dementia

Dementia can affect all members of a family...

I doubt there's anyone who, at one time or another, hasn't thought about how nice it might be to not have to work and simply lead of life of leisure.

Remember Geocities and the early web--when people poured their hearts out amidst comic sans and crudely animated gifs? One pioneering blogger was Denise Cooper, who for several years kept a daily online diary about her life, her family, and especially caring for her combative and agitated demented mother in her home. In our opinion its one of the great diaries--a real slice of American life. Our excerpt is naturally somewhat artificial,and edited for space and continuity. The original is well worth surfing for. Ironically, while Ms. Cooper wrote frequently about how difficult it would be for her to deal with her mother's death, she ended up (spoiler alert) blogging about her own fatal lung cancer up until her very last days, and her mother survived her by several years.

Emergency rooms and their disturbing world are much better places to leave than at which to arrive—and so much better to leave alive.

For several years Denise Cooper cared for her demented mother and her extended family in a small town in Washington State. She recorded an extensive blog, from which this is a short excerpt....