 Hey folks, welcome to the podcast. So we're doing a special series of podcasts which I'm recording over Google Hangouts. So we're doing audio and video because for some unknown reason people don't want to come see me face to face right now. But there's always opportunity and the cool thing is I'm able to now podcast with people from all over the world. So we're going to get an amazing eclectic mix of people from different industries, different perspectives to share their story and tell us you know their thoughts and feelings on what's going on right now and all of that cool stuff. Hope you enjoy it. Please subscribe in all the usual places and enjoy. I'm joined by a very good friend of mine Karen Graves who is an outstanding insurance professional and we're going to talk about what happens to the what do you do with the false teeth? That's it and Karen's going to play in everything. So Karen thanks for joining me. Thanks Lewis, it's great to be here and I've never done it this you know we've done podcasts before but never via the word so it's great to actually do this because yeah it means that we can still keep things moving and things happen in this weird time that we find ourselves in so thanks. Definitely no definitely how are you finding it being at home before we start? It's just slightly unreal isn't it? It feels a bit you know apart from the panic buying which I just can't get my head around. It just feels like it's it doesn't feel real I think, certainly for me it doesn't feel real and I know by the end of next week I'll be bored what's yeah I'll be totally bored I think and that's a problem I think that everybody's going to have to get their heads around. Get bored you start to not do the stuff you're supposed to you know. I know and I think most people at the moment are being really following the government guidelines I think and trying to do their best to adhere to that and yeah which which is great. It's murder or suicide isn't it really? I know I know well hopefully we won't end up by it being a bunch of depressed out of shape people but I've gone diarised I mean I'm like putting stuff in my diary for when I'm working when I'm exercising. My amazing gym in Tuffner Park called CrossFit Tuffner Park shout out to them they're they're loaning equipment to their members so we can take it home. Yeah they post a daily workout on Facebook so like the community is pulling together to help each other through. It is great and I think the thing that made me chuckle this morning in the paper was I read an article or a piece by Fiona Shackleton the divorce lawyer and I think the divorce lawyer is very expecting divorce rates to go soaring at the end of this self-isolation period so that'll be really interesting to see. I'd be interested if the divorce rate goes higher or a birth rate shoots up. Well it's going to be probably both of them will go go mad because there's different sets of people aren't there well maybe but yeah yeah so there'll be two things loads of loads of loads of newborns and loads of divorces I think. So what do you mean by a false teeth? Okay so I thank you very much for asking me to come and talk about this because I wanted to just sort of talk to you and some of your listeners and viewers now about some of the stuff that's been happening to me over the last three months and it's about dementia and my father and my dad and the the kind of process and journey that we've been on and so I wanted to talk about what do you do with the false teeth because actually I did find us standing in a room thinking well what do you do with the false teeth after he passed away on the 1st of February which I like to think of as my dad's very personal Brexit action really the fact that it was the 1st of February and we were no longer as part of Europe we just thought well that's it now then so I like to think it was his last Brexit protest but never mind so but so hopefully this is not going to be a depressing chat about dementia but I've learned a load of stuff over the last eight months and I just wanted to try and share some of that and if anything of your viewers and listeners chimes with them that they may do I just think that will be great because I've learned an awful lot over the last eight months so as a kind of very brief sort of intro to this my dad was 88 when he passed away in February but the previous eight months prior to that in December 2018 he'd been diagnosed with vascular dementia but he'd probably had it a little bit before then and so there's lots of things that I've learned and trying to realize over the last few months that we could do better and my parents live in Leicester I live in London and you know we had a great relationship but not one where we were on each other's doorsteps and I think that that also played a part in some of the stuff that I've had to do lately and also I don't have any brothers and sisters so I've gone through the whole thing you know with great support from family and some very close friends but actually you end up it's good and bad because at least you can make decisions and make them but you don't have anybody else that can help you make them or do the running around or share part of the burden of doing all this so it's a it's a bit of a fine balance so my so my wonderful dad got vascular dementia and as a just a very brief where where I got to I was away in the states for business trip and found that my mother who is 86 and decided to crash a car marvellous broken cat excellent spent a week in hospital came out with a comedy normal wisdom cast legs straight in front of her foot in the air and then when she came home and she then probably had a stress heart attack because obviously my dad was still living at home and we can talk about the care in a minute but and she was his main carer really and they've been married for 66 years so a long time a long time to be together really you think you get less is a prison sentence in some cases but there you go so long time to be together and so she then spent a month in a convalescent hospital recovering from the you know her leg and heart attack and that left me in a position of working