We continue with our great media exposure of women in sim racing. Our weekly sim racing blogs from Yvonne Van Den Berg continues with #12.
Back with her weekly blog for women in sim racing, Yvonne Van den Berg is racking up the miles in sim racing with events, success and more. Here we hear from Yvonne for blog #12, Enjoy.
Welcome to my weekly blog #12!
This is going to be a special one, a bit more personal than usual.
12H Race Against Dementia
Alethea Boucq, Sarah Johnson and I are going to drive the 12h Race Against Dementia at the Nürburgring on ACC! This is a very important race for us because the three of us have family members who have dementia.
My grandmother
My grandmother was always full of life and joy! She has been through a lot, but nothing would stop her. Until she got dementia in 2019, times are very different now.
We always had a special connection and luckily she can still recognize me, sometimes she thinks I’m my niece, we look like each other. (our mothers are twin sisters)
My grandmother went to the hospital after she fell at her house. After this we wanted her safe, nothing guaranteed another accident would not happen and the homecare and family help would not have been enough. It was simply too dangerous for her to live alone so she accepted to go and live in a nursing home where she now has a lovely room with her own furniture and things she collected over the years. I am glad she lives there because she gets the attention she needs from the nurses who assist her in daily tasks like when she needs to eat or drink.
It’s great because she is surrounded by other patients who also live there and which she can meet when she wants and do activities together.
My father’s uncle
My father’s uncle had also dementia, unfortunately, he died in 2013. We always had a special connection, we both love the mountains and the trains in Switzerland.
We traveled a lot together with the family, my grandparents, my father’s uncle, my parents, my uncle and my aunt.
I made a picture of the Eiger, Junfrau and Mönch, where we were all together. It’s a beautiful picture that means a lot to all of us. We used this picture for the funeral card of my father’s uncle and also for my grandfather.
When my father’s uncle got dementia, he was still able to live for a couple of years at home, both my mother and I took care of him then. We knew the time came for him to go to a nursing home in Rotterdam (The Netherlands) when he accidentally put a pan in the microwave
It was a very nice nursing home, the nursing home has a lot of pictures hanging on the wall from Rotterdam.
He grew up there and recognize a lot from his youth.
The first year he didn’t like it there and wanted to go home, eventually, after one year he told my mum and me, “I have it good here”.
It made my mother and me incredibly happy to hear this and it is something we never forgotten to this day.
Dementia
Dementia is a disease which affects 1 in 3 people who born today and which still hasn’t got a cure, this is why it is important to raise awareness and money to help the charity ‘Race Against Dementia’ founded by Jackie Stewart, which main goals are to fund and breakthrough and innovative dementia research.
The race is organized by Theamusante (Alethea Boucq)!!
I’m glad to drive this race and I hope that we all together can raise a lot of money for it!! It is a heart-breaking disease.
Upcoming races:
19-05-2021: RCI Diamond Drive Cup Round 3 @ Suzuka
20-05-2021: The Sim Grid Sprint Cup Round 6 @ Suzuka
22-05-2021 : 12h race against dementia @ Nürburgring
24-05-2021: The Sim Grid More Female Racers S3 @ Spa
25-05-2021 : ERU Prestige Sim Cup Round 2 @ Suzuka
