Come On In To Our World of Living With Vascular Dementia A Dementia Caregiving Memoir by Michelle Spratt and Vicky Donoghue
- Raw Dementia Memoir: Follow one family's 18-year vascular dementia caregiving journey, navigating devastating behavioral changes, grief, and an unwavering fight for their loved one.
- NHS Funding Victory: Discover how Michelle and Vicky challenged the UK healthcare system to secure NHS Continuing Healthcare funding, offering hope to elder care advocates everywhere.
- Practical Carer Guide: Gain insight on Lasting Power of Attorney, NHS Continuing Care entitlement, and caregiver self-care strategies that empower families facing aggressive dementia at home.
- Heartbreaking and Empowering: From diagnosis to care home transition and peaceful passing, this memoir captures the full emotional toll of spousal and family loss to vascular dementia.
- For Every Dementia Family: Whether navigating Alzheimer's, multi-infarct dementia, or elder care advocacy, this honest dementia family story will make you feel less alone and more prepared.
Freedom is a gift to be cherished. We take it for granted until it is stolen from us.
Come On In is the true memoir of Michelle Spratt and her mother Vicky Donoghue, chronicling an 18-year vascular dementia caregiving journey alongside John, a charismatic family man whose personality and freedom were slowly stolen by Vascular Dementia.
What begins as a family story becomes a raw, unflinching account of the physical and emotional devastation that aggressive dementia brings into a home. When an emergency MRI revealed irrevocable brain damage to John's frontal and parietal lobes, the diagnosis changed everything. Over the years that followed, Vicky and Michelle faced severe behavioral changes, exhaustion, fear, and an unyielding battle against the UK healthcare system to secure NHS Continuing Healthcare funding.
They fought. They won.
Drawing on the Coughlan case precedent, the family successfully appealed for NHS Continuing Healthcare funding, a victory that changed the course of John's care. This memoir captures every step of that journey, from John's diagnosis to his transition to a care home, and ultimately his peaceful passing in 2019.
Come On In is not only a heartfelt dementia memoir. It is also a practical guide for carers and medical advocates, covering Lasting Power of Attorney, NHS Continuing Care entitlement, safety planning, and caregiver self-care. Whether you are coping with aggressive dementia at home, navigating elder care advocacy, or simply searching for a dementia family story that reflects your own grief, this book will make you feel less alone.
For anyone touched by Vascular Dementia, Alzheimer's, multi-infarct dementia, or the long goodbye of any terminal illness, Come On In will hold your hand through it all.
