GUESS WHO’S BACK?!
This blog post is long overdue. Yes, it’s been radio silence from me on all my social media platforms, but I had a good reason(s). One major reason I’ve been so quiet is because I decided to go back to school to complete my degree in Communications!!! I enrolled at Bowie State University in Fall 2024. I get the irony of the Communications major pushing pause on all communications, but I can explain. So, I’m back in school, yay me, right?! Wrong! Life has a funny way of humbling you. Just when you think, it’s finally my time to shine, my kids are young adults, they don’t need me as much, now I can finish what I started almost 20+ years ago, yup when I was like 12 ;-). Remember when I said life has a way of humbling you, it did in a major way. Shortly after I enrolled my mother-in-law was officially diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, yes, the same kind of dementia Bruce Willis was diagnosed with. And it gets better; my mother was diagnosed was breast cancer in December 2024.
Read more: GUESS WHO’S BACK?!HIS MOTHER
I say officially, because frontotemporal dementia often presents as bi-polar disorder, or you’re just losing a step in your old-age, and/or you’re the corky old lady in apt 1B, all of which could be a reality, but it wasn’t for my mother-in-law. It became abundantly clear she could no longer live on her own, so she moved in with us. We had no idea how hard caring for her would be. She went from being an escape artist, convinced we were trying to steal her money, and apartment (shame on you Jackie…lol iykyk) to be being completely dependent on us to make her meals, bathing her, making sure she exercised and trying to maintain what is left of her memory.
THE DECISION
However, after a long hard year of trying to do something neither of us have ever done (care for an aging adult parent with an illness) while working full time, parenting our children, and me being full time student, we made the difficult decision to move her into an assisted living facility. She’s been at the facility for 3 weeks as of today and life is different. Honestly, it feels like a huge weight was lifted off of us, but that feeling of freedom is also tethered to a heavy sense of guilt.
For most people of color, black folk in particular, putting your elderly family members into any kind of home and/or assisted living facility is a major faux pas, a total last result, under normal circumstances we just don’t do it. However, caring for someone with frontotemporal dementia isn’t normal for anyone. Saddled with that cultural guilt and personal feelings of fear and doubt, we made the hard decision. I applaud families that can keep their loved ones with him. Statistically they do fare better at home, but that often comes at a great cost to the caregivers, mentally, financially, and physically. In the end it proved to be untenable for us. I am happy to report she seems to be thriving at the facility. Needless to say, we’re keeping the facility accountable on all fronts.
MY MOTHER
The moms have needed a lot of care and attention this year. If caring for someone with frontotemporal dementia wasn’t enough, life throw another curve ball at us, cancer. My mother was diagnosed with stage 1, triple negative breast cancer in December 2024. We were very grateful for early detection but the type of cancer she has is/was difficult to treat. She had a successful lumpectomy in January 2025 and recently (like last week recent) decided to undergo radiation treatment to ensure she stays cancer free. Stay tuned for an update on that. Through all of this I tried to maintain my sanity and not overwhelm myself with worry and fear. I haven’t always been successful. Why is any of this important, why am I sharing all of this now? Simply put, because I actually have the bandwidth to do it. I couldn’t muster the mental energy to do more than what was absolutely necessary, unfortunately the blog caught a stray. Hopefully you caught the pun, the blog it’s literally entitled It’s Very Necessary, listen I crack myself up and that’s all that really matters.
I’M BACK
Here’s the good news I’m back!! And I am happy to report, amiss all of this I managed to make the Dean’s List twice, named Change Maker of the Year at work, served as a staff for BSU’s Literary Magazine, The Torch,acquired my Project Management Certification all while staying married and sane (therapy helps). It’s been a full year since I started at Bowie and what a year it has been. I’m entering my junior year, diving deeper into my major. Guess what you all get to come with me on this journey!!! One of my favorite classes so far is my Social Media marketing class. We’re going to explore topics like, web design services, social media and advertising and so much more. Full disclosure this post is also a part of one my first assignments which was to create a blog, done and done Professor Craig. I’m excited about this class, the semester and what I hope will be an uneventfully end of the calendar year!
Xoxo,
Andrea
