One of the most distressing aspects of caring for someone living with dementia can be when they become highly selective about what they will eat or refuse to eat anything at all.
Recently, a family from the English city of Liverpool faced a worrying dilemma when McDonald’s restaurants in the UK announced that they would be closing their stores, as their beloved grandmother refuses to eat anything but McDonald’s.
Eva Gilland is an 89-year-old grandmother who is living with dementia but is lucky enough to have a loving and supportive family.
Eva’s lack of appetite and selective eating habits saw her weight plummet to 34kgs, and her beloved granddaughter, Natalie, 36, routinely drops off a burger, fries, and coke from McDonald’s to ensure that she eats something.
After hearing that McDonald’s would be closing, Eva’s family decided that they would try to replicate Mc Donald’s meals to ensure that their grandmother would continue to eat, and they wanted to do everything they could to make the experience as authentic as possible.
Granddaughter Natalie turned to social media, sharing her family’s current dilemma and asking local McDonald’s restaurants if she could purchase some McDonald’s packaging to help disguise the home-cooked burgers and fries.
Soon after posting the message on social media, Natalie was inundated with responses from McDonald’s workers who were more than happy to help by supplying the family with burger wrappers and meal packaging.
Eva’s granddaughter shared her thoughts on this experience in a recent article posted on the Liverpool Echo.
“Everybody has their own personal issues with all that’s going on and with coronavirus, whether that’s with employment or child care, so it’s the fact that people took time out their lives to help,” she said.
“We knew it would be such a worrying time for us.”
“I would personally like to thank Tom Carroll from Stondale McDonald’s, Heather and Ollie from Lord Street McDonald’s, and Nicola and Claire from Rangleigh Street McDonald’s, for their generous gifts of packaging, and to all those who spent time out of their busy day to message or seek packaging for us.”
Although there are no reports on whether or not Eva is enjoying her new ‘home-made-fast-food,’ her family’s efforts to ensure that she is eating and drinking during lockdown prove that she is in good hands.
Photo Courtesy of iStock – miodrag ignjatovic – and does not depict persons within the body of this article.
