Alzheimer’s Carer shares her experience of caring for her mother in a moving new book

After years of caring for her mother who was diagnosed with early-onset dementia at the age of only 50, Dawn Fanshawe decided to write a book to share some of her experiences and perhaps help others along the way.

"I am trying to support and encourage other carers" she explains in an interview with her local paper, The Nottingham Post. "I am trying to give them a message of hope, and to show that there are happy and funny sides to everything, even in the most difficult of circumstances."

Dawn is a single mother of two, a teacher by profession and a chronicler of the declining years of her mum who died aged 64 in 2011.

"My mother, Avril, is the main focus in these memoirs, but it is our story, our journey, discovered through my eyes".

"It is not a story for gossip or blame, but an acknowledgement of the frailty and beauty of what it is to be human and the choices we make in honesty and love."

Dawn had a difficult childhood in a violent household with a schitzophrenic father. Her Mum, who always sided with her father, covered up the abuse and ended up disowning her daughter when Dawn was in her teens.

"The trouble was that she absolutely adored my father and always put him first. She was in denial about the abuse. I think my mother was happy for things to be covered up so that she could get some happiness out of her marriage. When he died at 49 the first thing she said to me was, 'I don't want to hear anything bad about your dad'.

Avril was diagnosed at the age of 50 with early-onset dementia. "When she turned 60 she was at the stage where she could not even pour a glass of water," said Dawn. "I invited her to live with me, and that was the beginning of my healing."

Avril lived with her daughter for a year and a half before the challenge became too much and she transferred to a care home.

The story of Avril and Dawn is told in the latter's new book Lost Down Memory Lane, subtitled Caring For Alzheimer's – A Personal Journey.

It is pitched at the one in eight British adults who is a carer, including the thousands who find themselves looking after a parent or other family member suffering with dementia.

"I am not telling you how to be a carer", stresses Dawn. "I am not a super-hero. I make many mistakes.If you are a carer, as I am, I want to encourage you to find all the support you can get to make your life as a carer as comfortable as possible."

While I was looking after mum I had a feeling of total responsibility," she says. "I wish I'd read a book like this at the time. It may be meant for families and carers, but I think it is a book that can be read by anyone."

Source: Dawn's interview with the Nottingham Post 31/10/15