Leigh Herrick

Being a dementia caregiver is like living in an emergency situation 24/7.  That situation improves and worsens on a roller coaster of ups and downs as you care for your loved one while the overall trajectory of their health is…

It is difficult to know what to do once there has been a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia.  You likely noticed it for some time before the actual diagnosis.  There is often a sense of panic.  You…

What is compassion, anyway?  Is it mere forgiveness?  Is it cushy, makes us feel good, the cause we donate to; the prayer in Sunday church that all sinners find their ways?  Is this compassion? 

Nope.

Compassion is not always easy.…

Days. Hours.  Minutes, seconds.  That is how time moves, isn’t it, when you are caring for a loved one with dementia? Dementia becomes the big PAUSE on your life, the interrupter, the disruptor of rhythm.  And what to do when…

Near the end of my mother’s life, which is to say in the last six months or so, I was feeling so exhausted I didn’t know how much longer I could continue digging down to find the energy to keep…

Coping with the grief of losing your loved one to dementia is not easy, especially as they move deeper into the condition and all “hopes” of certain stability fade.  They begin to enter late-moderate stage or the beginning of end-stage…

Someone I am close to is dying of dementia.  Is dying.  Is exhibiting the same process as my mother exhibited when her dying—which is what dementia is on the whole—accelerated in end stage.  Falling, wheelchair, hospice, hospital bed, asking to…

One of my fondest memories is the night all the stars momentarily realigned and everything seemed alright with my mom.  She’d had a terrible choking event some months earlier, and two recent falls within ten days of each other, and…

I arrive one early evening to find my mother sitting alone in her wheelchair at a table in the dining area of the Memory Care Unit.  She is chewing on something that looks like chicken.  She is happy to see…