One of the hardest things about having a mom with FLD is that I have aa mom and a three year old who are on the same level. In order to know how much this disease has affected my mom you would have to know her before she got sick. My mom taught elementary school for 39 years, kept a pristine home, cooked, cleaned, went to church and got her nails done every Friday. She was a gardener, avid reader and sharp as a tack. Frontal Lobe is very different then Alzheimer's and Dementia. It deals with the frontal lobes which control "often develop disinhibition, a striking loss of restraint in personal relations and social life" Her memory is fine. She knows who I am. When my sons birthday is and what the date is. She does really embarrassing things. Like when we went out to dinner and a African American man with many tattoos was sitting next to us. She spent the meal staring at him and complementing him on his "nifty" tattoos. At the end of the meal I apologized and explained and they were very nice about it. I also had an incident when mom was going to Barnes and Noble and was asked to leave because she was taking candy bars and hiding them in her purse. Security kicked her out and she was not allowed to come back. I had to called the manager and explain to situation. Its so awful and so embarrassing, especially since mom would NEVER act this way if she wasn't sick and would be appalled to see herself like this. Its hard to explain to people how my moms dementia is different because everyone just assumes that its memory based and that's not the case. Its also hard because my mom is so young. She was diagnosed at 65 and is now 69. Lots of people have grandparents with similar diseases but it's especially hard on me because my mom is so young. One of the hardest things about this is my son will never know MY mom and will only know the grandma wit FLD. Its near to impossible to explain to him that grandma is sick, because she looks fine. He will ask me "Why won't grandma play with me?" and what can I say to that? 

Today I called my dad in New York to catch up with him. "Well you caught me in the middle of an emergency" he said Well in my world that means that my mom has done something. " What happened this time?" I asked. He proceeded to explain that mom was screaming and yelling at her caretaker in front of Godiva because she would not allow my mother to have any sweets. So off he went to deal with her. Turns out that she didnt get her meds this morning and was not herself. If you could call having a mom with Frontal Lobe Dementia herself. I thought about it and tried to gloss over the fact that MY MOTHER was causing a scene at the mall. Was making men uncomfortable because she was approaching them asking personal questions. Going up to woman with children and getting too close, asking too many questions. How can I explain to these people that my mom was sick. I mean she IS only 69 and looks like the picture of health. How can I explain to people that my mom has dementia but her memory was fine. How could I look at this person who has been the most important woman of my life and not recognize her? This has been going on for three years since she was first diagnosed. Every time something happens, every single time, it kills me just a little bit. I have to feel the anger, the sadness, the loss and move on. I have to stop and deal with the fact that she got kicked out of Barnes and Nobles for stealing candy bars or took out 600$ in cash from the bank machine and cant seem to find it, in fact she doesnt even know she took it out in the first place. No matter what is happening in my busy regular life i have to stop and feel the little losses that have claimed the very essence of who my mom use to be.More information on FLD