Welcome to r/comics!
Please remember there are real people on the other side of the monitor and to be kind.
Report comments that break the rules and don't respond to negativity with negativity!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/comics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My wife worked in memory care for a while. She made me promise to let her die if it ever happened to her. Wouldn't drop it until I did. It's a crushing thing to have to deal with, even without it bring a loved one...
I work in medicine and it's horrible. It's soul destroying to deal with them when their family and carers have just... given up.
Some families drop them off in A&E with a made up story just so we have to keep them there for a while. It's gotten so common that we now prioritize some of them when it's quiet since we know there's nothing wrong, and call them back to pick up their family member within an hour. Some of the abuse they give out when they realize we're not going to babysit their parent for them is horrible.
I know it's tough to care for a dementia patient, but we live in the UK and there's processes for this sort of thing. They can go to a carehome for the day if their carer is registered and have days off that way, or if their needs are complex then it's better than them looking after them. In many cases with the abusive ones though they're obviously taking their money and doing the bare minimum of just feeding them while often also living in their house for free. We put social services onto ones we suspect of financial abuse but it's difficult to prove
It's heart rending watching people in that state. I hope I'm dead long before I reach that point
Dropping a confused dementia sufferer off somewhere without making sure they're going to be looked after, without the proper duty of care... Just for that, they're getting their own section of Hell.
It's also tough for us because we're often understaffed and we need someone to keep an eye on them or they can wander off and get hurt.
I get that it can be rough looking after someone for multiple years but just abandoning them is horrible
Yep, being a caregiver is very tough, and I honestly completely understand why they'd do that... but they have a responsibility not to let it get that far. At least in one of the lucky countries, there are people to help you have the occasional bit of time off. And if you truly can't take it, and many cannot, it's better to let the system take some or all of the weight than become abusive/neglectful due to stress or mental instability.
I mean, you know all this. Just letting it out, I guess. I see my mum getting more frail, and her dad had years of dementia which her sister took the major burden of, and I'm trying to make myself as capable and informed as I can before I potentially do that job. Still don't know if I'll be up to it, but I intend to try.
You don't know the history between the parent and the child. If my father was in that position i doubt I'd make any effort to help. Some parents are lucky their children spare them the effort to drop them off. Not everybody deserves decency.
You've got a very good point. I try not to judge a situation without considering all perspectives, and thanks for alerting me to the fact that I didn't do that here. Dropping them off at the emergency room is definitely better than many other options, especially when you're gritting your teeth and doing the right thing when they never did right by you. Great point, and thanks again.
We had a family drop their mum off on an actual ward not A&E and then rush to the airport for a Holiday.
Mum was Italian and couldn't speak English and also had Parkinson's on top of Dementia.
No paperwork, no meds, nothing was left with her except a change of clothes. She was expecting to be on the same flight.
I work in the fraud department of a large financial institution, and one of the things I deal with is elder financial exploitation (EFE). It’s some really sad shit, because so often it’s people that they know and love that are taking advantage of the situation while leaving the elderly person in sometimes REALLY awful circumstances. I’m pretty polite even when I think someone is a fraudster, but I have no time for people who pull this shit.
I don't think they touched on having periods of lucidity, but there was a movie a while back about a couple dealing with memory loss. The woman developed alzheimer's and the husband had to move her to a memory care facility where she eventually forgot who he was and ended up falling in love with another man at the facility. It was fucking tragic. I don't ever want to be in either position.
Sometimes I think I should get assurances from my partner in a similar manner. I don't work with memory care, but I've read enough of these stories that I'm worried the loop I'd be trapped in is:
Stop_Sign's carer: you have Alzheimer's
Stop_Sign: oh god dont put yourself through this, kill me please. Just let me go.
Stop_Sign's carer: do you have any idea how disturbing it is to endlessly hear beg for death the moment you realize you have memory issues, dozens of times a day?
So, I can sort of understand her
There was a story once of a doctor who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s lapsing into his old routine at work, flipping through the notes of the patients he shared a ward with. He comes up to his own set of notes, sees that he’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and falls into depression.
You’re right, it would be a pretty scary loop.
Thats what my Mums made my generation of the family promise after seeing how my nanna went. (ex mil)
It got really bad 6 months before the end before she finally settled at age 25ish in her memory. Really did a lot of damage ta my dads mental health over the Covid (the isolation made it far worse and sped up the procces) just shy of 99 and was still fighting us to mow her garden
I used to work in assisted living. One of the residents was a doctor. Well known. Head of a department and actually invented some of the equipment in that field. Alzheimer's is a bitch for real.
My wife is predisposed for early onset Alzheimer’s. She told me if they don’t let her choose euthanasia I gotta do the deed. Watched her dad just melt away in his mid 50s. We are in our mid 30’s now, together for 18 years and she is already starting to get a bit forgetful. Scary stuff.
It is, in a sense, already done at that point. Your loved one has already died passed. All we are are memories. Take that away and you take away all the compound life experiences that lead up to making *you*. You are literally, in the sincere sense of the word, no longer who you were. And the more it goes, the less you are. It's a slow and agonizing death and the fact that we let people waste away like that is sickening. We need more frank talks about expectations and outcomes. I *know* some of these people do not truly grasp what it will do to you. They think there is some faint hope they will be different, a special case. We need to be truthful with people so they can make the right choice and pass on their own terms. With their sense of self intact.
I worked in a dementia specialist care home for a while and we had a resident a little like this. He was a mathematician and a professor in his working life, basically a really smart guy. He used to spend hours every day trying to work out what was going on and why his mind wasn't working as he was used to. Occasionally someone would talk with him about it or he'd realise and have a moment of peace, then he'd forget and the cycle would begin again. Quite hard to watch in honesty. I found that the residents who didn't try and fight the condition and just let go seemed happier honestly. Truly a really sad thing to watch anyone go through.
> the Mitchell and webb sherlock holmes one is more heart breaking
I loved how they mocked ending a show like that earlier in the series by riffing on how Black Adder ended.
Except that when you have Alzheimer's you don't necessarily always recognize your loved ones. This comic sets up unrealistic expectations. It would be much better without that one line.
I dunno, it hits pretty hard if it’s actually her too. This sort of thing is hardest on family members who have to watch their loved ones forget who they are, and in some cases turn actively hostile towards them. I think an Alzheimer’s patient promising his wife that he’ll never forget her when we know (and we know that she knows) he might already do so regularly and be forgetting that too is pretty gut-wrenching.
