It’s hard to wrap your head around a 24-year-old losing a battle with dementia, but that’s the heartbreaking reality the family of Andre Yarham is facing right now. Andre, a “cheeky lad” from Dereham who loved hiis wrestling and video games, passed away peacefully on December 27 at Priscilla Bacon Lodge after his health took a sharp turn for the worse over Christmass.
Most of us think of dementia as something that happens at 80 or 90. Bt for Andre, the symptoms started showing up when he was just 21. His mum, Sam Fairbairn, noticed the little things first—he’d forget parts of a conversation or just “zone out” while someone was talking to him. By 22, an MRI gave them the news no parent should ever hear: Andre had Frontotemporal Dementia, a aggressive protein mutation that was effectively aging his brain at warp speed. By the time he was in his final months, his brain function was more like that of a 70-year-old.
Before he got sick, Andre was a hard worker at the Lotus factory in Norwich. He had his whole life ahead of him—football, friends, and a great sense of humor that his family says never truly left him, even as the disease took away his ability to walk and talk.
In an incredibly brave move, Sam and the family have donated Andre’s brain to medical research. “There is not enough awareness of how cruel this disease can be,” she said. “There are different types of dementia, different symptoms and different behaviours. We made the decision to donate Andre’s brain to medical research.” They don’t want his death to just be a statistic; they want it to mean something. As Sam put it, if his donation helps just one other family get more time together, then it’s worth it.
It’s a massive wake-up call for all of us. If you see something that isn’t right with a loved one—no matter how young they are, get it checked. Andre’s story is a reminder of just how cruel this disease is, but also how much love a family can hold even in the middle of a nightmare.
