you're gonna catch a cold

When did we define dementia as a tragedy? It is, for certain sad- as great a bane as any other perpetual incurable illness. Yet there appears to be this stigma attached to it, this unspoken belief that once a person has succumbed they have lost themselves, and ought to be relegated to a home to pass the rest of their days as pleasantly as possible. They are to be chemically sedated, as their fits and starts pose a danger to themselves and others. Why is it society says this, when to say the same thing about a child with cerebral palsy, or kidney disease, or a learning disability, or autism, would surely incite outrage and censure.

my mother has mild dementia. She is, praise and thank the Lord!!, doing very well. Dementia is something we live with however, we face and observe it every day. What i've learned from this intimacy, fromt he close relationship formed of sleep deprived nights and altered perceptions, is that while the disease may have affected my mother in many ways it has nto stolen her personality. Is the expeirence of enjoying a baseball game on a warm summer day less enjoyable for an inability to remember which team you want to win, or what the score is. no, because when these facts, these truths leave they do not take with them the sensation of warm spring sunshine on weary nerves, not the joy of watching ball meet bat.
Recently, they gave my mother haldol at a hospital. when, based upon knowledge and research on the part of myself and others, they said that she became too agitated. when experience and research imllunated pootential dangers and these were braoched to the doctor, we were informed that medicine was fine. if you were directed to take dangerous drug simply so you could relax, when an alternate. when i came and spen the ngith, i learned that one person's otu of shape is another person's confused and scared.
so we as a society are okay with carign for a sick c hild, but a sick elderly person suddently becomes a problem or a sacrifice. i think fear may have something to do with it. we're called to love them anyway they're still adults. let's respect them and treat them as such shall we.