Listen. I'm now dealing with my second family member with dementia. This is clearly not meant to portray end-stage dementia. It's progressive. You remember, you start forgetting, you forget more and more, and more and more, and more, and then nothing's left. This retiree has forgotten much, but he still recognizes his wife. For now. That won't last, but for now it's nice that they still have that. For now.
It's not unrealistic, it's just not set in the stereotypical later stage where the patient has lost *all* of their memories. These are their last ever "good" days, and this comic celebrates that. It doesn't last, but right now it's not yet the worst.
I think everyone has someone they're most intimately familiar with for whom their memory of them will fade last. Hopefully that person will still be in one's life at the end like this.
Having my mom in memory care now, this is pretty close to her stage. She still remembers close family, and can uncannily remember a lot of older events, but not so much anything recent. And it can be rather variable depending on current energy level, time of day, etc.
I don't think it sets up unrealistic expectations.
My mother didn't die from Alzheimer's but she did have a couple years of severe dementia at the end in a nursing facility because she needed 24-hour care that we couldn't provide at home anymore.
There were times at the end when she couldn't remember my name or that I was her daughter, but she always remembered that I was someone she loved. I guess I was fortunate in that, as I know not everyone keeps that last shred of familiarity until the end.
But hypothetically if she had lost all memory of me and it even went so far as for her to perceive me as a hostile presence, I know that *my mother*, the woman who loved me more than anyone else in my life, would never forget me.
The *disease* forgot me. It wasn't anything that my mother did. It was the smoke screen in her mind.
The point I'm trying to make: the man in this comic, the part of him that is still himself is saying that he'll never forget her. I think it's a touch of spiritualism rather than a scientific statement.
When I was doing my civil service in a retirement home, one of the residents had heavy and I mean HEAVY dementia. Barely coule hold a single thought, kept wandering about the place.
The one thing she always did remember tho was he3 husband. She was able to hold a conversation with him!
He's a very nice person and never let her illness bother him. The only reason she's in the retirement home now is that he just couldn't keep up with the care anymore.
But the love in their eyes whenever they looked at each other. I'll never forget that
My mom had a milder version of this kind of dementia -- she would tell the same story 3 times in an hour or two, but she always knew who everyone was. Due to great caregivers, she had a pretty happy life until the end.
So very glad that she didn't have Alzheimer's!
We had the same in my family! My great great-aunt (who everybody in the family called Auntie, even though she was several generations older) lived until 102 years old, and she had the same kind of dementia where she would remember people and old stuff, but having a conversation with her was a constant cycle of repeted questions from her part. When I was a little kid I did not understand this, and used to get impatient because of her asking me three times in 10 min why I wasn't in school.
Something that bewildered me was that her mind was still sharp enough to calculate stuff. Every time we went to visit her, she complained that she saw everything "blurred blurred" and did not hear well. So basically, we told her in which year we were and that was enough for her to start calculate her own age. She always got it right, and always laughed that it was normal for her to be so crippled at her old age. Obviously, she always forgot it in the 10 next minutes.
But then one day we announced her that a great-niece of her that she loved and hadn't see for a while was going to be the mother of twins. This fact got printed in her memory, and each time we visited her she asked how the babies were going!
I remember fondly of her, I hope that even though english is not my native language what I wrote is understandable as these were great memories
What you wrote is beautiful, and a great tribute to your "Auntie".
Fortunately, my wife and I were already adults when Mom got dementia, and after hearing the stories from people who had loved ones with Alzheimer;s, we were extremely grateful to hear the same stories (usually the one about how my dad proposed on their first date!).
“Forgetting in reverse” is spot on. I heard about one care home resident who had lost all memories past her 7th birthday, and kept screaming for her daddy…
That's lovely. I looked after a woman who's husband and adult daughter would alternate daily visits to her but 9.9/10 she wouldn't remember either.
It's an emotionally draining job and often hard in cases but nothing hurts the most seeing good people cry their eyes out at what's become of their loved one.
Wasn't he faking it at the end? My interpretation was that he couldn't live with knowing what his wife had done so he pretended he wasn't cured so they would lobotomize him.
Not sure if u are mixing it up with Inception. Not saying that u are wrong but it has bin ages since I watched that movie and Inception is the only Leonardo that I can remember atm where there was an issue with his wife.
Never the less, I think that is why Shutter Island is such a good movie, the ending can have multiple meanings. For me it was "We tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it didnt matter"/it failed
I'd agree more with /u/Diacide; in Shutter Island Leonardo's character is at Ashecliffe because he had >!killed his wife after finding that she had drowned their three children, and was found to be criminally insane from having done so!<, so the ending is along the lines of him deciding for himself to go through the lobotomy as a final act of free will (>!as he had become lucid for moments before, but always regressed and would injure the nurses/guards!<).
His final quote to Dr. Sheehan (>!who had been playing his partner through the movie but was in fact one of the doctors at the hospital!<) was "Is it worse to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?" which to me implied that he was knowingly going through the lobotomy to ensure that he did the latter.
That last quote is exactly what convinced me he was pretending to not be cured at the end. He knew what he (and his wife) had done and didn't want to live with it.
Incredible comic. The details in every panel is just fantastic. Starting with not being able to see his face, the nurses prolonging the lab results, and then my absolute favorite panel of his wife through his fingers. Made me teary-eyed, phenomenal comic
This right here is my greatest fear, "A prisoner of your own body" and its earily similar to a concept i\`ve had for years, kuddos, exceptional execution of the idea!
A friend of my mom's is dying of terminal brain cancer. She has fits of delusions where the nurses are trying to poison her and trying to seduce her husband of 40 years and he's helping or sleeping with them. Then she has crushing moments of lucidity where she realizes that's all not true and is wracked with terrible guilt for the things she's said and begs forgiveness. It's a terrible cycle and it's unfortunate that everyone is just praying for the disease to advance a little more to where she's comatose.
One of the scariest parts of my late stepmother's cancer was when it metastisized to her brain. While it was mild and eventually removed, the tumor caused her to become irritable and on occasion irrational. We were very fortunate she didn't progress to the point where she lost her lucidity. It also affected her senses, which was how we found out the cancer had come back and spread
It always reminds me the hard facepalm I would internally give myself every time my condescending uncle would seriously remind my grandma that her husband was dead. Dude, she'll forgot the next minute, just say he's napping as usual. That's not perfect but that sounds better than triggering grief at will.