out what to do with my dad now and I think one of the reasons I think it's important to talk about this is that we prepare ourselves for so many things whether it's work a new job even our holidays we prepare and plan for things children whatever it might be but I'm not entirely sure because I did not do this I didn't plan for what I had to do for my parents when they became old and needed my help and needed you know and became incapable of making their own decisions for my dad my mom is still my mom is fantastic very bright fit now no longer driving thank the lord but back at home and is getting on really well and so she's she's having a sense of enjoyment about it in her life now because a lot of the burden is gone of looking after my father under stress levels and while she misses him she's great so that's good so I find myself in a position of suddenly having to trust all of the services that that you you you read in that you hear about and my my parent mum and I are very normal I don't have a particularly privileged background or anything so you know it there wasn't necessarily a lot of money for care and I can tell you one thing now care for elderly is incredibly expensive so going along that and and also how you both like homes and and people coming in people coming in so and you can get the help from the your your your council and your local social service and adult social services and so on but it is and unfortunately I was in position to be able to help them but it is quite if you don't plan for it it can be quite it's a very unplanned high expense and so I think what I I wanted to talk about to people where there are some things I've learned along the way and who to go to for help if you find yourself in a position and so we can talk about the finances I think first of all because I have a one thing I would encourage people to do is one of Karen's top tips here is get a house of tourney for your parents they only ever get used if they need to be used you can't do that as early as possible as early as possible because you don't use them until you need to use them you know you can't just suddenly get one and then decide to use it the next day if your parents have you know have all their faculties there are two there's health and welfare and then there's finances so get pairs of attorney for both of those for your parents because I have that for my mum but didn't have it for my dad and so when he when he was diagnosed with dementia formally it then changes the whole landscape of what you can and you can't do for somebody and you have to look after the interests of both of them and this is something else I've come to realise as well that when one person you can't make decisions for them they become award if you like of the the court of protection and the social services that they make decisions with you but ultimately they make decisions in the best interest of the person that they are in effect caring for and they may be very different they may be different decisions from yours fortunately that didn't happen to me but you could find yourself in an interesting position so in terms of looking at financing these these um these options how do you do you have to ask permission you have to ask permission from your parents presumably to do that so it's gets us a conversation they have to agree to it they have to they have to agree to it and you know it's a couple of grand a part really to get them into play so it but it's so worth doing because it allows you to make decisions because I find myself in a position where we were looking at you know could we sell the house to to then pay for care but of course at that point then when they jointly own the house you can't do anything because they won't allow you to make decisions to sell a house which partly my dad's name and partly my mom's to protect his his interest in the house and so I would have had to have made an application to the court um to apply to sell the home on his behalf and my mother's behalf and they don't give that willingly and that's a by the time you've done that that's another five or six thousand pounds to make an application for something that's very likely not going to succeed so right you need to you need to kind of balance that out with with doing something fairly simple and getting a power of attorney because it does give you the ability to make decisions for them um and once you get the council involved who are fantastic in Leicester by the way um it you become to have very different conversations and when this happened and I was on a business trip and my mom was in hospital I arranged for full-time care for him at home by the carers he had coming in for half an hour every day to get him up in the morning and dressed and my mom would take care of him for the rest of the day etc so I arranged for them to come in for full time while I was in the States and until I got back and then we found another solution see what was going to happen to my mom etc because at that point she was broken her leg was was out for a week or so but then of course she was then out for much longer and we started to go through money having full-time carers at home because you have to have nighttime care for my dad as well it just started to eat through their savings at a rate of knots and so I had to come up with a solution to protect everybody's interest and I then sort of put him into respite care for a month everybody is entitled to a free month's respite care over a certain time and he had and so I found a home close to where they live where he went for it's you know in the beginning just for a month to give everybody a break and while my mom was away he could be there being well looked after she could not have to worry about him he could concentrate on getting well and then we would see where it was ultimately he ended up staying in that care home but that decision you know the adult social services are the people that you talk to and they will find a home that can take somebody with particular needs and so it had to be a home that was happy to care for somebody with vascular dementia and so he ended up going there on something