Andy
- admin1356
- Oct 7, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 26, 2024
“I'm always going to be there for her, just doing what I can, but age-appropriate help is needed.”
LOVE, LIFE, AND DEMENTIA
Andy and Sandra have been together for more than 30 years. Their life as a couple started from a chance meeting in Mount Maunganui in the early nineties.
It is a journey that has seen them excel in their respective fields, Andy in the engineering and Sandra in the fashion industry. Andy shares what Sandra’s world looked like before a diagnosis of young onset dementia.
“Sandra did a lot of travel. Every year she'd be going up to London and New York…she really loved the industry and had an eye for it. She knew her customers and what the style was then. She'd be buying what she knew would work for them.”
Andy says Sandra had a vivacious, go-getter personality who, despite working in the high-powered fashion industry, always had a positive outlook on life and was passionate about everything she did but in recent years there have been changes.
“I started noticing changes in Sandra. When she'd get a job, it would last a year, then the next one would only be six months, then it would be only three months. It was time to see a doctor.”
Now 59, Sandra received her diagnosis 18 months ago, but Andy believes there were signs four or five years earlier.
The initial diagnosis for Sandra was frontotemporal dementia. While the impact of the diagnosis was and is still sinking in for them both, Andy says the initial experience three years ago meeting with a specialist was stressful and disappointing.
“The neurologist she went to didn't have a good bedside manner. That freaked her out and she refused to go back to see him.”
Several specialists’ visits and numerous tests later resulted in an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
Andy admits it hasn’t been easy adjusting to life living with dementia.
“When Sandra did the cognitive tests, seeing the simple things that she can't do, like draw the face of a clock, really simple stuff, emotionally have been pretty hard for me.”
And while there is the emotional toll, Andy says financial stability is also a key factor.
“As well as the mental side of needing to work (for me), there's also the financial side. I'm having to pay for care for Sandra and pay for her group she goes to, so we are eating into our savings.”
“It makes the future a bit scary, particularly when you think that a few years ago (pre-Covid and before this diagnosis) our plan was to take six months off to travel. Now the future is uncertain, and our lives have been turned upside down.”
While they have a strong network of family and friends, Andy says extra support would make a real difference.
“At the moment she can still help with things around the home and manages to get her own breakfast but increasingly it’s down to me.”
“It would be fantastic if I could find something for her to do, but it’s hard. It's exhausting to be honest, it's just constant. By the end of the day, I'm exhausted, I really am.”
However, through it all, Andy continues to be a pillar of love and support for Sandra.
“We have tough days. At this stage not too many. But when she does have a difficult day, we just hug each other and cry a lot.”
“We talk about it. Sandra has accepted it, I have accepted it, there's nothing we can do to stop it. I want Sandra's journey to be a good one. I'm always going to be there for her, just doing what I can, but age-appropriate help is needed.”
Andy and Sandra share their story in the hope that it not only raises awareness around dementia, but also effects change that will put support mechanisms in place for families and their loved ones living with this disease.
Their story is one of love, life, and dementia.
YOUR DONATION will HELP US HELP OURSELVES.
Getting help needed is a living challenge for the group behind Young Onset Dementia Collective.
If we wait for Government, Ministry of Health or under-funded agencies, it will be too little too late for our people.
For many the situation is dire. Help is needed NOW so we made a collective conscious decision to do everything we can to help ourselves. Spouses, partners, carers of people living with younger onset dementia have real life reasons driving combined determination.
Help us keep minds engaged and spirits lifted for those affected. Plus support carers in their financial, mental and wellbeing journey.