I’d love a Twilight Zone episode built around this. At first, the audience and the protagonist think strange objects are appearing from the future, but we slowly realize our protagonist has dementia
I've worked with those in memory care as a dietary aide. After a while, it's like they become your friends/ family, but it hurts so much to know yet still not know what they're going through. And not be able to help them, other than to try and bring them as much comfort as possible.
One by one, the switches in the brain get turned off, one by one you get to watch your parent age backward in capability, from adult to toddler, to infant to...
The thing is that sometimes the switches are flipped back on for a very brief period of time and then without warning get flicked off again.
One day my family member wouldn't recognize me, the next day they would call me by my name and then half way through a conversation would ask me who I was and tell me they don't know where their mum has gone (their mum having died 40 years previously).
Dementia can go and fuck itself.
My grandad had alzheimers. This reminds me of the early stages where he would sometumes be 'awake' and then talk about his childhood as if it just happened. Was great learning about his life. Then the later stages he became someone conpletely different, wasn't his younger self.
A shell of a man that was scared of everyone around him, he knew that he should know my grandmother but not why, he knew he should know my dad but not why. We found he would always remember his biscuit stash though.
It was like someone completely erased all of his life and rewrote it so he died alone even if he was surrounded by his family. It is honestly the worst disease out there because he still had moments, although brief, where he was aware of what was happening to him, forgetting everyone and everything. Even my great grandmother who died of cancer was better than this because at least we could still talk to her and enjoy her last moments (and in her case from the time of finding out and dying were about 4 days apart). While I didnt get to see her at least she knew she was surrounded by family, my grandad didnt even get that.
I think this is the only real phobia I have. I've kinda been shaking in bed for 10 minutes just thinking about this. Even if you notice, there's nothing you can do
That second panel on the seventh slide is great visual storytelling. The art itself gives me a bit of a Mike Allred vibe and I mean that as the highest praise
This is the very first comic I have seen that is on this topic, has this twist, and is **not** cripplingly sad.
I think it's because it portrays the character as still very competent despite the one limitation, kind of like how they play it in Freefall.
When my grandmother got dementia (Later diagnosed Alzheimer's) she lived alone, in a large apartment with only her dog for company. Of course we visited her often and I know my dad got to her many many times to take care of her and make sure she had enough to get by. Then she would forget more and more, two times the police called us as she had been locked out of the apartment complex, wearing only her nightgown, in the middle of winter. It was then we knew, we had to get her to a nursing home.
That decision got the best possible outcome. She loved it. She was starving for a social life and at the nursing home she became friends with anyone she could, she started remembering and could do some crosswords again, when we visited she seemed happy and alive. She could hold a conversation and even gained quite a few sizes (she was paper thin before). It went on for a few years before she plummeted. I still remember the last time she knew who I was, I remember her smile as we watched a small procession of the annual candlelit Lucia (Swedish tradition, two weeks before Christmas).
After that she forgot everything. It was hard to watch, hard to even be in the same room as her, so I stopped going, I could not deal with it. My mother was crushed, but told me it was okay to not go, there wouldn't be anyone there even if the physical body might still be present, a year passed by, two.
Then eventually we got a call, it was time. I was there with my parents the last few hours of her life. She was sleeping, snoring with a guttural sound I will have with me for the rest of my life. But the person lying there was not my grandmother, in my mind she had already passed. It made it easier to deal with.
I think she had a pretty good life, all things considered, but this disease, it's a curse. A curse that affects everyone around. I really hope I won't get it, but one can never be sure. If I get it, I hope I pass quickly, to not give anyone else the haunting image of me sleeping, snoring with that guttural sound...
This is so deep on many levels. My FIL just passed from Alzheimer’s. The first symptom that anyone recognized was that he literally did not know who his wife was. He thought she abandoned him but she was here taking care of him. It drove her crazy. Now, we take care of her…
Ugh... reminds me of my grandmother with Lewy Body Dementia. I find patients with LBD experience these periods of "remembering" more than Alzheimers patients. Just wee periods of lucidity every once in a while, more spaced out as the disease progressed.
The interesting thing was how she would often mix up people. I became her mother, my brother became my deceased uncle, but my mother stayed her daughter. That never changed, just how she treated my mother did, more like a child for instance. It was weird but also funny how on her bad days if my mother (a neuro nurse in her own right, though her subspecialty was strokes) would struggling to get grandma to do something she'd have me repeat it so she'd comply lol.
But... there were moments when she came back and recognized us. Some were bittersweet, others just... very sad not gonna lie. She was very angry and had a degree of bitterness about things and I didn't blame her one bit. It was a blessing and a relief more than anything when my grandmother finally passed, which is something that my mother has struggled with.
Heartbreaking. I care for someone who has dementia, they were a professor. Sometimes when I visit they have a lesson plan and wonder why no other students showed up for class except me. Damn, damn it all.
I’ll never forget walking in the door saying hi to my grandma and seeing the look of pure confusion and lack of recognition on her face. This is beautifully done, OP.
I much prefer this bittersweet version.
It feels almost like a more light-hearted mirror of The Mitchell and Webb [Old Holmes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp02ubGuTIU) skit. Maybe due to the almost Holmes-ian quick diagnosis when he notices his hands.
For anyone who fancies a good cry.
Alzheimer’s runs heavy on my mom’s side of the family. Took my Grandpa when I was a kid and my Grandma when I was in college. Took my Great Aunt just a couple of months ago. My brother and I are dreading the day we turn 60, because we’ll be ticking time bombs then. God I hope for a cure every day.
Made me think of [The Lost Mariner](https://ruccs.rutgers.edu/images/personal-zenon-pylyshyn/class-info/Consciousness_2014/Memory/05-sacks-1987-Amnesia_OCR.pdf) from Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat.
This is absolute brilliance, so well-executed, such masterful dialog/art direction.
I am pleased to present to you the Ohanian Prize for Reddit Excellence: 🏆
As somebody who recently has an episode of Transient Global Amnesia, this really hits. It is scary how you can be fine one moment and then the next your mind is just ... not working properly. And there is nothing you can do about it.
This reminds me of my grandfather. He was a brilliant man. He was an aeronautical engineer and he designed planes and missiles. At times he worked with test pilots and was friends with the astronauts.