like the 12th of June of last year that went when you were trying to convince somebody with dementia to leave their house it's very difficult because the world gets quite small and that's possibly the worst conversation I've ever had with anybody to try and convince my dad to to leave the house and go to the care home and he ended up viewing it as a holiday when he got there it was very nice they were lovely to him and so he felt very comfortable and I can't speak highly enough about the care home he did go to and he ended up staying there then so he ended up moving on the 12th of June essentially for a month and then staying there until he he died on the first of Feb but they were fantastic to him um so he ended up staying there but one of the things I have realized in my absence because I think lots of us live our lives like this I think you're different loads because you you you work closely with your mum don't you as well she works with you in your office doesn't she she works in the office yeah see that's a great relationship to have I think a lot of us have long distance relationships and that um you when you're not there all the time another tip that I I realize is that people who are caring for people with dementia are very good at hiding it particularly of a certain generation and so when you turn up for a weekend you know for you go up to see them for a day or take take ed with me his grandson to see him um it's always great because they're pleased to see you it's new and you don't you notice changes but you don't understand the extent of the changes and I think that's if you have elderly parents and one of them is acting as the carer a main carer for the other really take some time to to listen I didn't listen enough I don't think or or observed well enough the kind of stress that my mum was under particularly at night because she would worry that you forget up in the middle of the night and I don't know go for a bit of wonder or fall down the stairs whatever it might be so I think that contributed to her whole issues that she had and so that would be living there it's quite hard to it's quite because there are everybody's always so pleased to see you when you go so you don't really see what it's like and people are very good at hiding it particularly because I think it's getting better these days but particularly certainly for people my mum's and dad's generation you know having something like dementia is something that you just didn't talk about or want people to know about so um yeah so we've got him into this care home thank you to adult social services are the people that you need to speak to and and did it via phone and just let's get him into a place because we need to to start the full time care at home to to protect any savings they had because it was the first month you said the first month was free and then the first month was free and then we looked at um we then looked at um him staying there and what that might look that might look like and so you know my dad went to a nice care home probably it's certainly not the worst probably not the best but it catered for all of his needs there are about 30 people there um three three three men that the rest were women and they were they were geared up to careful people with with dementia and and so on so they gave him excellent care and I have nothing I have no faults with any of the care he had there but what did come as a shock um I think to me is is when you you have to then start to fill in countless forms um and talk to social service and you end up doing things that you never expected to do so you know I formally signed away my dad's liberty because he was not once he got into the system and they realized quite how poorly he was um he was never ever going to come home again and that was a conversation that was difficult to have um with my mom he didn't he didn't he didn't realize that he was never going to come home again but once he was there you know there was that well he's going he will be staying here now and that's you know there comes then a point where you actually can't bring him home because you can't care for him you know and so I formally signed away his liberty um which is an interesting thing to do for your father um what is what does it actually mean it means that he keeps you can't leave the care home without authority from the care home they have to that they know so yeah he's there um for his own protection and his own safety um and his own well-being and one of the things I found is and there is his desire to keep people at home for as long as you can but being in the care home gave him back his dignity um actually because they know how to care for somebody um um you can struggle at home and it might be all right on the surface but there are things that you um you know certainly things that that they can do much better than than than I would ever think my mum would ever be able to do um particularly 80 art sorry yeah it's always that thing because I've got two of my grandmas both of my grandmas live and they're both 98 yeah and one is in Cape Town one is in London yeah it's great but the one in Cape Town always said do never send me to a care home oh don't send me to a care home yeah in the end she said I really would like to go to the care home yeah and so in the end she's in the care home now and um and she loves it actually I mean she hurt luckily her you know her mind's still there um she's got some other problems eyesight and all these things but but she gets really well looked after you know if food gets made for her you know all of all of those things I think she's better like she's better there than she would have done at home my other grandma she is in her own flat and we're going through she hasn't got dementia her mind's there but she still needs a lot of help and care and so my dad and um me and my wider family are all going through this thing of like you know we have to go see her you know you feel responsibility to see her she's like sod coronavirus I'm 98 I'm gonna die anyway come see me you know you're like uh and now she's like more like she's more than not being lonely than