Anne
- admin1356
- Oct 12, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 26, 2024
"There’s an urgent need for better services now. Age-appropriate care is practically non-existent. We can’t afford to wait for government action. If we don’t start creating community-driven solutions now, too many families, like mine, will be left behind."
When Anne Logan met Innes at 18, she couldn’t have predicted the journey their love would take. From their early years of building a life together, through trials of cancer, miscarriages, and the loss of loved ones, Anne and Innes weathered it all, always as a team. But nothing prepared them for Innes’s diagnosis of young onset dementia at 55. It’s a challenge unlike any other, testing their strength, resilience, and above all, their love.
"Innes and I had the best of times in our twenties," Anne recalls. "We didn’t have much money, but life was fun, and we had each other."
As life moved forward, they took on more responsibility — raising a family, navigating health scares, and balancing careers. But when Innes began to struggle with words and tasks, the world as they knew it began to change.
“In hindsight, the signs were there five years before his diagnosis,” Anne reflects. "I watched him lose track of tasks he’d once handled with ease. He’d get confused at work, forget simple things, and become withdrawn."
Initially, they attributed it to burnout, but when tests confirmed that Innes had young onset dementia, their lives shifted forever.
For Innes, a man who had made a career from words as a journalist, losing his ability to communicate was devastating. Once very socially active, a storyteller with a keen wit, Innes began to retreat from social interactions.
"It’s heartbreaking," says Anne. "People he loved and who loved him just started disappearing from his life."
The Power of Resilience and Love
Through it all, Anne has remained steadfast, a source of unwavering strength for Innes.
"If I let emotion take over, we’re done for," she admits.
Innes, always an optimist, embraced the diagnosis with remarkable acceptance, telling Anne it was a "blessing." But Anne struggled privately, managing her grief and fears while keeping their lives together.
"Life didn’t stop for even a moment," she says. "I had to take on everything — finances, work, and care — while trying to keep it together for Innes."
Despite these challenges, their love has never faltered.
"Innes has always been more social than me, but his condition has isolated him. He’s still the same kind, gentle man with the best smile, but I’ve had to watch him withdraw from the world."
Innes’s involvement in The Restaurant That Makes Mistakes, a television series featuring volunteers with young onset dementia running a fine dining restaurant, was a rare light in a dark time.
"It was like watching him come alive again," Anne says. "He’d come home full of energy, as if for a moment, dementia wasn’t in control." The experience gave Innes purpose, and in Anne’s words, "it showed that life doesn’t stop with dementia."
Taking Action for a Better Future
Not one to sit back and wait for help, Anne has thrown herself into advocating for those like Innes. She was instrumental in the formation of the Young Onset Dementia Collective, a community initiative aimed at raising funds to address the real life needs of spouses, partners, and children, the carers of people living with younger onset dementia. This includes working tirelessly to push for age-appropriate day programmes, socialisation opportunities for younger and able-bodied people living with dementia and respite for carers.
The Young Onset Dementia Collective is going into this eyes wide open. Help us help ourselves is their underlying message.
"There’s an urgent need for better services," Anne insists. "Age-appropriate care is practically non-existent, and we can’t afford to wait for government action. If we don’t start creating community-driven solutions now, too many families will be left behind."
Despite everything, Anne’s love for Innes shines through.
"We’ve been through so much together," she says. "He’s still the sweet, gentle man I fell in love with. I’m doing everything I can to give him the best life possible for as long as I can."
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.
