Don’t give up

Like my food blog, I’ve not been here for some time… The only suggestion I can think of this week, for living beyond dementia, is to not give up! A very close friend’s son died unexpectedly, a colleagues house burned to the ground, including their pets, and the week before that, a close girlfriends husband had a major stroke.

Dementia is definitely not the worst thing that can happen to you or someone you love, which I feel is worth remembering…

When you fall over, get up. When you fall off your bike, get backup, fix the bike, patch up your wounds, and get back on your bike.

When you feel sad, cry a while, then get back to living. When you lose someone you love, or someone you love loses someone they love, cry a while or a lot, then get back to living.

If you get dementia or someone you love gets dementia, cry a while, cry a lot, even get angry; be sad, acknowledge the current losses, the expected losses and fear and let your grief live. Then, find ways to keep living, as well as possible even when the symptoms mean others have to support you.

But do find your own ways to love and laugh, and to live with dementia, not only die from it.

Don’t get lost in the sadness of dementia, otherwise you may as well go home and get ready to die straight away. Which, by the way, is still what the sector tells you to do, so if you want to live beyond dementia, ignore the well-meaning advice of Prescribed Disengagement®, and reinvest in living.