Sounds from beyond the Shed 148 Respite Americana UK [Video]

I’ve written before about my father’s increasing dementia and how my mother is his sole carer with a bit of help for a couple of hours a week. Dad is 92, Mum is 87 and fiercely independent. She is also knackered. So this week I have managed to get her to go away with some friends on a coach tour for 5 days leaving the old man in my care. It’s only when you spend 24 hours a day caring for someone that you really begin to understand the full extent of the physical and mental burden that the role exerts. My father is not bed ridden and is able, with assistance, to get about but his memory is about a minute long so everything has to be either done for him or talked through as he does it. Then there’s the dressing, undressing, toilet routine, showering, relentless questioning of …