Alzheimer's & Mum

21/10/2025

May 5 2024 - An alternate reality.

Mum & Dad’s 50th wedding anniversary. A celebration for sure!

We would have had to make sure dad got her a deserving gift and organised a party!
All us siblings with our other halves and little ones all together with a selected few family and friends… cooking together, drinking together, laughing together and celebrating our parents..

Mum would have been in her element, hosting and feeling special as the guest of honour. Dad being his charming self and loving the attention too!
Loads of jokes thrown around the room about him ‘punching’ and my mum ‘deserving a medal’ to put up with him and his family for soo long!!

The last time we celebrated their anniversary was their 25th (silver anniversary) and did exactly that. We laughed as we couldn’t wait to celebrate the next milestone being the 50th!! A golden anniversary.

May 5 2024 - actual reality.

I acknowledged the date and said to hubby that today would have been their 50th wedding anniversary. He smiled in agreement and we went on about our day..
…

15/07/2023

July 15, 2023

Happy birthday Mum. Today you would have been 70! A big one..

The plan for today was to spend the day with you and take you out into the gardens of the nursing home and celebrate your birthday. Granted you would not have had a clue what was going on but we would have enjoyed another big birthday in your presence.

Had you not had fu***ng Alzheimer’s, this would have been your best birthday ever. With 4 grandchildren you would have been in your element with your family and laughed, from deep within, coz your grandchildren were driving your kids mad and you enjoying our pain!! Poetic justice you would have said. ‘You lot drove me mad and now it’s your turn’ (in Punjabi of course)

Reality is that you are not here. You decided to leave 11 months ago and so we are going to celebrate you and remember you, before the evil took over you.

Funny how I remember less the years you were not you and remember more of the woman you were.. I now know why I put those memories away. It allowed me to care for you with as little emotion as possible. Now the flood gates have opened and I often remember the crazy that you were (in a good and sane way). It makes me smile and then it makes me very sad because I will always say, you didn’t deserve to go out like this. You did nothing wrong. You were a good person. And you should have still been here.
F**k it, what to do. We have to learn to live without you (in the physical form) as mentally you left us a long time ago. Still sucks though.

Anyhow, mother, I will raise a glass, or few, to you and can feel your disapproval as I drink too much and behave very un-lady-like!! 🥲🥂❤️

Happy birthday Mum. ###
love you and bloody miss you.

13/01/2023

Well that was Diwali, Christmas and New Year done.
Each occasion was calm. That feeling after a storm, all is quiet.
It’s been 5 months and the other day I almost forgot for a second that mum was gone! Imagine that hey!! It felt as if she was still in the nursing home. I took a double take and thought ‘what the f**k’ I guess the reality is that she had been in a nursing home for 3 and a half years and we got used to life without her being at home. That’s also why when she passed, I did not cry until I saw her in her coffin. That made it all very real and I broke down in a way I never have before and will never again!! (Needed to put that out there).

I have grieved, or still am grieving. I’ve let the emotions come over me and i ride through them. I will never be okay with her dying before her time. I will never be okay with her having that horrid disease.

But I am okay. I lost my mum. S**t does happen. As we age, so do our parents. They will go and we will be consumed with grief (or not). We will learn to live with it and accept that it is another date to add to our diaries to celebrate or commiserate.

I am the ‘grown up’ now! God help us all!! 😆

25/09/2022

My journey with Alzheimer’s and Mum has ended. 😔
Since 2010, there has been appointments, assessments, form filling, waiting, referrals, caring, attending, more waiting, doctors, nurses, consultants, health visitors, assessors, social workers, care home managers, even more waiting.
12 years of taking care of someone who was never going to get better. Watching them slowly disappear without them having any realisation of what is happening.
Going through guilt, blame, hate, sorrow, fear. Finding inner strength to continue.
Being caught up in a family torn apart because of Alzheimer’s and trying to rebuild what is left while all the time, maintaining a routine for mum.
I’m grateful for the chance to take care of my mum as she did for me as a child. I tried my best and now I say goodbye to something that changed my life forever.

