Empowered taught me that Tommy’s world is fine, his world is wonderful, but I need to do little tweaks and adjustments to my world.
Tommy will be 88 in August, he has vascular dementia. Tommy married the love of his life, Marlene, when he came out of the forces at 22, Mum was 19. They’d been together since they were 14 and 15 years old.
Tommy and Marlene had ‘the perfect family’ with two daughters, Anne-Marie and Alison. When Marlene was 46, she had a couple of falls and a few other incidents and was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Tommy gave up work at 50 to care for Marlene, ‘he was amazing, he’d wake up every hour to help mum to turn so that she didn’t get pressure sores’. He was the most amazing carer to Mum.
Marlene died when she was 61, the grief was almost too much for Tommy and he leant on Anne-Marie for support. Alison was 10 years younger than Anne-Marie, Alison took her mum’s death badly. Anne-Marie felt she needed to be strong and support her dad and Alison, as well as her own family, husband Geoff and son Paul.
Tommy was diagnosed with a brain tumour after a couple of passing […]