Steve said they first got an inkling something might be wrong with Quirke in November 2020, after she received a script.
“She started reading it and she phoned me on that day and said, the words are not going in. That’s where it started,” he said.
Their reaction after the diagnosis was “disbelief, really”.
“We looked at each other and went, ‘Can’t be, it’s long Covid. Got the flu’.”
Charlie added he was “quite surprised that this was possible in a woman in her 60s, and it can happen to people in their 50s, people in their 40s, so it’s something you have to deal with and learn about”.
Dementia is described as “young onset”, external when symptoms develop before the age of 65. It most often develops in people between the ages of 45 and 65 but can affect people of any age.
Asked what stage Quirke is at in her dementia journey, Steve said: “We don’t know. She’s still funny. She’s talking. She’s happy.”
“Is it four years, eight years, 10 years, 12 years, 20, who knows?”
Charlie added: “And that’s the problem, no one tells you.
“My mum knows exactly who we are. Every time she sees all of us, she smiles, laughs, says ‘I love you’, says ‘hello’.”
