Loving son needs help to care for mum with dementia
MATTHEW Cranitch’s 92year-old mother calls him daddy.
Former Australian Education Union NT president Matthew Cranitch, who left Darwin four years ago to move to Brisbane to care for his 92-year-old mother, has issued a heartfelt plea for help. Mr Cranitch, who also ran as an independent in the Blain by-election in 2014, has been by his mother’s side every day over the past couple of years as she struggles with advanced Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.
“There was a lot of kerfuffle around the election. But then I got a call from my sister that said mum was going downhill and that there was no option but to put her into an institute and I said that wasn’t going to happen,” he said.
“She always said don’t ever put me in that sort of environment. So I moved straight away.
“My daughter was born in Darwin, my kids were schooled in Darwin and they’ve had to leave and come here. It’s been hard on them as well.”
She screams for him in the night like a child – loud, chilling, panic-stricken, confused screams. He lovingly bathes her and spoonfeeds her dinner and, with immense patience, he answers her questions – the same questions, over and over, a hundred times a day.
It’s cruel when life is thrown into reverse and generations are turned on their head. Margaret Cranitch is a proud and beautiful mother of 10 and a former nurse.
“I want to be sure that when Mum leaves this world I can be proud I did the right thing for her,” Matthew said.
Matthew, who is in desperate need of a break, has a gofundme page at gofundme.com/advanceddementia-carer-needs-help