There are more than 40,000 people in Ireland suffering from dementia. One of them is my dad, writes Maria Sweeney
I CAN'T really remember the day I found out my father had dementia. Ironic really.
It was a slow process that seemed to happen over a number of years, starting with him losing his balance on occasion or forgetting where he had put his keys. One day my mother got a phone call from the gardaí to say they had her husband in the station and that his car had been stolen, could she pick him up?
She sighed and told them she'd be there in 20 minutes and went out the door muttering something under her breath about missing the tennis. When they got home they were faced with a barrage of jokes from the rest of us, calling him an old fool for leaving his car unlocked, which is what we concluded must have happened.
No harm done really, they claimed the stolen car on the insurance, replaced it with exactly the same reliable Toyota model and went about their days. Unfortunately for my father my mother's golf clubs had been in the back of his car when it was stolen. Took him a while to be forgiven for that one.
Nothing in comparison, however, to what happened when the same gardaí phoned several weeks later to say that they had recovered the "stolen" car. It was exactly where my father had left it, untouched. At least my mother got her golf clubs back though. Almost before hanging up the phone she had hotfooted it out to the scene of the crime, unloading them into her own car and racing home before they became the property of the insurance company.
While the incident made for an entertaining story around the dinner table, it was the first of many that made me begin to realise that my old dad was slowly but surely slipping away from us.
In 2003 my father was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. I'd had little or no experience of this disease except for the fact I knew Muhammed Ali had suffered from it. Dad also quite liked this fact. If he had to have a disease it might as well be one that he had in common with Muhammed Ali.
So we watched him slowly deteriorate. His balance got worse, his speech was affected and he couldn't lift a cup of tea without it spilling everywhere.
He could no longer drive a car and frequently had falls in the street or getting up from his chair. We started to find him wandering the corridors in the middle of the night looking for the front door key, as he had to get out "to Mass". Of course he never found it as at this stage my mother was hiding it, for his own protection.
One thing I did not realise about Parkinson's disease is that it is directly linked to dementia. That would explain him sprinkling spoonfuls of sugar on his roast beef and being brought home by a concerned neighbour one afternoon who found him wandering in the local main street traffic, asking directions on how to get home.
It would also explain how he got conned out of a substantial amount of cash by a "charity worker" in the local park, who took him to the cash machine and helped him withdraw the money. Unfortunately, it does not explain the moral compromise committed by this individual, but there's one on every corner as they say.
The hardest day of all was when I went to visit my father in hospital, where he had been admitted for tests for several weeks.
I sat down and gave him a big kiss and a hug and he asked me who I was. It took all my strength not to burst out crying but I knew I couldn't upset him, so I swallowed hard and told him not to be such a joker, that I was his favourite daughter.
After he was released, things went rapidly downhill. My mother was under immense pressure and couldn't leave the house from one end of the day to the next, as we were unable to leave him alone.
I was out at work all day and my four siblings all lived elsewhere with their own families, so we were no help to her. She patiently cared for him day in and day out, putting up with his angry outbursts of frustration as he demanded why his credit cards had been taken from him, why he wasn't allowed leave the house and why she kept telling him he needed to sit down.
Eventually the time came when we needed to decide how we would realistically care for him. After a painful family discussion, we agreed the best thing would be to put dad into a nursing home where he could be looked after properly, for 24 hours a day.
The second hardest day of my life was when mum and I took him down to what would be his new home, telling him he was "going back to hospital for a few days".
Walking away and leaving my dad looking helpless and confused in a strange room with people he didn't know, telling him we'd be back to see him tomorrow, very nearly broke my heart.
How could this have happened to such a brilliant, kind and respected man? Left to live out the remainder of his days in the Alzheimer's wing of the local nursing home.
My father has been institutionalised in the home for a year and a half now. My mother visits him religiously every day. Sometimes he recognises her as someone he used to know once, but most times he doesn't.
I find it increasingly difficult to see him there, robbed of his dignity and being spoonfed by a nurse who never knew the incredible person he was. What must have happened to all those amazing stories and memories he has carried for 77 years?
From being evacuated from his Belfast home as a child growing up in the second World War, to tending the garden he loved so much throughout his retirement years. I pray he still has his memories to keep him company.
There are more than 40,000 people in Ireland suffering from dementia. One of them, Professor of law, former RAF officer, loving father of five, devoted Christian, loyal husband and friend and adviser to so many, is my dad.
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