I loved the course, absolutely loved it!
Sue’s mum has dementia, she doesn’t live close by, so Sue’s sister supports mum with the practical stuff and Sue helps with the admin side of helping a parent. Sue’s husband, Dave, has Parkinson’s. She visits mum weekly and also volunteers as a photographer with Dancing with Dementia in Salford on a Wednesday.
“I loved my Wednesdays but dreaded going to see my mum on a Thursday. I realised that I needed a solution, and Lesley told me about Empowered Conversations. I was in a right pickle when I first spoke to Amanda. Every phone call resulted in my mum shouting at me. My brain just went into overdrive; I was finding it harder to support my mum and I started to worry about Dave getting dementia.
I loved the course, absolutely loved it! It reminded me of knowledge I already had from previous roles, like the Kitwood Flower, let mum wash her own clothes, even if she mixes the clean clothes with the dirty clothes, it doesn’t matter! I realised that we’d been rushing mum in cafés to get a table when all mum wanted to do was talk to people. Mum interacting with people is so much more important!
I dreaded being on the screen with strangers talking about my mum, but it added to the course. Little things shared by others re-enforced the content of the course. It made me realise that things aren’t as bad as I thought they were, at the time everything felt hard and stressful. The course helped me to settle into mum’s diagnosis.
I’m looking at mum differently now, I was looking at her as a pain, now we are both acting differently. Mum doesn’t like questions, so I only ask questions that I really need to know the answer to. I realised I was asking questions for my own piece of mind. I’ve been using Invitation to Respond to find out what mum’s eaten, I won’t use it all of the time, just when I need to know.
We are both different now. We are getting on now like mothers and daughters should do.
I’m changing, I’m more relaxed about mum’s dementia. I remembered how my husband’s diagnosis left me feeling, you almost go through a bereavement phase. The course helped me to get back into a normal way of being. It’s not all about dementia!
Emma – How would you describe the course?
“It’s essential for anybody who is struggling with dementia. It was a Godsend! It changes your perspective.”