Author Archives: wendy

Brain tumour charities lobby Parliament

Charities lobbied Parliament last week, asking MPs to join the fight against brain tumours.

MPs were encouraged to improve awareness about brain tumours by pledging to sign an Early Day Motion, signing an e-petition, and to do more to promote awareness of brain tumours in their constituencies and to participate in meetings of the All Party Brain Tumour Group. Several Members of Parliament were photographed signing a Brain Tumour Pledge to help raise the issues with Parliament (Conservative MP Andrew Selous is pictured above).

The commitment shown by carers should be celebrated all year round

Carers deserve our thanks, and the chance to have a break from their responsibilities, says Jude Habib

 

Carers need time to themselves.

A few weeks ago my aunt died. She had been ill with dementia for many years but her death was sudden and unexpected. I loved my aunt dearly but the person I worried most about when she died was her sister, who had tirelessly looked after her for such a long time and was her full-time carer.

When Sara died, my aunt F effectively was made redundant. And it wasn’t for the first time. More than 30 years ago, my grandmother died from Parkinson’s disease, having spent the last years of her life pretty much bedridden. My aunts cared for her selflessly and, in my opinion, at the expense of their own personal lives.

Those memories of visiting my grandmother and how loving and caring my aunts were towards her have always stayed with me.

Tragedy of mother, 104, taking care of her daughter, 87, who suffers from dementia

  • Garcia starts and ends every day by asking where her mother is
  • Albert Garcia described relationship between his mother and grandmother as ‘spiritual ping-pong match’
  • Rosario Schielzeth and her daughter Maria Garcia play six rounds of Bingo every night
  • Mother and daughter love movies and recently watched Happy Feet 2 in 3D
  • When Garcia was briefly married in the 1950s, she lived across the street from her mother

By Snejana Farberov

PUBLISHED: 21:02, 18 June 2012 | UPDATED: 11:32, 19 June 2012

Eternal bond: Rosario Schielzeth (rear) and Maria Garcia (front) pictured together in their Sarasota, Florida, home a few days after Schielzeth’s 104th birthday

Children caring for parents in their old age is nothing new, but Rosario Schielzeth and Maria Garcia  have turned the old formula upside-down as it is the 104-year-old mother who is looking after her dementia-plagued 87-year-old daughter.

The two women from Sarasota, Florida, have been inseparable for decades. Even when Garcia was married for five years in the 1950s and had her own home, it was across the street from her mom.

‘Literally, these two ladies have been together all their lives,’ said Albert Garcia, Maria’s 60-year-old son. ‘It’s a spiritual ping-pong match between both of them and that’s what keeps them going and alive.’

Garcia’s children are all grown up, with families and children of their own, and nowadays she relies more than ever on her centenarian mother for companionship.