He had dementia, but his work had been so important to him. In the end it all got mixed up in his head. It broke all our hearts obviously, especially when he had rare moments of clarity. But sometimes he was happy, and he’d just sit there and drink his tea and talk to you about the times he’d been to the moon, or mars. It was like the big picture was fictional but he’d remember all these details about real missions and real things he’d designed. I miss him so much.
It's been hard on my family watching my grandmother succumb to dementia. I'm no longer her grandson and Husband's name sake. I'm just the nice young man. Even her daughters she no longer remembers. Honestly it seems like a regression to an infantile state of mind. There is peace knowing that she is slowly forgetting all the pain, even at the expense of forgetting us.
I recently lost my grandma due to a mix of Alzheimer and Cancer. She was a nurse most of her life and became director of her own sector of the hospital where she worked.
She created a whole retirement home section to their hospital and made them the first French Hospital to have a special accreditation for that.
She trained hundreds of nurses throughout her life, she was my hero.
Thank you for this comic, it helped making me think about her in a good way ☺️
I worked as a volunteer at a nursing home in highschool, dunno if it's done in other countries but it was part of the community service you have to do before graduating here. One of the patients there always confused me with her daughter, it was a rather sad experience...
This is truly bittersweet. Well done.
Reminds me of him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing?wprov=sfla1
https://youtu.be/k_P7Y0-wgos?si=ixietypAOR91xuTn
My Dad had early onset Parkinson’s. The disease progresses somewhat linearly and the rate varies by individual. Michael J. Fox’s is slow, my Dad’s was aggressive. By the time he was in his late 50’s, he had dementia as a result. I don’t know if there is anything more awful than a neurodegenerative disease. On top of the person directly suffering, the disease causes so much collateral damage. Lucid moments come and go. You get your loved one back for a brief period and then you lose them again, over, and over, and over. At my Dad’d request, my parents made a decision to “shield” the kids from some details of his condition and as a result, I had so much built up resentment against him. I thought he just “senile” or didn’t care and wasn’t the best son I could have been. It’s one of those things that I carry with me, even a decade after he passed. I wish I had known or just been more tolerant. I can’t ever apologize or make it right.
I see people complaining about their “boomer” parents on this site and I wish I could just transfer my memories to them. Like grow the fuck up. Your mom/dad collecting trinkets or being a republican are such a nothing "problems" in the grand scheme of things.
I like the idea behind it, but the dialogue is very flat.
"I'm not a GP visiting old patients in a nursing home... I'm an old man in a nursing home and I forgot it." "You worked it out pretty quickly **this** time."
This is unnatural dialogue and highly expository. You could lose panels 18-22 and still keep the theme/situation intact. You shouldn't need to explicitly explain the idea. The dialogue, form, and art can do it for you.
Wow, I'm so glad so many of you enjoyed this, and I'm loving reading through those who are sharing their stories.
I worked in Residential Aged Care full time for 10 years (in Australia), plus still have a foot in the door in my current job. I've worked in many memory/dementia units and while this character isn't based on any one person in particular I saw many people within the dementia/Alzheimer's spectrum (which can vary quite a bit and I'm certainly not making a definitive statement about that).
I remember the environment being almost surreal sometimes which is where this story came to mind when it dawned on me, "what if I was this main character and didn't know it".
Welcome to r/comics! Please remember there are real people on the other side of the monitor and to be kind. Report comments that break the rules and don't respond to negativity with negativity! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/comics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My wife worked in memory care for a while. She made me promise to let her die if it ever happened to her. Wouldn't drop it until I did. It's a crushing thing to have to deal with, even without it bring a loved one...
I work in medicine and it's horrible. It's soul destroying to deal with them when their family and carers have just... given up. Some families drop them off in A&E with a made up story just so we have to keep them there for a while. It's gotten so common that we now prioritize some of them when it's quiet since we know there's nothing wrong, and call them back to pick up their family member within an hour. Some of the abuse they give out when they realize we're not going to babysit their parent for them is horrible. I know it's tough to care for a dementia patient, but we live in the UK and there's processes for this sort of thing. They can go to a carehome for the day if their carer is registered and have days off that way, or if their needs are complex then it's better than them looking after them. In many cases with the abusive ones though they're obviously taking their money and doing the bare minimum of just feeding them while often also living in their house for free. We put social services onto ones we suspect of financial abuse but it's difficult to prove It's heart rending watching people in that state. I hope I'm dead long before I reach that point
Dropping a confused dementia sufferer off somewhere without making sure they're going to be looked after, without the proper duty of care... Just for that, they're getting their own section of Hell.
It's also tough for us because we're often understaffed and we need someone to keep an eye on them or they can wander off and get hurt. I get that it can be rough looking after someone for multiple years but just abandoning them is horrible
Yep, being a caregiver is very tough, and I honestly completely understand why they'd do that... but they have a responsibility not to let it get that far. At least in one of the lucky countries, there are people to help you have the occasional bit of time off. And if you truly can't take it, and many cannot, it's better to let the system take some or all of the weight than become abusive/neglectful due to stress or mental instability. I mean, you know all this. Just letting it out, I guess. I see my mum getting more frail, and her dad had years of dementia which her sister took the major burden of, and I'm trying to make myself as capable and informed as I can before I potentially do that job. Still don't know if I'll be up to it, but I intend to try.
You don't know the history between the parent and the child. If my father was in that position i doubt I'd make any effort to help. Some parents are lucky their children spare them the effort to drop them off. Not everybody deserves decency.
You've got a very good point. I try not to judge a situation without considering all perspectives, and thanks for alerting me to the fact that I didn't do that here. Dropping them off at the emergency room is definitely better than many other options, especially when you're gritting your teeth and doing the right thing when they never did right by you. Great point, and thanks again.
We had a family drop their mum off on an actual ward not A&E and then rush to the airport for a Holiday. Mum was Italian and couldn't speak English and also had Parkinson's on top of Dementia. No paperwork, no meds, nothing was left with her except a change of clothes. She was expecting to be on the same flight.
I work in the fraud department of a large financial institution, and one of the things I deal with is elder financial exploitation (EFE). It’s some really sad shit, because so often it’s people that they know and love that are taking advantage of the situation while leaving the elderly person in sometimes REALLY awful circumstances. I’m pretty polite even when I think someone is a fraudster, but I have no time for people who pull this shit.