correcting coronavirus you know and I think loneliness yeah and loneliness is a big factor and that's the kind of thing that I worry about now as well is that now my mum's on her own you know is she gonna get lonely but she's actually a very um she likes her own company she's very self-sufficient in that way and so I'm becoming less worried about that um once you suddenly end up living on your own yeah I found um I found also that um so both of my grandmas that the magic well the magic but but the b word comes up a lot which is burden and you find that like older people don't want to be a burden that's right they don't yeah and they and that's part of not wanting to talk about things so I sort of felt my way through a system I knew nothing about so if if anybody's listening to this and they're thinking oh I've got parents about the same age get powers of attorney while you can before you're unable to because it does make your life easier about how you make decisions particularly financial decisions the one thing that you know I would also encourage people to do as well is get their grandparents online my mum fortunately is a silver surfer I love her for that because the fact that she has all her bank accounts online and oh yeah you know Jesus the debit card and the whole contactless thing I love because that gave me the ability that she gave me access to their online bank accounts then and that actually gave me some insight into what their incomes were with their with their um pensions from um you know their state pensions and their cover small private pensions so they so I actually have then an insight and understanding of what they had coming in and what to do with it and also you've got access as well so get people online I I love the fact that my mum does that because she's sometimes saying to me oh I've just been checking my bank account can you have a look see if this is right and I think yeah I can so um it's quite and is she on the yeah it's really cool and can you have a video call with her like is she on FaceTime or something like that no I was thinking of getting her an iPad actually that we could have FaceTime yeah um but but she but she's got a little tiny tiny very functional laptop and she does all of her banking and ordering online she orders online and and stuff for her food if she can get it delivered at the minute never mind and so that that's that's a real um that's a real bonus because that gave me some insight rather than having to fly through bits of paper know where bank account details are how do you get into it at least it's there in front of you and I got that so that was a good thing so I would encourage you know get powers of attorney and at least get them online with the bank accounts because you can then see them and that's helpful um when you're trying to sort out the best route forward um and so having got him um into the care home it then becomes a question of um paying for it you know so you know he gets a um an allowance people don't get an allowance from the the um social services they use their pension to pay for it but inevitably there's a top-up fee so as individuals and we're working on planning for things and looking to save on whatever um I found myself um which is fine and you pay it I'm not moaning it's not a moaning conversation it's a practical one I've suddenly contributing you know an extra thousand pounds a month to something I haven't budgeted for at all with no sense or understanding of how long that might go on for all right yeah and that that's and this is it and so you know this is in a a nice care home um but but um is probably um you know probably about the average that people will pay I would say so that's something to be mindful of yeah I also I guess it's something that just hits you straight away like you don't it's not like no um I'm planning for it it's like you don't ever want your parents to get ill obviously you never quite know and these things just happen straight away yeah so it's yeah it's must be quite like um yeah it is and I don't think you then you know the other thing that struck me is in in an around all of this in terms of suddenly being presented with car accident heart attack dad with dementia care home working at what we do um just all right let's go pile it on is any you're also working and thinking about your own career and how you balance that out and and how full your brain gets with stuff um that you you sort of have to process work things and make time for that but your mind is always elsewhere you know particularly waiting for the next phone call because once you know once I found that once my dad was in the care home there would be phone calls you know with the best will in the world you know he would be ill and had fun and talked to you I'd get phone calls in the middle of the night because he'd got up and gone for you know um so it's a very you know it becomes quite an all-consuming part of your day your life and and I don't think I hadn't realized how much of a sort of not stress maybe stress I don't know but it became a thing that was constantly there in my head that I was waiting waiting for the phone call that said um you know either my dad has died or something has happened or whatever it would be um and so it becomes a thing and you you don't know you don't know when it's going to end that's the other thing you know it's a very interesting sort of kind of limbo land it that you that you're in um yeah for that and for my mom as well you know so clearly um yeah yeah I haven't been through it obviously but it's obviously it must be quite strange because it's your parents your parents most of your life that came for you yeah right that's what you do and then you suddenly be then the tables are twitched and you become their carer and that's not something that I was I guess that kind of I think we all know well that's going to happen we never really concentrate on what that might mean and it's a very it's a very um very interesting position to find yourself in really uh that you begin to end up being the carer of your parents and the one that they you know suddenly want you to make all the decisions