We need to take a serious look at caregiver humor.
It’s funny!
Why aren’t you laughing?
It’s not funny?
Sure, it is funny!
As caregivers, we owe it to ourselves and those we care for to find more things to laugh about.
Seriously!
When my father was diagnosed with dementia and then probable Alzheimer’s in 1996, there were less than four million people in the U.S. with Alzheimer’s and related dementias. Today, there are about five million. That’s a 25-percent increase in just over two decades!
Do you want to see all those serious pouty-faced people and their caregivers walking around? No! (Now, read that again. That is poUty-faced, not potty-faced, which deals with a totally different anatomical area!)
Take for example, Janice Swink, who we recently featured for VOICES with Dementia.
She posts videos of her experience living with frontotemporal lobe and possibly Lewy body dementia. While her experiences are often scary, such as wondering if she exists, she and her beloved husband-caregiver, Eric, find ways to have FUN. It keeps her in as much control as she can muster over a terminal disease.
Here, she is offering a powerful testimonial after joining the Hair Club for Women.
If we can’t have fun, what can we have?
We want to make sure people living with dementia can live purposeful lives filled with moments of happiness. It makes life better for caregivers and those for whom they care.
Of course, life can’t be fun 24/7. There are some real issues… painful issues… and even genuine challenges we must overcome… but let’s work together to find moments when we can laugh. These alone can carry us through the jumbled and even confusing thickets of life.
Seriously, try to have a little FUN, today.
Then share what you did for FUN via social media, a comment below, or, at least, post a picture.
