Monday: book group, phone calls
Sep. 16th, 2019 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutI have a great phone call with my sister driving to book group.
In book group, we had a lovely conversation. Our new member could not make it, but there were four of us there, we had all read and enjoyed the book. After spending some time commiserating about politics, and also spending a bit of time at the end discussing the upcoming 250th towniversary celebration (for Mayberry, not where I live now), and receiving our Book Group CSA food bag (beans! Looking forward to them), we talked about the book.
_Somebody I Used to Know_ by Wendy Mitchell
A. recommended the book. J. was hesitant to read it, because it is a difficult topic: dementia. But we all read it and loved it; A. was right it is a fun book and an inspiring one, easy to read, very informative, and a lot to think about. It is a book that changes the reader very directly: I sent an email to my MIL for my failure to validate her description of her interior experience of function. Just because from the outside, things look the same, does NOT mean they are the same inside! My MIL was very gracious. A. had a related impulse, thinking of a time when someone she knew revealed a dementia diagnosis, and did not know what to say. We would all do better after reading this book, because we have a broader sense of the progression of it, and a much more nuanced idea of the kinds of disability involved — what can be accommodated for, how people can stay safe without having their lives limited excessively.
It was interesting that it was set in Yorkshire, and parts in Hull and Beverly. I was just there!
The author is delightful, extremely forthright and with a lovely sense of humor and a great sense of humanity. Because her memory was so extraordinary before the onset of the disease process, she noticed quite early on what was happening and immediately accessed diagnostic resources. It resets one’s ideas of dementia, to realize that someone who is aware and open and has good self-insight might almost tend to receive an early onset / young onset diagnosis. It is lovely that she continues to blog and thus give us insight past the writing / publication of the book.
Coming home from book group, I had a lovely conversation with R.
In book group, we had a lovely conversation. Our new member could not make it, but there were four of us there, we had all read and enjoyed the book. After spending some time commiserating about politics, and also spending a bit of time at the end discussing the upcoming 250th towniversary celebration (for Mayberry, not where I live now), and receiving our Book Group CSA food bag (beans! Looking forward to them), we talked about the book.
_Somebody I Used to Know_ by Wendy Mitchell
A. recommended the book. J. was hesitant to read it, because it is a difficult topic: dementia. But we all read it and loved it; A. was right it is a fun book and an inspiring one, easy to read, very informative, and a lot to think about. It is a book that changes the reader very directly: I sent an email to my MIL for my failure to validate her description of her interior experience of function. Just because from the outside, things look the same, does NOT mean they are the same inside! My MIL was very gracious. A. had a related impulse, thinking of a time when someone she knew revealed a dementia diagnosis, and did not know what to say. We would all do better after reading this book, because we have a broader sense of the progression of it, and a much more nuanced idea of the kinds of disability involved — what can be accommodated for, how people can stay safe without having their lives limited excessively.
It was interesting that it was set in Yorkshire, and parts in Hull and Beverly. I was just there!
The author is delightful, extremely forthright and with a lovely sense of humor and a great sense of humanity. Because her memory was so extraordinary before the onset of the disease process, she noticed quite early on what was happening and immediately accessed diagnostic resources. It resets one’s ideas of dementia, to realize that someone who is aware and open and has good self-insight might almost tend to receive an early onset / young onset diagnosis. It is lovely that she continues to blog and thus give us insight past the writing / publication of the book.
Coming home from book group, I had a lovely conversation with R.