In case you didn’t know, I have a very active YouTube channel… In the three month period after I started posting videos about our dementia journey my subscriber count grew from 300 to over 10,000 with thousands of amazing comments and wonderful interactions with people from around the world. It really took me by surprise. Read More
Tag: art and dementia
Looking toward the future and the YANA concept
A Difficult Milestone and a New Realization It’s only been two weeks since my last update, but as I’ve been telling Hetty, and others, it feels like we hit a new milestone every week. And by milestone, I don’t mean just a small change—these are significant shifts that alter how we care for Heather and Read More
Changes and updates…
It’s been a while since I updated here. I’ve been busy maintaining my YouTube channel, and that has taken up most of my free time. However, I now have a lot more free time because, as of a week ago, a professional caregiver started working for me. She arrives every day at 7:30 in the Read More
Yet Another ‘Aha’ Moment
While preparing for my day with Heather this week, I found myself struggling to come up with an idea when I reminded myself that I just had a book of art ideas published. A year ago, we tried the “Flower Painting” project on page 133 in Fridays with Heather: 55 Art Projects for Dementia Care. Read More
A Good Day
Last week was discouraging. I don’t usually give up easily, but I found myself questioning whether engaging Heather in art was still possible. Despite some encouragement, she only managed to draw a few reluctant lines with a marker. As I prepared for today’s visit, I had an “aha” moment. Last week, I had presented Heather Read More
Stay Strong, You’re Not Alone – but it still hurts
In the “Things I Never Knew I Would Have To Get Good At” department
Heather was always a pro at shopping for clothes—nothing flashy, just high-quality, well-fitting, and practical pieces. She took real satisfaction in finding the right item at a good price and stretched out her buying process to make it last. She was never impulsive and never went overboard. But with everything falling apart, I suddenly found Read More
Finger Painting
Six months ago, Heather and I had a delightful time fingerpainting together. It was a relaxing way to create art, free from the pressure of specific outcomes. Given how stress-free the experience was, I decided to invite Heather to fingerpaint with me again today. We started by selecting a few colours and placing a small Read More
Food and eating habits
Heather has reached a point where she seems largely unaware of what she’s eating and shows little interest or desire for specific foods. While she previously had a preference for sweets, carbs, and similar foods, which is common among dementia patients, this has changed. Now, she appears somewhat apathetic toward food. Although she still has Read More
How it all started – looking back in my journal to the summer of 2021
I started writing out a story of something that happened in 2022 that I called The Fingernails Incident. I took Heather to a nail salon to get acrylic nails attached, and without going into detail I’ll just say that it didn’t work out at all. It was pretty awful… But that’s the subject of another Read More