about and it's like oh you know um so another Karen's tip so when my dad was in the care home and he with his dementia so those people that have family members will probably with dementia know this but if you don't it can be quite so when my dad had dementia I learned very quickly that I may not be Karen when I used to go in that I could be somebody else maybe his sister um he'd get confused with the lady that ran the care home who's lovely um so I don't don't waste your time telling trying to tell somebody with dementia who you are if they think you're somebody else because it just gets everybody upset go with it I just went with it you know and it was and it you know the moments where there is clarity and and he knew who I was were fantastic um there was a time when I when I popped up down to see him um on my own and uh he was asleep when I turned up so um he woke up darling it's you I said yeah it is he sounds really lovely to see you I was priming newspaper he loved a newspaper we could read it he read it about eight times a day it's fine it's like so so um he's oh darling it's lovely to see you and then we'd fall asleep again so I'd sit there and kind of do my emails or you know just read the paper whatever and he'd wake up and he'd be so pleased to see me all over again that's true it's actually from my perspective quite pleasurable that somebody was pleased to see me twice that that you know in a day it was lovely so you kind of have to have to kind of go with things like that thinking no at least when he wakes up he's going to be really pleased to see me all over again I'd sit there going go to sleep again go to sleep again because you're going to it's actually quite nice when you are when somebody is so pleased to see you so I used to get that that was lovely um but it just it becomes a different environment to see to see your parenting often quite in person because they sit in community rooms and um which is lovely because I think living with other people when you have dementia is a good thing actually there's a lot more stimulus than there is at home with just my mum and dad on their own together being in a community in a care home is a much better environment I think you know mental stimulation so if you go and and somebody in your family gets dementia go whoever they think you are go with it it's just fine it's just fine does it take a while to like accept that no not for me I went with it quite quickly I went with it quite quickly actually so um yeah yeah so um and so back onto Karen's tip list so there's that go with that and back just to finish off the finances side of things clearly most of these days have a will just make sure they're up to date okay my arms were very simple my mum and dad's are very simple you know to each other um and it's just easier if you have all that in place um 100 you know just very simple thing but can make a huge difference um so as you go through all this I then have the um worry not the worry yeah the worry of my mum now being at home on her own um and ensuring that they get what they're entitled to in our in our um society that we live in we have um you know they've been playing national insurance all their lives etc to make sure that they got what they're entitled to is no mean feat so another tip is age UK they are a fantastic organization so age UK is not just there to or as other as other organizations are it's not just to live a hot food in a whatever age UK have financial lists that go around to talk to in this case my mum to all your parents and talk to them about the money they have what their entitlements are you know what their income is and then they will then with you and with your with my mum in this particular case go through and make sure they are receiving everything that they're entitled to within our social welfare system and that was a huge huge weight off my mind that a financial service professional for free of charge it is free of charge all right goes around and assesses all of the incomes look at the outgoings works out if my mum's entitled now to any um uh sort of extra care you know in sort of um an attendance allowance that kind of thing is she getting the right pension that she's getting is she receiving the widows pension bit from my dad they've run through and done all of that and make the application for you to the social services so they fill in these myriad forms that amazing you have to fill in and you and they know the right answers to put in we don't so when there are some particular questions they ask are quite nuanced and we we probably would fill them in in a slightly different way but they fill them in a way that they know the social services will understand and and I think um that was a huge help in making sure that my mum then when she's on her own has received all of her entitlements that she's that she's due and that's taken the worry of her worrying about being able to afford stuff when my dad sort of you know pension and etc um has gone and she's just back at her own stuff so that's that I cannot it's a good tip because a lot of people forget this like there are people who have been absolutely fantastic and um the person that goes to see my mum will email me and tell me what she's doing um and see your mum and stuff and yeah she goes around to see her and and then she has an appointment with her goes around and checks the application but they but what they do is they submit it and they follow it through the system for you as well they don't just fill it in walk off they fill it in take it submit it and monitor it all the way through and be there to help answer all the questions or anything that may come back it they are fantastic um and just found them I hadn't had a plan to go and talk to age UK it was my mum phoned them for to ask a question or something rather I can't remember what it was so um just by chance um and then she just clicked into this system and they were absolutely amazing as a charity incredible so that would be another tip get help and somebody somebody like age UK are are amazing absolutely amazing yeah what do you think what would your tip be now with like a lot of people