I have learnt so much from a s**t situation and realised there is nothing I can not do.
I have my mum’s inner strength and my dad’s charm.. (would never admit that to him though!!), my husband’s support and my boy’s love.
I will live life to the fullest and appreciate those who are in need and can’t take care of themselves. I have no time for bulls**t, fools and those who choose not to take care of themselves?
If you don’t like me, I don’t care. I don’t live my life to please anyone and my mum knew that better than anyone.

The end of an era, and a new beginning for tomorrow.

14/09/2022

Mum’s farewell song..

Gaurav Chatterji, Neeti Mohan, Jatinder Singh, Harjot K Dhillon · Ginny Weds Sunny (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) · Song · 2020

23/08/2022

The final journey..

This will be the final time, we will be in the same room with my mum.
The last time she sits among us and smiles at all the people that come to pay their respects because she brought sunshine into their lives.

But she will be remembered forever. There truly was and will not be anyone quite like Surinder.
❤️🙏

(If you unable to make the funeral, we have a live we**am that you can watch. Please let me know if you require access.)
Thank you, Ranjit (my mum’s daughter)

19/08/2022

And so the final rituals begin…

17/08/2022

And she finally sleeps…
On her own terms, in her own way..

She rests her head and allows her body to be free of all pain and suffering. Her mind is vacant as there is no sadness, anger, fear or love. There is nothing but peace.

To be free is something one can spend a lifetime to achieve. She took 69 years.
I love you and thank you.

Mrs Surinder Sehmbi
15 July 1953 - 15 August 2022

💔

15/06/2021

June 2021 - it’s quiet. 🤫

It’s been a while since I posted anything. I have written posts but never uploaded them.
One gets tired of complaining about the same old s**t time and time again.

My mum is well and chillin.
No news is good news!

We were informed earlier this year that we could visit her. We were told to nominate one person to visit and they will get tested at each visit.
That nominated person is me.
I haven’t been.
And now Delta Variant is high in her borough.
It will be a year since I’ve last seen her in August 2020!

She will be 68 next month and recently her brother in law passed away. She loved him very much, both sisters got married 10 months of each another and spent the next 14 years together most weekends with all 4 children.
She would have been devastated at the sudden death of Tari (bro-in-law). And even more devastated that she wouldn’t have been able to mourn with her sister in Canada!
Good thing she has no idea what the hell is going on around her.

She sleeps in her bed, everyday, withering away ever so slowly, day by day, can’t see, can’t speak, can’t live.
Euthanasia should be be an option for end of life dementia patients. This is no life and no sane human would ever want to end up like this. It’s immoral, undignified and unfair.

11 fu***ng years and counting…

14/12/2020

18/09/2020

The most common cause of death among Alzheimer's patients is aspiration pneumonia. This happens when, due to difficulty in swallowing caused by the disease, an individual inadvertently inhales food particles, liquid or even gastric fluids. Because our mouths and throats contain numerous bacteria, these are carried deep into the lungs. There they multiply and grow, which leads to pneumonia. Due to the impaired immune systems of Alzheimer's patients, pneumonia is often fatal.

Not for my mum! She had it, got treated and is now back in the nursing home on Palliative Care. There were concerns she may have the COVID. Her symptoms included high temp, low BP, low oxygen levels!!
I believe that after all my mother is dealing with, she won’t let COVID take her!!!! No bloody way. She decides how this ends.

We thought it was the end! Nope.
This journey that I am on with my mum is so god damn exhausting, emotionally. I don’t know if I am coming or going when she falls..
I have cried more this year than I have done is decades!! I have broken and repaired more then once and I can honestly say that I am almost numb! I final ‘nail in the coffin’ will be the departure of my poor mother.
My heart is genuinely got 2 pieces missing.. and I don’t have the capacity for anyone or anything else.
I have also been more angry this year confronted by incompetence, lack of respect, greed, power tripping and self pitying! F**K OFF.

My love, compassion and empathy is coming to an end and I don’t care who you are. (I never had an sympathy to start with!!)
I have a small world of people that mean something to me and they will be the only ones that I will associate with (following social distancing guidelines of course!).
I’m so done.
Life is too short to be fu**ed about by people who don’t care about themselves and their own world.