Cast of Characters

I thought I’d introduce you all to my cast of characters. There are many, but to start with I have included those who are present at the house most frequently.

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This is Me. I’m 33 and live with my GM who has dementia. I help her out with the daily household type stuff and keep her company. The plan was always for me to stay with her for a little while, get enough hours to move out and support myself and then GM would go on to live with AuntJ and UncleJ (because GM’s dementia has been getting worse.). However, in October I was diagnosed with breast cancer and then stopped working. But AuntJ and UncleJ are cool with me putting “the plan” on hold for awhile so I can just concentrate on getting treatment.



This is GM. She is 83 and has had dementia since right after GP died in 2002. Her biggest challenge (in my opinion) is that she has no short term memory. For example, she will microwave a cup of coffee and will forget that it’s in there before it is done. GM is also prone to random anger outbursts which can be challenging for both of us as she often says mean things when she’s upset. But luckily, even though her short term memory is lacking, GM still knows the stuff she learned a long time ago and that allows her to keep up with her favorite hobby; doing crosswords. :-)






This is Timmy. He’s about 18-ish years old and he’s the alpha cat in our household. He enjoys being petted (As long as he knows you) and drinking water out of cups or buckets (but will drink it out of his cat dish if nothing else is available. Timmy dislikes people food about 99% of the time but has been known to eat a Cheeto or two if I let him. Timmy does get bugged though when GM throws people food into the cat dish. He hates that and will usually come get me and stare at me and then his dish and meow until I take the people food out. Timmy’s best friend in the whole wide world is Danny. Although every so often Timmy has to gang up on Danny and remind him that he, Timmy, is the boss.










This is Danny. He is about 13-ish years old and he’s the beta cat in our household. He also enjoys being petted (Even if he doesn’t know you, it’s ok as long as you’re nice to him) and drinking water out of cups or buckets (but will drink it out of his cat dish it is the easiest thing for him to do). Danny loves people food, as well as cat food and comes into the kitchen to investigate if someone’s eating when the microwave dings. Danny always sits next to GM and stares at her until she throws some people food down to him. Danny will eat almost every kind of people food (the other day I caught him stealing and eating some of GM’s cheese) but does turn down people food on occasion (like I remember he turned down some apple pie GM threw at him), but he always likes to know what being eaten so he can investigate it and see if he likes it. Danny’s best friend in the whole wide world is Timmy. He doesn’t seem to mind Timmy showing off his dominance once in awhile and is content to snuggle up next to Timmy and go to sleep.


This is AuntJ. My mom was her younger sister. She is married to UncleJ and does something-or-other with trading stocks. She handles all the “big” GM things like her medical stuff, her bills, and her shopping. She comes to visit with GM several times a week and they do crosswords together. :-)










This is UncleJ. I forget exactly what his profession does but I remember it was highly technical. He had to stop working when he was diagnosed with colon cancer 3 years ago. He has let me know he is there if I need to talk about cancer/chemotherapy stuff. :-)











This is UncleB. He is AuntJ’s older brother. He is an independent contractor. He lives a bit north of us but comes down to visit with GM once every week or every other week depending on what his work schedule allows.










This is the vortex that lives in GM's room. It periodically sucks up small items and transports them to another dimension (i.e. the Dementia-Dimension).

These items can going missing in said dimension for long periods of time; sometimes years even.

Then the vortex will spit the items out and we'll find them again.

Items sucked into and spat out of the vortex include but are not limited to, remote controls, keys, hair brushes, combs, make up, medicine, skin care products, the masks I wear outside when my immune system is all screwed up from chemotherapy, jewelry, important papers, pajamas and socks.