not being able to go see their their elderly relatives now with um well like that's gonna be tough right it's very true you know and I have to say if this doesn't sound a bit like not weird you know my dad died on the 1st of Feb and his funeral was on the 18th of February do you know what I'm glad it's not now a month down the line you know um because I'm not quite I'm not entirely sure how this is going to work because I wouldn't have been able to go and see him no yeah I wouldn't have been so I you know tough now I'm thinking about getting my my grandma um a dongle and an iPad so she we can do this yeah like we don't really want to go around and infect her even though she wants us around it's Mother's Day this weekend and my mum said to me she's not coming are you thinking about it don't bother she's not really fit and healthy she doesn't know you are but don't bother coming around I thought all right then but but I think so for my mum on you know I think care homes are different places where they have to protect all of the residents I was going to say inmates but that's we're doing so politically incorrect so please can we take that off the recording you have to have some humor we can't edit it we can't edit it so the residents so they have to protect them as well but but in terms of um of my mum so she's she's got she's online and so um my phone is nearly every day and as does as does Ed my my son he phones her nearly every day I go and see her when I can um she's got I think it's the one thing that that um I have noticed um which is is heartening um is how um the neighbors are playing their part in in looking after I mean they've lived in this particular where they've lived for 40 plus years and so um she's got you know four or five neighbors that just go around and knock on the door anyway forget this current amazing and say is there anything we can get you to take you out and so she's um it becomes a very interesting balance I think because you know she's she's fit um as an 86 year old lady can be um but she's quite frail so it becomes but she's got all of her marbles entirely and so it's a very difficult thing having just done it with my dad who who was you know who has had dementia and clearly um was not able to make decisions for himself um yeah yeah so my mum's sharp but physically are getting a little frail if you see what I mean yeah yeah so it it's not worrying about that a bit but so no and then we've got challenge of uh yeah of course going around but I mean the community sounds great and I think a lot of uh of community is pulled together I mean I know in our area there's a Facebook group and we've we're messaging um people that are living on their own who are who are older to help them out and stuff yeah um and then with this technology so the video stuff and yeah if older people can get into it then it's one of those things that you know I like technology and I've always been a fan of it and I know it's got the downside with social media but actually at times like this um it is in it's a very powerful tool if you can get people hooked into it because it that face-to-face conversation and contact even though it might be through the screen is really important isn't it that that's sort of being able to see somebody as well as just hear them um and so you know I've got an older iPad knocking around here actually and I thought you know what when I look in next turn up which will be post this event clearly um I might go and get a hooked up on FaceTime because that'll be easy for others then um definitely I mean I'm thinking I might go and I might need to do my grandma like tonight or tomorrow um yeah and uh but we'll say yeah no it's it's great to use technology so I think that that's so it is a question of getting ready for stuff to be thrown at you so make sure they've got wills get powers of turning in place for them um um you know listen look hard look hard at what's happening in in your parents' household you know I'm I had a great relationship with them but didn't probably look hard enough as to how stressful and difficult it was for my mum yeah and I I'm I'm a bit peeved with myself for that if I'm honest um because people's behaviors change and um I think that I noticed that um there was always that desire to make sure that people saw my dad as he as he always had been seen um in terms of being a very very handsome little tall guy um and that kind of that gentlemanly facade that he had um my mom wanted to maintain and and that stopped her asking for help so you have to be really careful that you you make sure that you that they you watch and listen um because I don't think I did that hard that well enough if I'm honest you know so I think yeah yeah the signs and clues there that now I would have picked up on and and um uh so that that's and you know throw yourself onto the it must be when you're going through it it's uh yeah but it's also but you know and and also I think you people need to if this starts to happen to them they need to be very honest with their work colleagues um about that they're going through it okay so because it mentally your brain gets full of stuff stuff that you might never have to have dealt with before and and and actually you have to sort of start to be a bit um judgmental about what's more important and and we all tend to put work first I think we have this desire I think um to to make sure that we maintain um our working lives in the facade that we have in our working lives and that and that becomes a um quite important part of what we do every day but when you get something coming at you at the side like this and you're coping it's trying to learn about dementia you're trying to navigate your way through social services um you're trying to deal with you know other people in the families of nieces and nephews and my mum not really coming to terms with the fact what they can and can't do after a certain point for my dad because he's no longer there to do things for you know he's in a different space um and that his best interest may not be what they see as being his best interest and that's a very difficult scenario sometimes and so