Our Dementia Adventure

Embracing Dementia!
The charity Dementia Adventure organised an event at Newark Park NT on Valentine's Day to celebrate the love we have for each other and the love we have for our Dementia Adventure family. Very special thanks to the 3 couples who took part, Tony Vale for organising it, and the staff and volunteers at Newark Park in the beautiful Gloucestershire countryside, for making the day so special for our guests. The local U3A wrote poems, flowers were given, the couples enjoyed refreshments and the warm fires inside the house as well as the snowdrops in the grounds outside - and the sun shone! Thank you to Suzy Webster for taking the photos too, like the lovely one...

ODE TO THE DAFFODIL
When daffodils greet each new Spring’s dawn
and birds awake to charm each morn
I celebrate with unreserved cheer
dementia or not, I’m still here.

A sea of yellow and white and cream
Prevents my mood from being so mean.
Trumpets scanning the sky so high
bring a tear to this elderly, fading eye.

Breezes sway blooms into waves of delight
attracting brave insects away from their flights
and my smile remembers what my memory lacks
that with Dementia Adventure my life’s still on track.

Dementia affects 820,000 people in the UK. The Dementia Action Alliance, in partnership with the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, launched a Call to Action for the improvement of care for people with dementia in Acute Hospitals. To support this, we are running a webinar series 'improving the health and social care for people with dementia'.

From a passionate perspective of 'been there, done that and got the T-shirts', June and Brian Hennell have inspired many. This webinar will cover:
- Moving on from diagnosis, focusing what you can do and the limitations.
- Dual diagnosis... when meds for one condition are negated by the treatment for a second.
- How creating dementia friendly communities does not require money being thrown at the problem... just understanding and small adjustments.

The Hennell Household before dementia.

Life had been very full, bringing up three sons with loads of interests and feeling the full effect of being parents as chauffeurs, caterers, entertainers, advisors, nurses, seamstresses for fancy dress, mentors, financiers, parent /teacher attendees, committee members of judo groups, scout troops and sea cadet units.... won’t go on for I’m sure you know the scene. Suffice to say that our love of theatre, dancing, writing, reading, music and much else including travelling had to be fitted in around two full-time jobs and children’s needs. With hindsight, as most parents must feel, we don’t know how we did it but there is much proof that we did... and with a modicum of success too ! We managed, often on a shoe-string, to see most of the world with or without our sons, whilst satisfying our wanderlust and curiosity for what makes others tick.

June and Brian started their four week round trip in October 2011 in Hong Kong visiting good friends Patrick, Teresa and Wilson Chan

After saying a fond farewell to friends in Hong Kong, June and Brian flew to Sydney and travelled up the east coast as far as Cairns. Flights to red rock country around Alice Springs delighted them and proved to be for them the highlight of their time in Australia. The last picture shows a fond farewell amongst new friends met en route


A wonderful weekend was spent in Bangkok with friends Pook, Oom, Eve and Warong Wongworakul. Marvellous memories of time shared in Phrae in Northern Thailand were added to during this special weekend


The final leg of their tour was to be hosted at the beautiful home of friend Fongchan Sooksawat Na Ayudhya, Head of Finance at the Faculty of Agriculture, Chiangmai University. Such generous hospitality took them to The Royal Project, to watch elephants painting (yes really), to Myanmar (Burma), to take part in special ceremonies in wats (temples), even to fly lanterns in honour of their visit. This four week trip was a dream come true and undertaken with dementia and aggressive prostrate cancer

Brian: Hello I’m me and I’m a statistic.
June: Yes, hello I’m me and I’m married to a statistic.

Brian: But then, it occurs to me that everyone is a statistic of some form or other so why should I worry about mine ???

June: PEOPLE, IT SEEMS TO ME, ARE DIVIDED INTO TWO TYPES, THOSE WHO LIKE SITTING PEOPLE WATCHING AND THOSE WHO BURY THEIR HEADS INTO HOODS TO ISOLATE THEMSELVES FROM THE MELEE AROUND THEM.

Brian: COPING WITH DEMENTIA IS LIKE THAT.