Jane and Sky: New Blog!

We are going to start blogging soon, but in the meantime, here's something about us and why we're doing this:

Sky Yardley and Jane Dwinell have been together since 1985. They raised two children, for many years had a small farm, and retired in their 50s to travel and do volunteer work. They both had successful careers — Sky as a family mediator, and Jane as an RN, freelance writer, and Unitarian Universalist minister. As an avocation, they designed and built six houses and renovated two others. 

Sky was diagnosed with “probable early stage Alzheimer’s disease” in the summer of 2016. He had been showing signs of memory loss since 2012, most significantly since 2015. He was 66 when he was diagnosed. Jane was 62.

We started this blog as a way to erase the stigma attached to dementia and to increase understanding of the way it affects people on a day-to-day basis. People with dementia, and their loved ones, are not to be pitied or ignored, but to be treated with the full respect accorded to anyone, and with the understanding that they can meaningfully participate in life and in society despite their disability.