I've always had a blog for as long as I can remember. The last one is filled with teenage me ranting about high school, family dramas and just the good times that came along with university. But like everything else in my life, my blog updates started to dwindle and eventually my blog was lucky if I accessed it once every six months. What once was a massive part of my life became a neglected little corner of the internet that I don't even think I dare to look back on anymore.
Despite my lack of love for my blog, I always remember how much better I felt after tapping away to myself another blog entry after the said dramas that filled my life - especially when I felt like I had no one to turn too. I find myself once again facing a massive family drama (more on that later!) and again feel like no one really listens as everyone feels differently about it so maybe it's time to start up a new trusty blog? A whole new one. Lovely and fresh for my new adult dramas... adult. Wow. That was a scary word to write.
Well okay... here's the drama.
This is my Grandad Oakes.
He looked after me, my siblings and my multiple cousins all our lives when our parents were working etc and I spent pretty much all my teen years living with him or Grannie.
Grandad has just been diagnosed with Vascular Dementia. For those of you that are fortunate enough not to have worked with (unlike me!) or seen Dementia, this is caused when brain cells have lost their blood supply at some point and therefore just basically started to die. What does this do to Grandad? Well he's forgetful. You've seen T.V. shows or movies where the characters have got Dementia. Some days I'm his grandchild, other days I'm his daughter or other days I'm practically a stranger. Only on Sunday, he turned round to my sister Lauren and asked who she was to him.
It's heartbreaking. I can see everyone falling apart.
Barry doesn't acknowledge it. Lauren's getting weepy. Dad's getting snappy.
What they don't seem to be grasping is that Dementia can last forever. It's not like when Nana died of cancer or grannie dying slowly from her stroke and her brain stopped functioning completely. There is nothing wrong with Grandad that he can die of. He's just slowly losing his memory. Grandad, despite Dementia, could still literally outlive us all. And that's the scariest part of it all.
Whose going to cope?
No one. I genuinely don't think anyone can cope.
What's the options that we face? Home carers, one of us doing it or a home. And I can safely tell you all that after my years of working in a care home and seeing that institutional abuse face on, my grandad will be going in a home over my dead body. It's going to be a long ride, my readers. A very long ride. I'm just glad I'll have somewhere to rant and rave again.
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