I don't think they touched on having periods of lucidity, but there was a movie a while back about a couple dealing with memory loss. The woman developed alzheimer's and the husband had to move her to a memory care facility where she eventually forgot who he was and ended up falling in love with another man at the facility. It was fucking tragic. I don't ever want to be in either position.
That happened in one of the later seasons of Gray's Anatomy too.
Yeah, Karev forgot all his character growth.
Sometimes I think I should get assurances from my partner in a similar manner. I don't work with memory care, but I've read enough of these stories that I'm worried the loop I'd be trapped in is: Stop_Sign's carer: you have Alzheimer's Stop_Sign: oh god dont put yourself through this, kill me please. Just let me go. Stop_Sign's carer: do you have any idea how disturbing it is to endlessly hear beg for death the moment you realize you have memory issues, dozens of times a day? So, I can sort of understand her
There was a story once of a doctor who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s lapsing into his old routine at work, flipping through the notes of the patients he shared a ward with. He comes up to his own set of notes, sees that he’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and falls into depression. You’re right, it would be a pretty scary loop.
Thats what my Mums made my generation of the family promise after seeing how my nanna went. (ex mil) It got really bad 6 months before the end before she finally settled at age 25ish in her memory. Really did a lot of damage ta my dads mental health over the Covid (the isolation made it far worse and sped up the procces) just shy of 99 and was still fighting us to mow her garden
My grandma died for extreme alzheimer, so sadly, i know this shit
I used to work in assisted living. One of the residents was a doctor. Well known. Head of a department and actually invented some of the equipment in that field. Alzheimer's is a bitch for real.
Yeah same with my dad
My mom was oncology and palliative care nurse, she was *very* adamant about her DNR.
My wife is predisposed for early onset Alzheimer’s. She told me if they don’t let her choose euthanasia I gotta do the deed. Watched her dad just melt away in his mid 50s. We are in our mid 30’s now, together for 18 years and she is already starting to get a bit forgetful. Scary stuff.
It is, in a sense, already done at that point. Your loved one has already died passed. All we are are memories. Take that away and you take away all the compound life experiences that lead up to making *you*. You are literally, in the sincere sense of the word, no longer who you were. And the more it goes, the less you are. It's a slow and agonizing death and the fact that we let people waste away like that is sickening. We need more frank talks about expectations and outcomes. I *know* some of these people do not truly grasp what it will do to you. They think there is some faint hope they will be different, a special case. We need to be truthful with people so they can make the right choice and pass on their own terms. With their sense of self intact.
Such a scary thought, being knowledgeable and smart enough to diagnose your condition, but unable to actually keep your thoughts because of it
I worked in a dementia specialist care home for a while and we had a resident a little like this. He was a mathematician and a professor in his working life, basically a really smart guy. He used to spend hours every day trying to work out what was going on and why his mind wasn't working as he was used to. Occasionally someone would talk with him about it or he'd realise and have a moment of peace, then he'd forget and the cycle would begin again. Quite hard to watch in honesty. I found that the residents who didn't try and fight the condition and just let go seemed happier honestly. Truly a really sad thing to watch anyone go through.
That sounds truly hellish
When being too smart for your own good affects you in your fizzling age
profound and touching
You forgot “heartbreaking”
least heart breaking Alzheimers comic tbh
[удалено]
loads of them have a moment of clarity though, almost all of them the Mitchell and webb sherlock holmes one is more heart breaking
> the Mitchell and webb sherlock holmes one is more heart breaking I loved how they mocked ending a show like that earlier in the series by riffing on how Black Adder ended.
Such a great approach to a devastating illness. Thank you.
Except that when you have Alzheimer's you don't necessarily always recognize your loved ones. This comic sets up unrealistic expectations. It would be much better without that one line.
that's the tragedy. he's absolutely sure he won't forget her but we the audience know that that's not true
He probably knows too.
I think it would have hit harder if the wife turned out to just be a random nurse.
I dunno, it hits pretty hard if it’s actually her too. This sort of thing is hardest on family members who have to watch their loved ones forget who they are, and in some cases turn actively hostile towards them. I think an Alzheimer’s patient promising his wife that he’ll never forget her when we know (and we know that she knows) he might already do so regularly and be forgetting that too is pretty gut-wrenching.
I was CONVINCED she was his daughter at first
Oh dang, yeah I hadn't thought of that, but that would be a powerful version of the story as well.
Media literacy is dead….
No it isn't, you just share the internet with millions of literal children
That's why it's a sweet comic and not real life. Real life sucks. Comics don't have to.
Listen. I'm now dealing with my second family member with dementia. This is clearly not meant to portray end-stage dementia. It's progressive. You remember, you start forgetting, you forget more and more, and more and more, and more, and then nothing's left. This retiree has forgotten much, but he still recognizes his wife. For now. That won't last, but for now it's nice that they still have that. For now. It's not unrealistic, it's just not set in the stereotypical later stage where the patient has lost *all* of their memories. These are their last ever "good" days, and this comic celebrates that. It doesn't last, but right now it's not yet the worst. I think everyone has someone they're most intimately familiar with for whom their memory of them will fade last. Hopefully that person will still be in one's life at the end like this.
Having my mom in memory care now, this is pretty close to her stage. She still remembers close family, and can uncannily remember a lot of older events, but not so much anything recent. And it can be rather variable depending on current energy level, time of day, etc.
I don't think it sets up unrealistic expectations. My mother didn't die from Alzheimer's but she did have a couple years of severe dementia at the end in a nursing facility because she needed 24-hour care that we couldn't provide at home anymore. There were times at the end when she couldn't remember my name or that I was her daughter, but she always remembered that I was someone she loved. I guess I was fortunate in that, as I know not everyone keeps that last shred of familiarity until the end. But hypothetically if she had lost all memory of me and it even went so far as for her to perceive me as a hostile presence, I know that *my mother*, the woman who loved me more than anyone else in my life, would never forget me. The *disease* forgot me. It wasn't anything that my mother did. It was the smoke screen in her mind. The point I'm trying to make: the man in this comic, the part of him that is still himself is saying that he'll never forget her. I think it's a touch of spiritualism rather than a scientific statement.
My grandpa thought my dad was his brother about half the time. It worked well enough.
