Sensible and helpful words, brenda. My sister in Canada told me a little less than a year ago that she had been diagnosed with early Alzheimers after 2 mini strokes.She and BIL were due to visit rellies in Scotland - possibly a last visit as BIL also has prostate cancer, so I set about looking out old photos of our childhood, mostly black and white and spent many happy hours putting together an online photobook which I then had printed for her as a present to remind her of happier days.Although DH had been in hospital for 3 months I also determined to drive up to Scotland for the weekend to meet up with her and BIL.
Didn't quite work out as I expected. She said thank you but seemed underwhelmed by the book (I loved it) but also, frankly I saw no signs of what you might call dementia - sha has always been a bit strange, coming out with non sequiturs and getting the wrong end of the stick, so no change there. Anyway I took a deep breath and told her so (not the last bit of the sentence) but just that I could not see any recognisable sigsn and was her doctor sure? To cut a long story short when she saw the specialist in September, he confirmed that there were no signs of Alzheimers. She mght have been suffering from the after effects of the mini strokes a sort of mild vascular dementia, but since then there have been no recurrences.
I wish you well tingaloo it is a hard thing to learn.