Things are rolling along… here’s a video about our assessment by the geriatrics clinic, and the followup formal recommendation for urgent placement in Long Term Care. As hard and painful as it is to get my head around the notion that soon I will be helping Heather out of her home for the last time Read More
Tag: 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
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
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
8 Orange Birds – Part 2
This week, I hoped that Heather would be interested in decorating the birds she painted orange last week. When I arrived, I could tell she was in good spirits as she greeted me with a big smile—a good sign. After lunch, we moved to the back deck, our usual spot for art projects. I laid Read More
An art project… painting birds
Hetty used to visit on Fridays for art activities, hence the name of the book Fridays with Heather – 55 Art Projects for Dementia Care. She has since switched to Tuesdays, which doesn’t make any difference in the big scheme of things. Today is an art day. Hetty always keeps things as simple as possible, Read More
