From a sociable and chatty man, Melissa’s father became withdrawn, depressed and forgetful.
Initially, Henry, a sales director, was diagnosed with depression. His family thought he was stressed by his job.
He was diagnosed with young-onset dementia at age 54. His children were still teenagers.
In the decade before he died, Henry would often get lost. He would forget if he had eaten or taken a shower. As his condition worsened, his speech also became incoherent and could not recognise Melissa, who is now 28.
At the time, Melissa was studying business management at Nanyang Polytechnic. Often, she skipped class to care for her father as she had the most flexible schedule among the three children.
Later, he was diagnosed with liver cancer and treated for it. The cancer relapsed after four or five years and he died in 2014 at the age of 64.
Melissa wanted to reach out to younger caregivers whose loved ones suffer from dementia, by getting people to share their stories and form a community to support one another.
She quit her marketing job with a luxury hotel chain, to start social enterprise Project We Forgot in 2015. Besides forming a community of support, it also runs online and offline seminars on dementia-related topics, among other things.
It was far from a walk in the park to keep the initiative going. Singaporeans were reluctant to share their stories, although Melissa slowly managed to get more young caregivers to open up. Then, there was the difficulty of getting funding or sponsorship. She went without a pay cheque for about three years after she started Project We Forgot.
In January this year, Project We Forgot merged with home-care provider Homage, and this partnership allows Project We Forgot to reach more caregivers.
Most of the caregivers in the Project We Forgot community are in their 20s and 30s, caring for parents and grandparents. An example was a 17-year-old student, who has to care for a grandmother with dementia as both her parents are working.
“So while there were many days I wanted to quit, we have received messages from people thanking us for the work we do and that has kept me going,” said Melissa.
Watch the video below to hear her story.
Read more here.
Source: The Straits Times, 15 May 2019