My mother suddenly developed dementia over five years ago when she went into the hospital for surgery to repair a hernia. Several years earlier she had surgery to remove a small cancer and because she felt like her memory wasn't as sharp after the earlier surgery she had a really bad feeling about having another one. When she talked to me about it before going in for the surgery, I told her that I was sure she would be fine. She wasn't. It was like the mother I knew died that day. Many years worth of her memories seemed to have been wiped out. She was drooling. She couldn't walk very well and she knew that something was terribly wrong. She could not remember the last 20 or 30 years. She didn't remember the house she had bought with my Dad more than 20 years earlier and she wanted to go home. She didn't even recognize my Dad.

She also didn't recognize her 4 1/2 year old grandson, my son, who lived next door to her. When he called her grandma she told him that she wasn't really his grandmother. He told her that he was her grandson but that her brain was damaged and she just couldn't remember him. He had done his first musical theatre performance when she was in the hospital and before she went in she was looking forward to watching a video of his performance. After the surgery she could not watch the video because her short term memory was only about 15 seconds. She would never again enjoy reading or watching television or crossword puzzles or anything. She wanted to die and prayed for death in front of her grandson. It was so scary that my son worried about damaging his own brain every time he bumped his head.

The last five years have been hard. We have to homeschool because my son is academically gifted but has a mild motor coordination disorder called dyspraxia which caused difficulty with handwriting. Because he was very advanced in reading and math he was not eligible for occupational therapy for his disability in our public school. Several people at our public school told us that we needed to homeschool so that he could get an appropriate education. He is is doing well at home but sometimes I feel like he is seeing too much of life's difficulties at such a young age. He just turned 10.

I have read about some homeschoolers who cared for dementia patients at home and the kids even helped clean up their grandparent with wet wipes. I know my mother would not have wanted that and I guess I will have to have him leave the room if we are watching her and she has an accident. I have not had to help her with this yet, but I think it is just a matter of time because my Dad sometimes has to run errands and there is always a chance that he could end up in the hospital since he is older than she is.

My Dad has bruises and bite marks on his arms from where my Mom fights him when he tries to give her a bath. My Mom has bruises on her arms because she fights him when he tries to help her up. I would not be able to help her up if she falls down because she outweighs me by about 80 pounds. My Dad is barely able to get her up and he was always a very strong man. What do I do if I can't get her up? She also has some embarrassing repetitive behaviors that I wish my son didn't have to see because I know that will be what he remembers about his grandmother instead of what a kind, wonderful person she once was. He says it is getting harder to remember her the way she used to be.