Mental Health & Wellness: Living on the other side of terminal illness

This blog invites you the reader into a very personal space in my life as a daughter who's father lives with multiple debilitating and terminal illnesses. I would like to introduce you to my father, Dr. J.A.. My father spent the past 57+ years serving others in ministry as a pastor, bishop, director of a bible school, teacher and missionary in a foreign country for 16 years, My father was a vibrant, strong, smart and infectiously loving human being. My father gave all of himself, including intimate time with his family, his earthly possessions and his personal pleasures to guide and inspire others to a place of humanness and compassion.

My father was my running coach and taught me how to develop as a track and field athlete. My father taught me history lessons. My father is a gifted educator, planter and builder of individuals, families, communities, churches and ministries. My father is a husband, dad, brother, uncle and grandfather. After so many years of service to thousands of people across the world, my father made the conscious decision to retire in 2012.

Not too long after his retirement, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, hearing loss, requiring hearing aids, diabetes and ultimately dementia.

As a daughter, the emotions from watching the life changes within my father from vibrancy to codependency are overwhelming and leaves me at times feeling sadness. My focus of this blog is to focus on his Dementia because it seems to be the prominent health challenge for him these days. My father was diagnosed with Dementia in 2018 and ever since his diagnosis with this debilitating illness, it has been a roller coaster ride for him, my mother and me.

Dementia according to UnderstandingDementia.com, is "a group of diseases that cause a permanent decline of a person's ability to think, reason and manage his own life. Dementia is caused by biological processes within the brain that damage brain cells, (UnderstandingDementia.com).

You see, with dementia, the story has no end, but it continues to develop as long as the patient is alive.

As a daughter, it is important to understand what type of dementia dad is dealing with. This insight provides me with the necessary information needed to support dad and his illness in a powerful way. Dementia robs dad of his ability to make healthy judgments or complete multi-step responsibilities. Eventually, he will lose his ability to process or understand visual information. These losses from dementia mean that dad will ultimately not be able to manage his own life day-to-day or his personal self care. The implications for dad and his family because of his diagnosis is life changing.

I was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2013 around the same time my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. With my colon cancer diagnoses, there was more to my story. I needed to know the degree of my cancer, the exact location in my colon of the cancer, how bad it was, next steps in my process, and how long I would have to live .

With my father's diagnosis of dementia there is more to his story too. With his Dementia, my mother and I needed to understand what type of dementia my dad was dealing with. This insight would give us the necessary information to support my dad effectively.

As an adult child caring for a parent with a debilitating or terminal illness,I feel over extended..

How should we balance caring for a family member with a debilitating or terminal illness like dementia with our other responsibilities to our own family, our career and to ourselves? What does "new normal" look like?

#parents #Dad #debilitating illness #dementia #terminal disease