Kitty Norton, creator and producer of the caregivers documentary feature ”Wine, Women, and Dementia,” joins Suzanne.
Kitty shared, “I am the eldest daughter of Gloria and Gary Norton. I have a younger sister. My family always had a very wry, self-deprecating sense of humor. It’s always been my saving grace in really difficult situations. When my mother was first diagnosed with vascular dementia, that was back in 2010. And my dad had decided that he would be her primary caregiver and he was very adamant about that. And my father was also kind of very insular. So even though mom had a big family, he was concerned about sisters butting in, and sisters were starting to feel like they weren’t allowed access to my mom. And it was an adjustment for everybody.
“I was working as an assistant editor in network TV. And in 2016, my father died rather suddenly from pancreatic cancer, and it was diagnosis to death with three weeks. And my sister who lives on the Oregon Coast, both of us knew that mom couldn’t live on her own. I had just been hired for the first season of “This is Us,” the NBC show, but I had to call and tell them I have to move back home. I have to move back to Oregon and live with my mom. So we did. And it was incredibly tough, like you’ve said before. It’s, you know, this is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.
“But I was also struck with the amount of life there is to live in dementia. And it’s a really, really different life than what you’re used to. But there’s still life, and my mom still needed to live her life. She wasn’t dying anytime soon, and we still needed to leave live ours. So that’s a lot of where our humor ended up saving my sister and I. We could get together afterwards after a really tough day. I’d just feel like I did this wrong, I did this wrong, I did this wrong, and then we could laugh about it. She could tease me about it.”
Kitty adds, “You had to use dementia against itself. We gave her one of those cards that you open and sings once for Mother’s Day, and I noticed that at meal time, we’d have it sitting up, and she’d look at it, and she’d open it, and it’d start singing. She’d just giggle, giggle, giggle and then se put it down. Five minutes later I’d pick it up, I’d put it in front of her. I’d give her a couple of minutes. She’d pick it up. She’d open it up it, sing. She’d giggle, giggle, giggle. It was like all new all the time.”
Learn more:
* Wine, Women, and Dementia: https://www.winewomenanddementia.com/
* Kitty Norton: https://www.winewomenanddementia.com/the-filmmakers
Hear more:
* Podcasts celebrating caregivers: https://answersforelders.com/category/saluting-caregivers/
Answers for Elders is part of the SeniorResource Network: https://www.seniorresource.com/
Check out our affiliate podcast Alzheimer’s Speaks: https://alzheimersspeaks.com/
