Name

My Demented Dad

Bio

I was born in Giffnock, but raised in England until the age of nine. I returned to Glasgow – with an English accent! – and went to my first gig (Jimi Hendrix, Cat Stevens, Engelbert  Humperdinck and the Walker Brothers at Green’s Playhouse) and got my  first job (at the BBC in Queen Margaret Drive).  I moved to London with the BBC and enjoyed a busy and eventful freelance career in TV and DVD production ever since. Now back in Glasgow – where an English accent isn’t nearly so exotic these days – I'm combining working on various media-related projects with the care of my Dad, who has dementia.

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  • My Demented Dad: a tribute to our four-legged friends

    I said no, there wasn’t a cat, but would he like one?

    ‘Definitely not’ Dad said.

    ‘What about a dog?’

    ‘No!’ even more firmly.

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  • My Demented Dad: we need enlightment, not awareness, when it comes to dementia

    But as my favourite niece might say: ‘Seriously?! Who isn’t aware of dementia!’ And she would be right. There is something in the papers, on the radio, in the news, on Twitter every single day about dementia, so you’d have to work pretty hard not to have any awareness of it. Certainly everyone I know, knows somebody who is affected by it. A friend; a friend of a friend or a relative.

    I wonder, though, if it’s awareness we need, or if it’s enlightenment.

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  • My Demented Dad: a right royal clear out

    One of the siblings came up to visit Dad for the first time in about 18 months. He originally planned to stay just three days but, because his car broke down, he found himself stranded here for over a week.

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  • My Demented Dad: when the drugs don't work

    There was a Bridget Jones Diary style monitoring of the daily intake:

    Aricept x 1

    Antacid tablets x 2

    Aspirin x 1

    Senna tablets x 2

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  • My Demented Dad: is no news always good news?

    I’m thinking particularly of the Boston marathon bombings, the explosion at the fertiliser plant in Texas and the funeral of Margaret Thatcher.

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  • My Demented Dad: when DNR are the kindest letters of all

    He has already outlived his mother by 20 years and his father by 10 and is, in his own words, well passed his sell-by date. Thanks to the life-span lottery he is still going strong in his nineties, but I'm under no illusion about what’s ahead.

    What I'm hoping for is a peaceful, at-home death, during our GP’s normal working hours so that he can register the death, making it as calm and straightforward as possible.

    But should Dad be unlucky enough to die out of surgery hours, or at the weekend, or away from home, things may not be so easy.

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  • My Demented Dad: the science of sleep

    But for Dad it was just rather confusing, having to be woken up ‘in the middle of the night’ as he saw it, so we’ve been introducing him to British Summertime gradually.

    If there’s anything that Dad really hates it’s the process of waking up in the morning, regardless of the time, but especially when it’s still dark. 

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  • My Demented Dad: is there a doctor on board?

    We all sat up in our seats to see what was going on.  Three rows ahead of me someone had been taken ill.  At first no-one moved; we held our breath while the cabin crew listened for a response. And then a man appeared who we assumed, and hoped, was a doctor.  He was Italian and started talking to the sick man.

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  • My Demented Dad: you are what you eat

    It may be because we’ve had a change in carer, something which didn’t bother Mum when she was being looked after, because she didn’t have dementia. But for Dad the change of face, of voice, accent, touch and smell brings with it a feeling of uncertainly and he retreats into himself.

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  • My Demented Dad: fire advice for when you have an immobile dad in the house

    ‘We’re here to talk to you about your Fire Action Plan’, one of them said.

    My what plan?

    ‘What you would do in case of a fire?’

    Wasn't that rather obvious?

    ‘Well, I’d dial 999 and ask for you guys!’ I said.

    ‘But what would you do between making that call and us arriving? How would you make yourself as safe as possible until then? And what measures have you taken to prevent a fire starting in the first place?’

    I realised I didn’t have a clue.

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  • My Demented Dad: blood isn’t always thicker than water

    At the end of the interview Phyllida was asked whether she had made plans for her own old age. She laughed and said ‘Well, I have two daughters, who are quite helpful already’. The interviewer agreed enthusiastically. ‘Yes, yes I’ve got two daughters too, so…fingers crossed!’