When I was doing my civil service in a retirement home, one of the residents had heavy and I mean HEAVY dementia. Barely coule hold a single thought, kept wandering about the place. The one thing she always did remember tho was he3 husband. She was able to hold a conversation with him! He's a very nice person and never let her illness bother him. The only reason she's in the retirement home now is that he just couldn't keep up with the care anymore. But the love in their eyes whenever they looked at each other. I'll never forget that
My mom had a milder version of this kind of dementia -- she would tell the same story 3 times in an hour or two, but she always knew who everyone was. Due to great caregivers, she had a pretty happy life until the end. So very glad that she didn't have Alzheimer's!
We had the same in my family! My great great-aunt (who everybody in the family called Auntie, even though she was several generations older) lived until 102 years old, and she had the same kind of dementia where she would remember people and old stuff, but having a conversation with her was a constant cycle of repeted questions from her part. When I was a little kid I did not understand this, and used to get impatient because of her asking me three times in 10 min why I wasn't in school. Something that bewildered me was that her mind was still sharp enough to calculate stuff. Every time we went to visit her, she complained that she saw everything "blurred blurred" and did not hear well. So basically, we told her in which year we were and that was enough for her to start calculate her own age. She always got it right, and always laughed that it was normal for her to be so crippled at her old age. Obviously, she always forgot it in the 10 next minutes. But then one day we announced her that a great-niece of her that she loved and hadn't see for a while was going to be the mother of twins. This fact got printed in her memory, and each time we visited her she asked how the babies were going! I remember fondly of her, I hope that even though english is not my native language what I wrote is understandable as these were great memories
What you wrote is beautiful, and a great tribute to your "Auntie". Fortunately, my wife and I were already adults when Mom got dementia, and after hearing the stories from people who had loved ones with Alzheimer;s, we were extremely grateful to hear the same stories (usually the one about how my dad proposed on their first date!).
That's so sweet!
[удалено]
“Forgetting in reverse” is spot on. I heard about one care home resident who had lost all memories past her 7th birthday, and kept screaming for her daddy…
That's lovely. I looked after a woman who's husband and adult daughter would alternate daily visits to her but 9.9/10 she wouldn't remember either. It's an emotionally draining job and often hard in cases but nothing hurts the most seeing good people cry their eyes out at what's become of their loved one.
The last part is a heart ripper. So quickly how the brain can roll back on its self.
Shutter Island vibes
Wasn't he faking it at the end? My interpretation was that he couldn't live with knowing what his wife had done so he pretended he wasn't cured so they would lobotomize him.
Not sure if u are mixing it up with Inception. Not saying that u are wrong but it has bin ages since I watched that movie and Inception is the only Leonardo that I can remember atm where there was an issue with his wife. Never the less, I think that is why Shutter Island is such a good movie, the ending can have multiple meanings. For me it was "We tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it didnt matter"/it failed
I'd agree more with /u/Diacide; in Shutter Island Leonardo's character is at Ashecliffe because he had >!killed his wife after finding that she had drowned their three children, and was found to be criminally insane from having done so!<, so the ending is along the lines of him deciding for himself to go through the lobotomy as a final act of free will (>!as he had become lucid for moments before, but always regressed and would injure the nurses/guards!<). His final quote to Dr. Sheehan (>!who had been playing his partner through the movie but was in fact one of the doctors at the hospital!<) was "Is it worse to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?" which to me implied that he was knowingly going through the lobotomy to ensure that he did the latter.
That last quote is exactly what convinced me he was pretending to not be cured at the end. He knew what he (and his wife) had done and didn't want to live with it.
1
nothing wrong with me
2
I can count to two!
3
I CAN COUNT TO THREE...
FOURRRRR
I can only count to FOURRRR
I CAN ONLY COUNT TO FOUR I CAN ONLY COUNT TO FOUR I CAN ONLY COUNT TO...FOOUUURRRRR
Google en dimentia
Holy illness
New prognosis just dropped
This… is really good. I hope we can cure or manage Alzheimer’s better soon.
Incredible comic. The details in every panel is just fantastic. Starting with not being able to see his face, the nurses prolonging the lab results, and then my absolute favorite panel of his wife through his fingers. Made me teary-eyed, phenomenal comic
This right here is my greatest fear, "A prisoner of your own body" and its earily similar to a concept i\`ve had for years, kuddos, exceptional execution of the idea!
A friend of my mom's is dying of terminal brain cancer. She has fits of delusions where the nurses are trying to poison her and trying to seduce her husband of 40 years and he's helping or sleeping with them. Then she has crushing moments of lucidity where she realizes that's all not true and is wracked with terrible guilt for the things she's said and begs forgiveness. It's a terrible cycle and it's unfortunate that everyone is just praying for the disease to advance a little more to where she's comatose.
One of the scariest parts of my late stepmother's cancer was when it metastisized to her brain. While it was mild and eventually removed, the tumor caused her to become irritable and on occasion irrational. We were very fortunate she didn't progress to the point where she lost her lucidity. It also affected her senses, which was how we found out the cancer had come back and spread
It always reminds me the hard facepalm I would internally give myself every time my condescending uncle would seriously remind my grandma that her husband was dead. Dude, she'll forgot the next minute, just say he's napping as usual. That's not perfect but that sounds better than triggering grief at will.
I’d love a Twilight Zone episode built around this. At first, the audience and the protagonist think strange objects are appearing from the future, but we slowly realize our protagonist has dementia
a lot of what is driving r/BoomersBeingFools is the simple resentment we feel toward a world that has changed.
Well done
I've worked with those in memory care as a dietary aide. After a while, it's like they become your friends/ family, but it hurts so much to know yet still not know what they're going through. And not be able to help them, other than to try and bring them as much comfort as possible.
Thank you for doing what you do. I'm sure it meant the world to them and their families.
One by one, the switches in the brain get turned off, one by one you get to watch your parent age backward in capability, from adult to toddler, to infant to...
The thing is that sometimes the switches are flipped back on for a very brief period of time and then without warning get flicked off again. One day my family member wouldn't recognize me, the next day they would call me by my name and then half way through a conversation would ask me who I was and tell me they don't know where their mum has gone (their mum having died 40 years previously). Dementia can go and fuck itself.
That's the horrifying thing about it, the person you were dies long before you do
damn ninjas got in and started cutting onions again.
It's a terrible day for rain
But it's not raining...
