes and communities for as long as possible, and their work in giving support to those family members dealing with this cruel cruel disease.   If the money raised means even one family is helped it will be something amazing.   What this is about, for me, is to hopefully achieve both something large for people affected by dementia as a whole and something intimate for a family who miss the personality they knew.