Navigating Chaos: A Road Trip with Dementia

Few things are sadder than seeing a loved one slip gradually into dementia.

This is what happened to my grandmother – my mom’s mom. She got to the point where she couldn’t live on her own any more, but she didn’t really have other debilitating health issues. So she didn’t need to be in a hospital, or a nursing home. She just needed someone around to help her with daily living, because she would forget things.

So my parents converted their garage into a small apartment so she could live there. And she loved this. At the time our two kids were young, maybe 6 and 8, and we’d go over and visit pretty often. We’d be in the main part of the house, and Grandma would ask, “Hey, have you seen my new apartment? Come on, I’ll give you the tour!” So we would all go over and she’d show us all around – this is my bed, and this is my chair where I like to sit and read, all the stuff. And then we’d all come back to the main house.

And then maybe five minutes later, Grandma would look up like she just thought of something, and ask, “Have you all seen my new apartment? Come on and let me show you!” and we’d just go and take another tour of the apartment. Our kids understood the basics of what was happening, and they just thought it was hilarious. We all just played along each time, because that’s what made Grandma happy. But it was also sad to see her gradual decline.

My guest today, Kari, could tell that her dad was slipping into dementia. And she wanted to help. But she never expected to see him decline so rapidly. And there was really nothing she could do, because it happened on a 1700 mile road trip.

If you’d like to contact Kari, she is in the WWTL podcast Facebook group -

https://WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook

Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here:

https://WhatWasThatLike.com/204

Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai.

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