Ty Lewis is a dementia practitioner, a wife, a homeschooling mom of two teenagers, and a small business owner. She’s also the primary caregiver for her mother, Gertrude, who is in the end stages of Alzheimer’s. She and her husband chose to keep Gertrude at home rather than move her into a memory care community, a decision that shaped everything about how their household runs.
The family leans on routines that go beyond medication schedules. Music therapy and dance sessions with Lewis’s daughters are part of the weekly rhythm. Gertrude has remained stable on hospice with no sores, something Lewis credits to consistent family care. Lewis also started an online community in 2019 that has grown past 120,000 members, where she shares the honest, unpolished realities of dementia caregiving.
She doesn’t describe her life as balanced. She describes it as doing life together, and she insists that joy and purpose can coexist with a terminal diagnosis. If you’re caring for an aging parent here on the Suncoast while raising your own kids, you’re in good company. What’s one routine that keeps your family steady when caregiving gets heavy?