I treated this like a um an operational exercise it's the only way I could deal with it was to treat it like a business problem and and and punch it down into things and problems that I could solve problem solving that I could go and solve those problems and then try to not let them get to me so that meant that I could then do everything else we're still supposed to be doing so um at some point you do get the chance to be a bit more emotional about everything but but I found to cope with stuff and then was to problem solve it all and try not to feel too much when you're going through the process because the other thing I've never done before was then um you know when when he did um die was was it was then very much my mum said well you know you can sort out the funeral now I'm like great never had to do that before either so and again you know that's a how does that work so um I hadn't I hadn't done this before which is where I came to with the false teeth was when I cleared my dad's room out you know after he died and gone to the undertakers um you know the things get left in the room and you know and you are confronted with a set of false teeth wrapped in a in tissue and it's like Jesus I know of all the things I was expecting to do was not necessarily throwing my dad's false teeth away but that's why I did but so it's kind of for me it's one of those things that you know is quite um it's not funny well it is it is funny but it's also like oh god really and you just have there are things that you you have to do and um face and and work out and one of them is sorting out you know funeral arrangements um and so the good old co-op in Leicester on counter silver in Leicestershire was was where we went average cost of a funeral I think these days is about four grand so that's got to come from somewhere um I think you there is an entitlement I think um depending on where you are and in the social care scale that you can apply um there's a pension credit um there's a a funeral service burial credit I think that you can get um if you apply for it but um but you're looking about four grand an average price I found not being too fancy um and then and then you sort of sort of take it from that the only other thing that really surprised me and this might people might think what is she talking about but I've told a couple of friends and they've gone yeah so when you see movies and TV programs and then somebody's got a mantelpiece and they've got a nice sit learn on it that says who's that that's great uncle Arthur and they kind of pick him up and they hold him whatever it is let me tell you when you pick up because I never expected this I've never clearly done this before I don't know what I was expecting some kind of I don't know dust I don't know sand you know what I mean kind of anyway so I picked up his um remains because he was cremated from the undertaker and I was expecting I don't know Lewis I don't know but crisp back size what do you mean sort of I don't know so what you actually get is something the size of a shoebox um that is sealed clearly um inside it is a paper bag sealed signed as these are the um of your loved ones remains yeah but it's enormous it's like two bags of flour together and it weighs the same so you get given so I kind of thought it was some delicate dust kind of you know thing and so now when people say oh I'm going to go and scatter my dad's remains I'm thinking hang on a minute it's be like for me it's like I've seen from the great escape where you've you've dug in a tunnel and you're letting it you know there's a huge huge bag of remains which is something I was not expecting you know she gave me this box and I'm like I'm a big strong girl what are you seeing here how many people are in here you know who's your dad really really so um it's that that really sort of didn't shock me but it made me think wow who knew who knew that's what you get I mean it is it's something that you you don't expect you don't expect it you expect something delicate and light and I don't know sort of a little uh China you can get that if you're going to have them interred somewhere and stuff but um so I don't know months if we'll go and scatter him somewhere I thought we'll be there all day scattering him it's going to take us hours like so we have to decide what to do with to do with him I love him dearly by the way blessing but it's like really it's an enormous box it's nothing light and fluffy and and powdery it's enormous so be prepared for that one as well because that took me a bit by surprise really you know they're giving me like the whole week's worth but no it's just my dad you have to I found that you you know I found that humor helps me get through this if I'm honest because you just think about it again I mean you think about it in a very positive way and yeah it is and um you know there's been some points over the last few months where I had some very lovely quiet moments with my dad just here and I and then some moments where it's just you know it's just been um you have to stick the humor in it because if not it's just it's just too depressing I think to to when you see somebody that you um have of my my dad was um a sportsman cricketer and uh fantastic as well and some of my friends will know because they've seen me the postings I've done about him and his career um so at a time when sportsman played sport for love and not for money I'm sure they played for these days still there's a lot more money involved and so it was quite well known in his time um but but so and I think it's a very shocking thing with dementia that you can see somebody that was so talented and and and fit and healthy and but he's a six-four big guy lovely um sort of reduced to a a shell of who they were and and the things that they forget and I think for me the saddest thing was when he forgot about cricket he made it all his life and then became an umpire and stuff and he just forgot about cricket and your memories just get reduced to very early days a fact you remembered things from his childhood and when he talked about home he didn't mean the home you know his house he meant the home that he