A Final Gift for My Mom with Dementia

The incredible woman you see in the photo is my mom. I know everyone thinks their loved one is the strongest and bravest person, but my mom has truly surpassed every obstacle thrown in her way (and there have been many obstacles) to make her the strongest human being I’ve ever known.

She was born premature, her eyes and lungs severely underdeveloped. The doctors told my grandparents not to expect her to live past her first birthday. By the time she was 5, she had multiple eye surgeries so she could see with bifocals. While in college, she had to wear a back brace and have spinal surgery just so she could walk, sit, and lie down without pain. Despite all this, she went on to live a full life, working as a nurse and serving her country as a Navy nurse before getting her law degree, which she used to help people living with HIV/AIDS in the '80s and '90s and residents of nursing homes and other care facilities, among so many others. She achieved all of this despite the circumstances she was thrown into.

Here we are 75 years later, and we are still celebrating her and her accomplishments. Unfortunately, she’s had one more obstacle thrown her way…in 2019, she was diagnosed with dementia. For three and a half years, my husband and I cared for my mom largely on our own with help from a home health aide and neighbors for a couple of hours every week, but by the end of 2022, we knew she needed more help than we could provide at home, and we moved her into a local memory care. For those who don’t have experience with dementia, memory care units are extremely costly, and over the last 2.5 years, we have watched her life savings dwindle as we paid for her to receive the care she needed to continue to live a full life despite the dementia. Never in my life did I think I’d need to rely on the help of strangers to make sure my mom continues to receive the care she needs and deserves, but here we are. We are entering the final stretch of her life, and she deserves to remain in what has become her “home” for whatever time she has left, so here I am asking you to help me give my mom one last gift to remain in her home for the remainder of her life.

Thank you for your consideration and your time.