Rik has been married to June for 47.5 years, they have 5 children and 30 grandchildren. June now lives in a care home local to Rik. Rik recently attended the Empowered Conversations and Moving Beyond Word courses.
Can you tell us how you came to be on the Empowered Conversations course?
It was over at Wigan and Leigh Carers Group; I met Karen who told me about the course. I was struggling to understand how dementia was impacting on my wife. I couldn’t conceive that dementia could be impacting on me. The courses have been most useful.
Can you tell us a bit about your family life?
We met through our love of Ballroom dancing; we were teaching Ballroom and Latin at various Dance Schools in and around Manchester for over 20 years.
June had a varied career, she was a clerk and an athlete in the Army until she left. She went on to train as a swimming teacher in Loughborough and later as a nurse, she was in the last cohort of state enrolled nurses based over at Stepping Hill. All of the children swim like fishes, I swim like a brick!
I retired from working as a benefits advisor 30 years ago, we moved to Lowton to be closer to June’s parents in Swinton. I ended up with a whole new career teaching science technology engineering and maths (STEM) in schools and colleges, and mentoring teaching staff.
June and I had a love of motor-caravanning, we visited so many places in the UK and Europe.
What were you finding challenging about being a Carer of someone with a dementia diagnosis?
My misunderstanding of it, probably. It’s not like a broken arm. I left the benefits agency with a ‘broken head’ after a nervous breakdown, and it took me a long time to re-build my confidence. But Dementia never gets fixed. Those downward steps can be surprising, June has mixed Alzheimer’s and Vascular Dementia.
What advice would you give to other people who are caring for a person living with dementia/struggling for a diagnosis?
I don’t think we should give people advice. I help out at the Wigan and Leigh Carers Group. I ask new visitors how they are coping and look to see if there’s something they are not understanding about the diagnosis. I find that giving people time and space to be themselves really helps. If anyone needs to cry that’s OK, and I often cry too. I enjoy helping people.
Has anything changed since working with EC?
Both courses have given me a deeper understanding of June’s condition. They’ve filled in some of the mysteries that I was failing to understand. ‘Invitation to Respond’ has really helped my visits to June. Before the courses my visits were very short. June would ask to come home, I’d try and deflect and she’d say, ‘you should go now’ with various reasons ‘there are bad people outside, or its dark, its cold … go home and be safe’.
Now I invite June into a connection, sometimes I just wave and she then waves back at me or smiles at me. It’s made life less stressful for me, and hopefully less stressful for June. We’re quite tactile, I will sit and hold her hand. I’m interested to see if we can start to connect using morse code, a skill we both learnt years ago and she still remembers some of the rhythms.
In three words came you describe the changes EC has supported.
My thoughts go to a short phrase:
“Learning, sharing, and daring for caring.”