Being My Mom’s Mom – 2nd Edition – December 2019
Updating Being My Mom’s Mom at the end of 2019 seemed like the right thing to do. When the first edition was published in 2013, it covered the first 7 years of our journey after Mom’s dementia diagnosis in 2006. I wrote the book to help families be more prepared for daily life after the diagnosis so they could avoid some of the mistakes I made. The first edition also provided written history of my amazing Mom pre-dementia and I wanted others to know exactly who she was before the disease slowly began to change the person she was.
The first edition focused on forgiveness, patience, preparation, heartbreak, humor and hope and has been the topics of the content of the more than 300 presentations I’ve given around the country since 2014.
The greatest lesson I learned from the early years after Mom’s diagnosis was the necessity of having all the legal and medical documents together for your loved one and I wanted to ensure that I stressed that in the book. I also wanted to convey that every day is different with this disease, but there is a lot of joy as well if we find the strength to embrace it.
There were many changes in our lives from 2013 to 2019, and while I cover them fully in my presentations, the book didn’t address those changes or how we coped with them.
The second edition includes a new chapter added to the end of the first edition instead of starting from scratch, because I wanted the story to unfold just as it had before the death of my husband and Mom’s move from one group home to another. I wanted readers to know who Tim was, what our married life was like, and especially how much he loved Mom and helped me with her prior to his death.
The first edition focused on forgiveness, patience, preparation, heartbreak, humor and hope and has been the topics of the content of the more than 300 presentations I’ve given around the country since 2014.
The greatest lesson I learned from the early years after Mom’s diagnosis was the necessity of having all the legal and medical documents together for your loved one and I wanted to ensure that I stressed that in the book. I also wanted to convey that every day is different with this disease, but there is a lot of joy as well if we find the strength to embrace it.
There were many changes in our lives from 2013 to 2019, and while I cover them fully in my presentations, the book didn’t address those changes or how we coped with them.
The second edition includes a new chapter added to the end of the first edition instead of starting from scratch, because I wanted the story to unfold just as it had before the death of my husband and Mom’s move from one group home to another. I wanted readers to know who Tim was, what our married life was like, and especially how much he loved Mom and helped me with her prior to his death.