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  • My Demented Dad: the struggle in trying to take a holiday

    ‘If you don’t take care of yourself, how are you going to be able to take care of someone else?’ is the oft repeated mantra.

    So with that in mind I booked a short break to visit friends in Italy last November. I also took out insurance which was just as well because this was the very week that Dad was rushed into hospital.

    I made a claim and, with the help of Dad’s very accommodating doctor who filled in a lengthy medical declaration form, I got (most of) my money back.

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  • My Demented Dad: why care homes are not always the best option

    I hadn’t had much experience of caring for the elderly at that stage. I only ever really knew one grandparent and, although we saw him often, I was shielded from any discussions about what to do when he started to decline.

    In the end Grandpa went into a kind of sheltered accommodation, but not for very long. He died in hospital when I had just turned 20 and my biggest preoccupation was finding a fake fur Cossack style hat for the February funeral.

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  • My Demented Dad: the power of music

    I’ve been part of Shona Brown’s Soundroutes choir which meets in a room above a bar in George Square – I still can’t get over being able to drive there in about 10 minutes and always find a parking space. And that it’s FREE to park after 6pm. (Note to Sassenachs: George Square is the Glasgow equivalent of Trafalgar Square.)

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  • My Demented Dad: why use a long word when a short one will do?

    I have to be careful not to use ‘disinterested’ to mean not interested, because I’ve had decades of being reminded that disinterested means impartial.  Uninterested means not interested. Better just to say not interested, rather than risk getting it wrong.

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  • My Demented Dad: falling out with auntie Beeb

    She.  read. out. a para. graph. so s-l-o-w-l-y. that I could. write. every. word. in long. hand. So when it came to typing the piece back, I got it 100% right. And I got the job, as a ‘pool’ secretary to cover holiday, sickness, maternity leave and other general absences.  I loved every minute of it – working in current affairs one week, the sports department the next, doing stints in press and publicity and typing the billings for Radio Times.

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  • My Demented Dad: flowers for the living

    This week’s very sad news is that my great friend Carolyn’s mum has died.

    Carolyn had given up work early and left Newcastle to look after her mum, also with Alzheimer’s. It was the promise of having Carolyn here as my buddy that finally persuaded me to come back to Scotland to look after Dad. We have been friends since the age of nine and our parents all knew each other, so our lives have been entwined, sometimes more closely than others, for almost half a century.

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  • My Demented Dad: it’s not all in the mind

    They're a bit like Valentine's cards - a nice idea, but they can be hard work and don't always give you the results you're after. But I am a great believer in that ‘use it or lose it’ edict.

    The need for mental stimulation is well known for anyone with dementia, and with the generous help and tremendous expertise of Alzheimer’s Scotland I think Dad has been pretty well served in that department since his diagnosis. But it may be that we rather neglected his physical well-being while concentrating on keeping his mind occupied.

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  • My Demented Dad: Reasons to be Cheerful

    Here are some other Reasons to be Cheerful: the world didn’t end on December 21 as predicted!

    December 21 was my birthday.

    My birthday is the shortest day of the year and the longest night.

    So now we can truly say ‘the days are getting longer’. And it won’t be long before we really see a difference.

    December 23 was my nephew Jack’s birthday. Happy Birthday Jackster!

    And some others, with apologies to Ian Dury:

    Reasons to be Cheerful – one, two, three 

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  • My Demented Dad: sometimes all we need is one person to be thoughful

    This week the radiator in Dad’s bedroom started to come away from the wall. It would soon reach a tipping point, fall, snapping the two inlet pipes and causing hot water to spew out all over the carpet. The insurance company would start the long, tedious process of raising a claim, sending a loss adjuster, appointing a builder and, eventually, getting the work done.  And all the while Dad would be in a cold bedroom, or a bedroom warmed by a noisy and thirsty fan heater borrowed from a neighbour.

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Name

My Demented Dad

Job Title

Jill Sinclair

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