I was diagnosed with young-onset dementia at 58. I have achieved things since then that I once thought impossible
I used to be afraid of so much before my dementia diagnosis. Animals of all kinds, for example – the pure sight of them made the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention, and my heart pound. My daughter has a cat, Billy, that she used to have to put outside if I visited; and I’d cross the road, full of fear, if I saw a dog on the pavement, even if it was with its owner and on a lead. But then dementia came along.
Dementia and cancer have long been the two most feared conditions – and for the over-65s, dementia is the most feared. I was 58 when I was diagnosed with young-onset dementia, just four years younger than Fiona Phillips, who has revealed she has the condition at the age of 62.
Wendy Mitchell was an NHS non-clinical team leader before being diagnosed with young-onset dementia at the age of 58. She is the author of One Last Thing: How to Live with the End in Mind (Bloomsbury)
