A US man sits across the table from his mother at a shopping centre food hall, sipping coffee, sharing ice cream.
“When I was sending a birthday card, which Joey was it going to? I don’t even know if I knew you,” she says. “But that doesn’t seem right, does it?”
“Don’t I look familiar?” he asks, blinking back tears.
She pauses, studying his face. “I don’t know… I think so.”
That man is Joey Daley. A 46-year-old man from Dublin, Ohio, who is documenting his mother’s experience of Lewy Body Disease, a cruel yet sadly common condition in which nerve cells in the brain deteriorate and die, causing symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s Disease.
Molly, 66, was diagnosed a year ago and has been staying in an assisted living facility ever since.
The heartbreaking weekly series, which Joey is sharing via YouTube, captures crippling decline of Molly’s memory. How she can recall her childhood, but not giving birth to her children; she can identify people in her photographs, but not how she knows them.
Top Comments
Can't even share my story because I'm already crying and I will lose it if I type out my similar experiences 😭😭
Please, please remember that as supporters, carers etc YES it's tough for us but the person we are caring for is always doing it tougher seeing as they are the one that needs the support. To often the supporters and carers are given a starring role in the story of an individuals illness/disorder/disability and it pushes the person who needs to support to a background role in their own life.
I am also super uncomfortable with this whole "turn my life into a YouTube series" stuff, it seems exploitative to me.