"Having something to look forward to can help motivate you to stay engaged with life, refocus your thoughts away from your troubles and give you hope." Mayo Clinic Health Letter
This is an extremely important thing for me in developing resiliency. If I look too much at Dwane's decline and the tediousness of our daily lives, I lose hope. If I have nothing to look forward to, I lose hope and become mired in the hopelessness of living with a terminal, progressive disease. One of the hardest things about living with dementia is that the person is no longer the person with whom we originally had a relationship. Someone said to me recently that Dwane would want me to take care of my own life and health. Hmmmmm. Would he? It has been so long since he has shown an interest in me, my welfare or my life that I cannot remember accurately if it ever happened. So, I cannot count on the person with dementia to create something for me to look forward to. I must create things in my own life to look forward to. Right now that something is going to see my grandson race and to be with my children. Still weeks away, but something I can anticipate with joy.
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