Should I Watch....

"Malcolm and Barbara: Love's Farewell" on ITV tonight?

http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/malcolmandbarbara/index.htm

I think I am going to, though I know that this is going to be immensely grim viewing. My grandparents both have dementia, and recently have been taken out of their home, following a long and humiliating struggle to live independently, and together. This weekend I will visit them for the first time in a long time, and I will have to gather my courage for this. But as Ma Ding can bear witness to it's so important to know what you're getting into, when you start caring for relatives with this disease. The stress of it can break a family up. Ma Ding had to preside over the dividing of their belongings a few days ago (everyone apparently forgot that it also happened to be Ma Ding's birthday, and instead it dissolved into unsavoury scrapping and sniping). What a way to say goodbye to the family home, eh? Here's praying that the future for this generation holds something better. Best to get prepared for the worst though...