The joy of Wednesday morning has been replaced with a couple of days of stark reality.  Just as I thought I’d got vascular dementia in the bag, it escaped and the stark reality of Maureen’s condition hit me straight between the eyes. My optimistic plans of Wednesday morning were a pipe dream and are long forgotten aspirations of someone who has lost the ability to recollect.

Today Maureen’s early morning mode is fear and confusion.  Earlier on she was asking who the young woman was who came the other day.  She has no recollection of why we might need a Wednesday night sitter and says she has never met the woman before, despite it being her third visit.  Yesterday morning she told me that she thought her diagnosis of dementia ‘meant she was mad’.

It was a little reassuring when Maureen’s Care Coordinator reminded me yesterday that with vascular dementia just as you think you’ve got it in the bag it changes and you have to get used to a new reality.  She also asked me if I had heard of ’emotional incontinence’ as it could be behind aspects of Maureen’s presentation, and I confessed I hadn’t.  However, there is one thing I generally have in the bag – how to distract and redirect when Maureen is upset: Bocelli is the man of the moment:

Although I recognise that his exalted position could change and I’ll have to find the next idol for a mature lady: thank goodness for YouTube!