My mother was diagnosed with Dementia a couple of years ago. She was showing early signs probably in her mid to late 60’s. She is now 78. Her diagnosis is “Major neurocognitive disorder due to Alzheimer’s disease and Vascular disease, probable and Psychotic disorder with delusions”. It’s a mouthful, and a bit hard to swallow.

When I was little, all I wanted to do was be with my mother. I never wanted to leave her. I never wanted to move out. I always wanted to live with her. She was my cute, sweet mom that I got along with. She was musical, artistic, with a great sense of humour. She was my best friend. 

The things we did growing up together, the things we shared… even as an adult, we drank together, partied and yes, even got high! 

Yes, as a kid I was punished for doing wrong, got the spatula on the ass, been grounded etc. I had my fair of “mother-daughter” fights but for the most part, she was my best friend.

Cut to 30 years later and here I am living in Australia. A citizen of Australia for the last 5 years and a resident of Australia for the last 13 years. I’m married, have a house with fur babies, I work from home and just living my life. My mother? Still resides in the United States in her home state and in a Health Care Facility. I have been home twice. 2016 and again in 2018/2019. My mother has been here to visit for 6 months back in 2014. She was showing signs then but minute enough not to really take much notice.

In 2014 I really wanted to keep her here with me in Australia. Immigrate her here. She is my only living family member (aside from my cousins) so you’d think it would be easy but the cost and wait time was atrocious. She went back home 6 months later and I cried. She just didn’t want to be here. She wanted to go back to Florida.

Over the course of the next 6 years she progressively got worse and the only time I can talk with her is via FaceTime or text messaging. But just recently my mother has struggled with using technology and she has lost the capability to text with me. She barely understands how to FaceTime with me.

For the most part the conversations we go through are her repeated questions and I just repeat the answer, and each answer is in the same tone as if she is asking me for the first time, not the tenth.

On occasions she thinks I’m her deceased sister. At one time she didn’t know she had me. Another time she thought I was still in my late teens early 20’s and when we face timed she was surprised that I was 54. She said she was expecting to see the “young” me.

She knows I’m in Australia but her hallucinating side of the disease has her seeing me in the same room. She talks to me, can hear me talk back but never sees my lips move. She can smell my perfume. Has even stated “we just had dinner together” but then if she looks away and looks back at me, I’m gone. She goes into full panic and starts looking for me. I’ve had a few emails from the staff at the health facility asking to please call her. I do… and I have to bring her back.

This has now become my norm. I may go a week without hearing from her. Or she will try to call but due to the time difference, I’m asleep. I’ll have about 4 or 5 missed FaceTime calls from her. If I’m in a good mindset I’ll attempt to call her back. 

I have been to counselling (still attend), I’ve been to seminars to understand her disease. And what I found is that while she struggles with the disease, she then forgets it. Whereas, the carer or family member struggles with watching it take away the person we love. We remember it, we see it and remember it. And it’s more painful for us then it is for the person.

I’ve tried to record every conversation that we have. I hit that record button or I screen record us on FaceTime. No matter how bad of a day or how good of a day we have. I, at least, have that. 

I never in my wildest dreams would think that I would have to face this type of situation. You never think that something terrible would or could happen to you. And when it does, I’m finding that I have to find ways to deal with it. It’s not so much about managing her and bringing her back to reality. That’s the easy part. The hard part is convincing myself not to feel guilty for living so far away from her. Not feeling guilty about not trying hard enough to keep her here when she was here in 2014. Not feeling guilty that I may never get a chance to see her again because of the global pandemic grounding international flights. None of this is my fault and I need to make my brain understand this. It’s not easy.

The struggles of watching her fade away is more heart-breaking than anything. And because I don’t see or talk to her on a daily basis, each time that I do talk to her, she’s just slightly worse than the last time we spoke. On a daily basis I struggle with the fear of getting that one phone call to say the disease has taken her. This weighs heavy on my heart. Waiting for the pandemic to clear so I can fly home to see her … and I fear that the last time I saw my mom (Jan. 2019) might have been that one last time I saw her.

I’m not going to bore anyone with the statistics of Dementia. But I will advise that if you or anyone you know is struggling with a friend or family member with dementia, there is help out there. Find the resources to help you. Utilise them. Don’t think about doing it… DO it.

On a side note: The Activities Director does keep my mom rather busy. Below is a photo of her painting.