grew up in so you have to kind of kind of keep a bit of head thinking when you see how's the home you think that which one we're talking about so it changes your whole relationship with them changes and um and it's it's incredibly sad to see it's the most cruel disease it's the most cruel disease I think I've ever seen that what it takes away from people yeah well it sounds like you have um dealt with it really well I just wanted to to share with some people that that you know if they're in the position where they've got elderly parents to make your lives easier there are some really simple things you can do and there's power of attorney but will's power of attorney um think about finances as well and think about what their finances look like and where where top-up fees might come from and how you get through that um because uh you know if you think about it now it's going to be easier to put in place when you need to because it um and then have an understanding that you have no idea how long it will go on for it is finite clearly but you just don't know when that point is and I think that um you know need to factor that in and plan for it plan for that because I didn't um plan for it at all really um and and listen and be observant about how behaviors may be changing in in your parents home when you go back even if it's for a day you know or for a couple of days or whatever because there are clues there that I sort of kind of must have blithely sort of ignored maybe I chose to ignore them because it I was trying to push a problem further down the line and if I'm honest I probably did that a bit I stuffed it down the line a bit um yeah because that's really noticeable and then look to where you can get help because there is loads of help out there and I cannot shout out enough how fantastic age UK are so they were great well well let's place them on you know yeah we'll we'll um we'll add them on there on linkedin and stuff and then we'll put it in the uh in the comments yeah because I can't tell you how how fantastic they've been in in in being positive and helping to ensure that that you know certainly for my mum that's left that she is she is um uh receiving what she's entitled to receive within our welfare system um and because we just do not know how to do that I you know it's a mine no actually we don't want to find out yeah you know between the social services department to work on pensions and whoever it might be and it's very easy to get lost in the system um so they were fantastic so a big shout out to them um and then just talk to your friends talk to your friends and your family about what you're going through and work because it will have an impact on your working life and I think we all like to pretend that none of these things matter oh sorry that's not the right word none of these things um are going to um distract you but they do they really do um and and you know no amount of stiff upper lip is is going to sort of get you through you need to talk to your to your work and your colleagues just so that they know if you're in a bad mood or a bit techy or tired or you haven't done something it's not necessarily because you're you don't want to it's just that your brain's full of other stuff so um it's worth it's worth letting people at work know you know in a confidential way if you if you need to um but I have found it massively helpful to talk about dementia um and the other thing I'm now manic at whether it makes any difference or not although a couple of my ex-colleagues in school on the life side assure me that the learning a new language is a fantastic way to reconnect neurons in your brain and whatever um to keep my Italians coming on um but I started to take a bit of an interest in in how our brains work and and um you know fearful that it's made me realize how important having your senses and your faculties are it's an incredibly important you know and and when you get older you know my dad was very fit um but but had dementia whereas my mum is a bit frailer but has all her marbles and I know which category I'd rather be in because at a certain point your enjoyment of life comes out of all the stuff that you interact with the people you see the places you go the things you read and that you look at and you feel and you take in and and uh that's a massive thing so I do brain training every day good good love it love it this is great right like like talking to people is also like they get you know like not just like not just going in front of your phone on the social media but actually engaging look up and look out and and just um yeah and pick up hobbies and stuff that you used to love years ago and and just you know try and get a bit of balance but but use but use your brain not just at work use it differently because once you lose the ability to enjoy the view out the window or the you know I think my dad saw what was outside and that it was sunny but didn't really take pleasure from what he saw outside anymore if that makes sense yeah yeah you know yeah well thank you very much for sharing I really appreciate it it's a bit unstructured which I apologize but we like that and um yeah sit down please and it's all good I mean people love hearing people's stories because it's your personal story your journey you've shared it which is great and it's going to help a lot of people a lot of people go through it you know if it means that one person thinks I've got those power of attorney forms oh sorry I've got those attorney forms must get assigned sign them yeah no definitely because it's going to help thank you guys thank you no thank you um and I wish you well over the uh the um I would say well over the virus but well over being uh at home and all this and you and you know um I'm sure hopefully you know we get to do this again face to face um absolutely this is a great way to do to do something and and hopefully um yeah hopefully some people will listen to it and and and take something away from it really but um I've been wanting to talk about it for a while and thank you very much for giving me a bit of a platform to do that pleasure pleasure okay thank you very much