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HELEN BROADHURST
DEMENTIA AND CARING - THAT'S WHAT MY MEMOIR IS ABOUT.
Welcome to my website. I really want to share my experiences dealing with my physically strong and active, aged mother through her dementia. Check out the photos below showing just how fit she was right to the end (at 99.)
EDNA IN HER LATE NINETIES
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IF YOU ARE IN A CARING SITUATION THIS BOOK WILL, HOPEFULLY, BRING SOME 'ME TOO' MOMENTS. YOU'LL RELATE TO THE BLACK HUMOUR AND PERHAPS FEEL A KINSHIP - YOU AREN'T ALONE.
WHAT'S IT ABOUT?
I hoped to travel one day, but all those thoughts went out the window as Mum moved into her mid-nineties when she was diagnosed with dementia. I knew she was going to require increasing support and care as the illness inevitably progressed.
Relocation wasn’t an option. Oblivious to her developing muddleheadedness she was feisty and independent and intended to die in her own home without ever needing to be looked after in any way. The compounding issue was her amazing good physical health.
I took on a 95 year-old toddler
'This frank, often funny, suspenseful, and at times intensely dramatic, true story carries the reader on the writer’s personal journey as she takes on her biggest project yet – “Project Mum” – dealing with accidents, hospital visits, brushes with the police, and that 'secret Nan’s business’ without letting Edna ever realise why she is there. Many amusing incidents lighten the sometimes tedious, semi-cloistered life of a live-in carer. Helen shares her experiences with wisdom and humour and gives insights into the strategies and management tools she used to stay the course.
It’s a book about mothers and daughters, dementia and carers, and the healing power of laughter.'
Readers' comments:
"I laughed, I gasped - and I cried."
...."Amazing - I can't begin to describe
the gob-smacking, eye-opening effect on me of what you wrote."
"What a fabulously well-written book. You found just the right note between giving the facts about dementia and your harrowing stories with Edna, balanced with a conversational tone and some humour."
"There is so much good counsel in it for carers today."
"It will be an inspirational and enlightening story for all carers in that situation."
Contact below to order the print version -or go to FISHPOND or AMAZON AU.
Available as an e-book from AMAZON, KOBO, NOOK, 24 SYMBOLS, PLAYSTAR and SCRIBD..
OR
REQUEST MY BOOK FROM YOUR LIBRARY
OR FAVORITE BOOKSTORE
‘Learn by going where you have to go.’ - Unknown.
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ABOUT ME.
My life has been somewhat nomadic - more by accident than design - taking me from regional N.S.W. to Sydney as a child then P.N.G. in early adulthood. There I learned various crafts from villagers, particularly traditional potting techniques in the West Sepik Province.
Returning to Australia in the mid-seventies with my family, I developed as a potter, teaching and conducting workshops throughout regional Queensland. During the nineties this morphed into a Community Arts place-making practice; I undertook projects making public art in many diverse communities, again travelling Queensland. Sculpture and mosaics became specialties.
I describe myself as a ‘maker’ rather than a writer. However, throughout my different freelance activities, I did write spasmodically for craft periodicals, as well as various professional publications.
During my time as carer for my mother, Edna, I kept notes, as well as writing copious emails and letters to my daughters, describing my frustrations and efforts in dealing with Mum's antics.
This memoir is the result.