One step at a time
Caring for his parents, Jonathan Curtis, 58, from South Wales, needed to care for himself, too…
Pulling out the last slice of bread from the packet, my mum Doris frowned.
‘I’ll need to get some more bread,’ she sighed.
It was 2003, and Mum, then 79, was treating me and my dad Robert, then 81, to lunch.
Tucking into our sandwiches, Mum frowned.
‘I’ll need to get some more bread,’ she said.
‘I know, Mum,’ I replied gently. ‘You just said that.’
For a while now, Mum had been more forgetful, repeating herself all the time, and often talking about the past.
A few days later, I got a worried call from a friend.
‘I found your mum walking down the middle of the road,’ she said.
Mum had gone out to the shops, but forgot how to get home, and was wandering the streets, utterly confused.
Over the next few months, with the help of social workers,
Mum was diagnosed with dementia.
I was devastated.
I’d always been close to Mum, and she’d always been such a strongwilled person, so to see her like this was heartbreaking.
We took care of her, but by the following year, in 2004, taking care of Mum was too much for Dad to handle, so we made the difficult decision to put her in a home.
I would check in on Mum at the home every day, then head over to Dad’s house to make sure he was OK.
But he wasn’t OK.
On his own and struggling to cope, I started to get calls to say he’d fallen and had been taken to hospital.
It was getting harder for me to take care of them both.
When Dad had a particularly bad fall, I took a few days off to care for him.
I realised it couldn’t go on like this, so, that year, I gave up work to become Dad’s full-time carer. I moved in with him, and he was so grateful to have me around helping out.
‘Shall we go for a walk Dad?’ I asked one morning.
‘No, I’m alright,’ he shrugged. Dad had always loved walking, but now, without Mum to encourage him, he wasn’t keen.
Luckily, I managed to convince him to come for a short walk around the block – and it did wonders.
‘I really enjoyed that,’ Dad smiled afterwards.
Soon we had a routine – every morning we’d go for a short walk, then visit Mum.
But Dad’s health was deteriorating, and by the following year, taking care of him all the time was starting to take its toll on me.
‘You look exhausted,’ one of his carers told me.
‘You need to take care of yourself in order to look after him,’ she encouraged. I knew she was right. The next day, I got thinking. I loved walking, but Dad could only do short distances.
Once a week, I’d take Dad to a day centre where he could spend time with people his own age – with a few hours to myself, I could walk for ages.
We were surrounded by beautiful Welsh mountains, so I decided to explore.
That day, I walked for a good three hours, admiring the scenery and taking in the fresh air. And when I got back, I felt amazing. Walking on my own had allowed me to clear my head head– I was hooked. Each week while Dad was with his friends, I’d go for a long walk.
I was building up my strength and was soon eas easily walking 10 miles. If I can do that, I can take care of Dad Dad, I thought. By now, Dad’s memory was starting to go, and a few months later, he was diagnosed with dementia. With each month that went by, I felt like I was losing a bit of my parents. In March 2009, Dad passed away aged 87.
I was devastated, and the only thing that got me through was walking. That April, the Alzheimer’s Society invite invited me to climb Ben Nevis to raise money for them. It was an incredible experience, and I managed to raise over £500 for the charity.
The following year, Mum passed away aged 86. Once again, walking did wonders for my grief. These days I can walk up to 25 miles a day, and it really takes my mind off things. Last year I took part in the Alzheimer’s Society Memory Walk, designed for people whose loved ones have suffered with dementia.
I lost both my parents to a cruel disease, but walking saved my life, and my sanity, and I’d encourage anyone in my situation to try it.
It was a difficult decision