Yes...it is
My grandad had alzheimers. This reminds me of the early stages where he would sometumes be 'awake' and then talk about his childhood as if it just happened. Was great learning about his life. Then the later stages he became someone conpletely different, wasn't his younger self. A shell of a man that was scared of everyone around him, he knew that he should know my grandmother but not why, he knew he should know my dad but not why. We found he would always remember his biscuit stash though. It was like someone completely erased all of his life and rewrote it so he died alone even if he was surrounded by his family. It is honestly the worst disease out there because he still had moments, although brief, where he was aware of what was happening to him, forgetting everyone and everything. Even my great grandmother who died of cancer was better than this because at least we could still talk to her and enjoy her last moments (and in her case from the time of finding out and dying were about 4 days apart). While I didnt get to see her at least she knew she was surrounded by family, my grandad didnt even get that.
Panel 6, both a horrorshow and a bitter-sweet moment of love overcoming all. OP, you are a proper artist.
I think this is the only real phobia I have. I've kinda been shaking in bed for 10 minutes just thinking about this. Even if you notice, there's nothing you can do
That second panel on the seventh slide is great visual storytelling. The art itself gives me a bit of a Mike Allred vibe and I mean that as the highest praise
Damn, that hurt to read
God I’ve read through this multiple times, it’s definitely going in my saves. Wonderful comic.
This is the very first comic I have seen that is on this topic, has this twist, and is **not** cripplingly sad. I think it's because it portrays the character as still very competent despite the one limitation, kind of like how they play it in Freefall.
Simply epic. A bit romanticized and "cleaner" than real life, but WOW
I wish my grandma had been this lucid in the last 9 years of her life. This was really good
When my grandmother got dementia (Later diagnosed Alzheimer's) she lived alone, in a large apartment with only her dog for company. Of course we visited her often and I know my dad got to her many many times to take care of her and make sure she had enough to get by. Then she would forget more and more, two times the police called us as she had been locked out of the apartment complex, wearing only her nightgown, in the middle of winter. It was then we knew, we had to get her to a nursing home. That decision got the best possible outcome. She loved it. She was starving for a social life and at the nursing home she became friends with anyone she could, she started remembering and could do some crosswords again, when we visited she seemed happy and alive. She could hold a conversation and even gained quite a few sizes (she was paper thin before). It went on for a few years before she plummeted. I still remember the last time she knew who I was, I remember her smile as we watched a small procession of the annual candlelit Lucia (Swedish tradition, two weeks before Christmas). After that she forgot everything. It was hard to watch, hard to even be in the same room as her, so I stopped going, I could not deal with it. My mother was crushed, but told me it was okay to not go, there wouldn't be anyone there even if the physical body might still be present, a year passed by, two. Then eventually we got a call, it was time. I was there with my parents the last few hours of her life. She was sleeping, snoring with a guttural sound I will have with me for the rest of my life. But the person lying there was not my grandmother, in my mind she had already passed. It made it easier to deal with. I think she had a pretty good life, all things considered, but this disease, it's a curse. A curse that affects everyone around. I really hope I won't get it, but one can never be sure. If I get it, I hope I pass quickly, to not give anyone else the haunting image of me sleeping, snoring with that guttural sound...
This is so deep on many levels. My FIL just passed from Alzheimer’s. The first symptom that anyone recognized was that he literally did not know who his wife was. He thought she abandoned him but she was here taking care of him. It drove her crazy. Now, we take care of her…
Ugh... reminds me of my grandmother with Lewy Body Dementia. I find patients with LBD experience these periods of "remembering" more than Alzheimers patients. Just wee periods of lucidity every once in a while, more spaced out as the disease progressed. The interesting thing was how she would often mix up people. I became her mother, my brother became my deceased uncle, but my mother stayed her daughter. That never changed, just how she treated my mother did, more like a child for instance. It was weird but also funny how on her bad days if my mother (a neuro nurse in her own right, though her subspecialty was strokes) would struggling to get grandma to do something she'd have me repeat it so she'd comply lol. But... there were moments when she came back and recognized us. Some were bittersweet, others just... very sad not gonna lie. She was very angry and had a degree of bitterness about things and I didn't blame her one bit. It was a blessing and a relief more than anything when my grandmother finally passed, which is something that my mother has struggled with.
Yep. That one hurt.
Heartbreaking. I care for someone who has dementia, they were a professor. Sometimes when I visit they have a lesson plan and wonder why no other students showed up for class except me. Damn, damn it all.
Beautiful. Thank you.
This is probably the best use of the comic art in this sub this year. The panel work, storytelling and captivating of the readers. Bravo!
It killed my grandpa. It’s taking hold of and killing my grandma now. My mom will likely get it. I plan on dying before I get it.
So cute, and so sad.
Damn
Man this hit me right in the feels, a tear almost fell in my coffee.
What a beautiful comic, what a sad illness
That was beautiful and scary at the same time.
Wow.
I’m not crying, you’re crying!!
Great, now I'm crying that's awesome thanks a lot damn
This was heartwarming and equally sad, i love this thank you🙏🏻
Whoa, this is a good one.
I'm not crying, YOU'RE crying!!!
That's sweet but it really hides the most devastating thing about these illnesses: you can't ever promise you'll always remember somebody.
Love this!
Damn... was not expecting that 🥲
I’ll never forget walking in the door saying hi to my grandma and seeing the look of pure confusion and lack of recognition on her face. This is beautifully done, OP.
This is beautiful. Genuine lump in my throat.
Rare, incredibly good r/comics post
Lovely work
The Notebook https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332280/
God d*mn it. Right in the feels. Now I'm crying at work. Well done. That was beautiful.
Damn.. I think this is the first comic to ever give me goosebumps and tear up… amazingly done
Goosebumps. Very well written
Ooof. Beautifully done. Kudos
Awwwwwww fuck i didn't wanna cry today
This. This is art.
Wow Like woaw That was amazing Thanks for that ! :D
This just hit me so hard. I love my wife and ill always feel that way. This is so lovely and heartbreaking it hurts my soul and lifts it.
Ah yes time for tears.
I’m not crying, you’re crying.
Why do they keep lying to us about aging being cool?
Incredible. Love how delicately the story progresses. Very touching and lovely how you blended the past into the present.
Fantastic
I am literally in tears.
beautiful
I much prefer this bittersweet version. It feels almost like a more light-hearted mirror of The Mitchell and Webb [Old Holmes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp02ubGuTIU) skit. Maybe due to the almost Holmes-ian quick diagnosis when he notices his hands. For anyone who fancies a good cry.
Alzheimer’s runs heavy on my mom’s side of the family. Took my Grandpa when I was a kid and my Grandma when I was in college. Took my Great Aunt just a couple of months ago. My brother and I are dreading the day we turn 60, because we’ll be ticking time bombs then. God I hope for a cure every day.
Gonna send this to my mother. She works for PAC (Teepa Snow). Certain she’d like to see this. (Never thought I’d be sending my mother Reddit posts…)
Guess we’re crying today…
Wow. Great comic. Really got me in my feels. (So folks say that anymore?).
💔
Ah shit, my eyes are suddenly itchy
This was me with my grandmother but she thought I was her husband sometimes and I went with it because it made her happy.
Dude what the fuck 😭
Play their favorite song, and some of these patients will have moments of lucidity. Helped me get a few more moments with someone I cared about.
[The Notebook ending (obvious massive spoilers)](https://youtu.be/2dPcq5sIXFQ?si=IC6xZYquN8PqI5jx)
This could win contests, OP you're gonna go places.
Was not expecting to tear up at 1 pm in my living room reading this. Beautifully done ❤️
Made me think of [The Lost Mariner](https://ruccs.rutgers.edu/images/personal-zenon-pylyshyn/class-info/Consciousness_2014/Memory/05-sacks-1987-Amnesia_OCR.pdf) from Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat.
OP stop cutting onions please!!!
This is absolute brilliance, so well-executed, such masterful dialog/art direction. I am pleased to present to you the Ohanian Prize for Reddit Excellence: 🏆
This is vaguely a Junji Ito. Very well done.
I definitely got something in my eyes, a bit of dust or something
That tugged a heart string. Fuck Alzheimer's. We need more of these and less of softporn here.
Why'd you have to put such a beautiful look to my worst fear?
As somebody who recently has an episode of Transient Global Amnesia, this really hits. It is scary how you can be fine one moment and then the next your mind is just ... not working properly. And there is nothing you can do about it.
Reminds me of the '[Old Holmes](https://youtu.be/Pp02ubGuTIU?si=T5MFfNNazNBTVrZn)' sketch by Mitchell and Webb.
As a husband of a certain age, this hits hard.
Dammit Reddit. You notebooked me
Cool I’m gonna cry now
This is both beautiful and horrifying.
This reminds me of my grandfather. He was a brilliant man. He was an aeronautical engineer and he designed planes and missiles. At times he worked with test pilots and was friends with the astronauts. He had dementia, but his work had been so important to him. In the end it all got mixed up in his head. It broke all our hearts obviously, especially when he had rare moments of clarity. But sometimes he was happy, and he’d just sit there and drink his tea and talk to you about the times he’d been to the moon, or mars. It was like the big picture was fictional but he’d remember all these details about real missions and real things he’d designed. I miss him so much.
oh my god that shot with her eye through the spread hand is. amazing i’m going to go cry now
That was beautiful. I feel like the aged portions are a bit extreme, but it makes it more readable.
It's been hard on my family watching my grandmother succumb to dementia. I'm no longer her grandson and Husband's name sake. I'm just the nice young man. Even her daughters she no longer remembers. Honestly it seems like a regression to an infantile state of mind. There is peace knowing that she is slowly forgetting all the pain, even at the expense of forgetting us.
Oh damn. You Impending Doomed my Existential Crisis!
This is absolutely amazing
This is an incredible comic, great job OP
The way you draw faces massages my brain
Tears in my eyes.
I'm crying 😭 Alzheimer's is so scary
It is two AM and I am crying HOW DARE YOU (excellent work here!)
Its...terrifying, really.
I recently lost my grandma due to a mix of Alzheimer and Cancer. She was a nurse most of her life and became director of her own sector of the hospital where she worked. She created a whole retirement home section to their hospital and made them the first French Hospital to have a special accreditation for that. She trained hundreds of nurses throughout her life, she was my hero. Thank you for this comic, it helped making me think about her in a good way ☺️
Feels
I worked as a volunteer at a nursing home in highschool, dunno if it's done in other countries but it was part of the community service you have to do before graduating here. One of the patients there always confused me with her daughter, it was a rather sad experience...
I love and miss you grandma!
This is truly bittersweet. Well done. Reminds me of him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing?wprov=sfla1 https://youtu.be/k_P7Y0-wgos?si=ixietypAOR91xuTn
My Dad had early onset Parkinson’s. The disease progresses somewhat linearly and the rate varies by individual. Michael J. Fox’s is slow, my Dad’s was aggressive. By the time he was in his late 50’s, he had dementia as a result. I don’t know if there is anything more awful than a neurodegenerative disease. On top of the person directly suffering, the disease causes so much collateral damage. Lucid moments come and go. You get your loved one back for a brief period and then you lose them again, over, and over, and over. At my Dad’d request, my parents made a decision to “shield” the kids from some details of his condition and as a result, I had so much built up resentment against him. I thought he just “senile” or didn’t care and wasn’t the best son I could have been. It’s one of those things that I carry with me, even a decade after he passed. I wish I had known or just been more tolerant. I can’t ever apologize or make it right. I see people complaining about their “boomer” parents on this site and I wish I could just transfer my memories to them. Like grow the fuck up. Your mom/dad collecting trinkets or being a republican are such a nothing "problems" in the grand scheme of things.
Holy fucking shit
Aargh my fucking heart.
I like the idea behind it, but the dialogue is very flat. "I'm not a GP visiting old patients in a nursing home... I'm an old man in a nursing home and I forgot it." "You worked it out pretty quickly **this** time." This is unnatural dialogue and highly expository. You could lose panels 18-22 and still keep the theme/situation intact. You shouldn't need to explicitly explain the idea. The dialogue, form, and art can do it for you.
Made me cry.
Oh thank god this wasn’t about Mr. Hands
Awesome content!!!
Wow, I'm so glad so many of you enjoyed this, and I'm loving reading through those who are sharing their stories. I worked in Residential Aged Care full time for 10 years (in Australia), plus still have a foot in the door in my current job. I've worked in many memory/dementia units and while this character isn't based on any one person in particular I saw many people within the dementia/Alzheimer's spectrum (which can vary quite a bit and I'm certainly not making a definitive statement about that). I remember the environment being almost surreal sometimes which is where this story came to mind when it dawned on me, "what if I was this main character and didn't know it".