Don’t Forget To Have Some Fun

01 Monday May 2017

Posted by emilypageart in death, dementia, family, Fractured Memories, gratitude, mental health, Uncategorized

Tags

caregiver, dementia, dementia care, family fun, fly a kite, love

Facebook reminded me recently about taking my dad out to fly a kite. So this is just a reminder for anyone else going through the caregiving experience. Dedicate some time for fun with the person you’re caring for. It can’t all be about the daily caregiving grind. You need to find a way to enjoy the person and remember why you love them enough to care for them in the first place.

For the year that we all lived together, we made Sundays a day to go out and do something fun as a family. So if it was a nice day, we flew a kite or went to a playground. If it wasn’t, we went bowling or out to dinner. Look for ways to rejuvenate yourselves and your love for each other. Get chair massages. Go out for ice cream. Have a picnic in your living room. Watch kids playing at a playground. Enjoy your favorite movie together.

And take pictures. I promise you that you’ll be so grateful later to see pictures of the person you love smiling.

The memories you build on those days will be a comfort once your caregiving experience is over.

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Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

Let’s Go Fly a Kite

15 Friday May 2015

Posted by emilypageart in dementia, family

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Alzheimer's, entertaining the demented, family fun, father, FLD, frontal lobe dementia, frontotemporal dementia, FTD, kite, Mary Poppins

Now that I’ve put the Mary Poppins song in your head with the title of this post, I’ll continue. <insert evil laugh> Yesterday, when I was taking advantage of the fanfreakingtastic weather and walking Raleigh’s Greenway trails, I saw a mom trying to fly a kite with her 4 or 5 year old daughter. It was a relatively windless day, so they weren’t having much success, but the little girl was so happy to be running and screaming with the kite bouncing along the ground behind her.

It reminded me of the activities we used to do with my dad before we moved him to the dementia care facility. As his disease progressed, he became increasingly restless and needed to be entertained at all times. My mom, husband, and I all took shifts watching him and keeping him occupied, but we made a point once a week to do something all together. Tensions ran high a lot of the time. We’re a tightknit family, but all of us living under one roof and dealing with a horrible disease was a strain. But on Sundays, we put that all aside and did things together to remind ourselves that we all loved each other and were a family. We started going to parks, or bowling, or hiking, or even just out to eat. One day, my mom bought a kite, so we took him out to try to fly it. Again, it was a relatively windless day, so it wasn’t easy, but it was so funny to see my dad acting like a kid and elatedly running with the kite over his head. Luckily, S brought along the camera, so we’ll have these pictures of that day forever: