When Anna’s* parents came to visit last year, she was determined to give them a relaxing holiday in her Queensland beach town. She’d been worried about them – her mum had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and her dad had been having frequent falls. For years she’d been trying to get them to talk about whether they needed to move to aged care, to assess their financial situation and face what was coming next, but they’d dismissed her, saying they were fine.
On the first day of their visit, Anna’s dad fell and broke his leg, badly. “He went into hospital and Mum came and stayed with me. I realised what they’d been covering up. Mum was so confused she was walking around the house without any pants on, which was confronting for my teenage boys. She didn’t know what day it was and she couldn’t read a clock. Then the hospital told me Dad was withdrawing from alcohol and had some dementia.”
