What does a person lose to dementia? Sometimes it’s memory, independence, or the ability to recognize familiar things. And sometimes… it’s a phone that may or may not have ended up in the morgue.

In this episode of This Is Your Brain on Mom, Wendy and Barry make a countdown of the things their mom has lost throughout her dementia journey—and some of them are definitely more unexpected than others.

From patience and tolerance to her desire to wear clothes, hearing aids, glasses, stuffed animals, clothes that somehow belong to someone else, and multiple cell phones, this list is a hilarious, honest look at the everyday chaos of dementia caregiving.

There are missing phones, stolen—or possibly borrowed—stuffed animals, a mysterious collection of clothing, Costco-sized quantities of junk food that somehow disappeared, and one very questionable phone-tracking adventure that led directly to a place Wendy absolutely refused to enter.

But beneath the laughter are some very real parts of dementia: changes in behavior, loss of inhibition, confusion, wandering, changes in personal care, and the gradual loss of independence.

Because sometimes caregiving means grieving the things a person has lost. And sometimes it means searching under a dresser for glasses while wondering how a pair of shoes got there in the first place.

This Is Your Brain on Mom is a caregiving podcast about dementia, family, advocacy, sibling dynamics, and finding humor in the moments that are anything but funny.

If you’re caring for a parent with dementia, navigating a nursing home or long-term care, or simply trying to find humor in the chaos of caregiving, this episode is for you.

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