With what appears to be my customary sense of self-importance I began this weblog last month thinking that it would be pretty unusual. I'd done a quick and, as it turns out, dirty search for personal journals of Alzheimer's experiences and found nothing. My journal about having two parents with the disease would, I confidently assumed, definitely be unique. I was quickly disabused of that foolish notion. In short order, I was introduced to (in order of seniority):

That weblogs devoted to similar material already existed, I should have guessed. But it was the further similarities of these weblogs that were more interesting. First, look at how many were started in March to July this year. Next, given the mean literacy standards of the blogosphere, the majority of these are unusually well crafted weblogs, often with writerly aspirations. So many involve pets, particularly cats, just like mine. And, before I arrived on the scene, they were already all in touch with one another.

Now several of them are in touch with me. And I've been very surprised by how much we seem to have in common. This illustrates one of the great qualities of the Internet - its facilitation of virtual communities within which there is a commonality of experience that obviates the need for tedious explanations and preamble when talking about the subject in question. Until I looked at these weblogs, I felt I was constantly talking about something very odd and alien when it came to Alzheimer's. People who knew me well enough would say things like 'How's your mum? Is she any better?' And I would feel like saying 'No, of course she isn't any better. It's Alzheimer's, for God's sake! She will get worse and worse and worse and then she'll die.'

Usually, in the real world, there is little point mentioning the fact that my parents have the disease. Until people have dealt with something similar, they seem to view the world through special lenses that make things turn out all right in the end, particularly if you really believe or desire or work hard enough. Or they assume 'it would never happen to me' or have one of several other unthinking responses that push the problem somewhere else, where it doesn't have to be faced in all its inevitability. I sometimes wonder if it is death that people are really hiding from.

Alternatively, there are the well-meaning souls who heap on the praise or drench one in sympathy (something I've always rather hated). But I should not judge too harshly, I guess I was equally awkward before I knew what I know now.

What all this seems to imply is that general society has still not got to grips with dementia. Perhaps this is a modern phenomenon arising from the demise of the close-knit extended family. Maybe there was a time when people grew up alongside ageing grandparents and great-grandparents and had a better grasp of what dementia meant.

Whatever the analysis, I am grateful to these other Alzheimer's bloggers. It is rare and good to talk to people who already know what you mean before you even say it.