My Support Forums - View Single Post - Bipolar check-in #70

BeyondtheRainbow · Oct 16, 2022, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by *Beth*

During the week I was away from the forum my oldest sister was diagnosed with vascular dementia, which has resulted from having had a mild stroke last winter. She is 77. Not so old. My sister was an intelligent, bright, sharp woman who always kept up on current events - and had an educated opinion about every one of them. She was accepted to medical school at the age of 17 in 1961 - quite an accomplishment for a woman in those times! Now she's struggling to spell simple words, cannot remember the term "covid" (she calls it "that thing"). We were talking on the phone a few days ago and she asked me what her DIL's name is (W. has been my sister's DIL for 25 years). She has 2 cats that she loves, but cannot recall the name of one of them now; she calls it "the little one."

I am terrified of losing another sibling, the only one I have left. Our other sister, a precious colorful quick-witted woman, died 5 years ago this month of cancer, after decades of drug abuse that I believe weakened her body.

I've been crying all week, I can't seem to stop, it gets ridiculous. The niece I am closest to and I had a long talk this week. My BIL is a perfect husband to my sister. He has been deeply in love with her for all their many years of their marriage, God bless them. And although he is a strong and healthy man, he is 82. My niece, the youngest of their four children, is the one that most of the care for her parents is falling to.

So the conversation with my niece was cathartic, I think, for both she and I. Both of us are quite alone in our personal lives, but we do have each other.

I am tired, I am sad, and it's hard for me to see much happiness in the future. I am tired of being attacked, put down, misunderstood, demeaned in my life. I am trying to find a different way.

I'm so sorry about your sister. Dementia is always a terrible thing to watch happen to a loved one.

Something you can do that can help a little is to make a memory book. It can be as simple as a little photo album with a one-two sentence statement about her life on each page ("I like baseball. My favorite team is the Giants") ("I worked in a library") etc. Or you can go fancier and use a photo album or scrap booking album and include pictures with labels on all faces, meaningful mementos (Like a program from a wedding) and just kind of make "the story of Sister's Life). I used to do these with my patients with dementia and they usually loved them. One woman with more advanced dementia lost hers and they had to search her whole room because she really missed going through it every day. It was the first thing she'd enjoyed in years. It won't stop the dementia; it just reminds her of important things in her life.

I hope that she has a slow progression and that you are able to spend time with her. It's good she has people who love her.