Monthly Archives: January 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

Thinking today about the long-term-care home in which my mother-in-law lives. I remember when my husband and I spent a day or two travelling around Milwaukee, Wisconsin, looking for a place for her to live. This was after it became clear that her husband could no longer care for her.

This was a second marriage for both of them. They had been widowed fairly early in their first marriages. They held hands everywhere they went, and did everything together – from volunteering at the local police department (mostly to get gossip on the neighbors, I think), to visiting the library to going grocery shopping.

The thought of living apart was devastating to both of them. They’d had to do it for short periods when either Dad or Mom (I call them that – they were like parents to me) had been ill in the preceding several months. They hated it. Dad said he just wanted to sleep next to his wife. It made my heart hurt to think that he might not be able to do that because he didn’t have Alzheimer’s and she did.

Most homes have an Alzheimer’s or a Memory Care Unit, but we found several years ago in Wisconsin that most did not allow the non-memory impaired spouse to live in the same room as the Alzheimer’s patient. How sad. Another indignity of this horrible disease.

I can understand the reasoning. The needs are different. The care required is different.

But we were blessed to find a home (Congregational Home, Brookfield) that allowed them to be together, however. And every time we visited, we would see them sitting side by side on the red quilted couch, holding hands, and watching whatever was going on outside their door.

One time, Dad had left for a doctor’s appointment. In his absence, another gentleman from the Alzheimer’s unit took the opportunity to sit in the empty space Dad had left beside Mom.

When Dad returned, there this gentleman was, holding hands with Mom, both of them staring out the door .

Well, Dad took care of that pretty quickly, sending said gentleman on his way and reclaiming his place beside Mom.

Because that’s where he belonged.

I’m so grateful Dad got to spend his last months beside his beloved wife, every day until he passed away. What a blessing for him, and for his children.

Bonnie

Dear Alzheimer’s Family and Friends,

I received an email today from the National Alzheimer’s Association regarding the National Alzheimer’s Plan, which will help direct funding appropriately for Alzheimer’s research and services.  The email urges us to provide our input now:

An important opportunity lies ahead several weeks from now on February 13. This is when the President is expected to release his Budget Request to Congress. If the Administration intends to request new resources from Congress to support the first National Alzheimer’s Plan, this is the place he will do so. It’s critical that you continue to help us provide input on what’s needed in a comprehensive plan with the resources to support it.

You can provide your input at
https://act.alz.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=353
 Thank you!

Bonnie

For the fourth year in a row, I have registered Team Nana to participate in the Louisville Walk to End Alzheimer’s. My husband, daughters and I walk in honor of my mother-in-law, Natalie, who has been living with Alzhiemer’s for 11 years.  She is now in a nursing home in her home town of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We are blessed in that she seems happy. She doesn’t cry and she doesn’t seem to be fearful. But I remember when she looked at me during a recent visit and said with a slight smile, “You are a stranger.”

These visits are still precious to us because, every once in awhile, there is a moment — brief, but there — of recognition.  She will hear a voice and then raise her chin from her chest for just a second, and look around and say something like, “That’s my son!” But then her head falls back down and she is quiet again. It doesn’t happen every visit. But it still happens.

There are worse stories out there. There are 80,000 stories in Kentucky alone. I’m hoping that, by walking, we can change those stories, and give them much happier endings.

Will you please help me by registering your team for the 2012 walk on Sept. 8:  Here is a link to the page:
http://act.alz.org/site/TR/Walk/KY-GreaterKentuckyandSouthernIndiana?fr_id=1718&pg=entry

And, if you’re willing, please share your story of why you walk. Thank you.

By Cecy Grisham King, Chairman of the 2011 Walk to End Alzheimer’s in Louisville; Associate Administrator of the Episcopal Church Home; and Director of the Home’s Memory Care Center

When a toddler is learning to walk, the most relevant indicator of success is steady progress in mastering newly-acquired skills, rather than the age at which a child takes those first wobbly steps away from the couch. Parents, often better than anyone, can pick out the tiniest signs that their youngster is gaining the coordination, balance and muscle strength needed to continuously position one chubby foot in front of the other without holding onto furniture and yet while remaining upright. And what parent doesn’t grin ear to ear when Johnny or Susie teeters unsteadily from mom to dad for the very first time?

It’s natural to take pride in our children’s earliest developmental milestones. Walking is one of the first signs that they will someday grow into independent, self-sustaining individuals who can assimilate newly-learned skills and become contributing members of society.

Perhaps that’s part of the reason that sponsored walks have grown so popular as a fundraising activity over the last half-century. Walking represents independence and empowerment. Even as a child participating in a local walkathon, I felt good taking physical action for a cause I cared about. Walking is something most of us can do quite easily to show support; we understand that if enough of us do it, we can make real progress; and it’s an activity during which we can share experiences and gather useful information.

I suspect that sense of contributing to progress is part of what’s behind the growth in the number of individuals who participated in the 2011 Walk To End Alzheimer’s in Louisville on September 10. More than 1,500 people joined together at Waterfront Park that day, an increase of 9.5 percent over the number of 2010 participants, to raise funds for research to end Alzheimer’s and to fund day-to-day services for patients and their caregivers.

As chairman of the 2011 event, I want to thank each one of you who participated. It was heartening to stroll with you on that Saturday morning, to meet some of your moms and dads and grandparents who are struggling with Alzheimer’s, to sign the petals of purple and yellow flowers with our loved ones’ names and plant them in the memory garden, and to cross together over a finish line that represents the future cure for this awful disease.

I would love to report that funds raised by the 2011 Louisville Walk To End Alzheimer’s grew in a fashion similar to participation over 2010. Unfortunately, that is not the case.  Our total dropped significantly in 2011, by nearly 8 percent. Moreover, our 2010 fundraising totals were down 17.6 percent from 2009.

That’s not the kind of steady progress that will ensure a cure to the grueling death sentence currently faced by 80,000 Kentuckians. And it’s not the kind of steady progress we need if we are to continue providing education and support for the more than 260,000 individuals taking daily care of their loved ones as they fall into dementia.

So I’m asking those of you who participated in the Walk To End Alzheimer’s on September 10, 2011, to help us make up the difference in 2012.   And if you didn’t walk with us last year, please consider walking with us this year.

You can also walk to your phone and call us at 502-451-4266 to volunteer your talents; walk to your checkbook or computer (www.alz.org/kyin) and send in a donation; walk to your neighbor’s and tell them about the many services the Alzheimer’s Association provides in metro Louisville and throughout the state – our 24 hour hotline, our caregiver support groups, and our informative workshops.

Our family members and friends who are newly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s are already forgetting the skills it takes to put one foot in front of the other and yet remain upright; they’re already starting to wobble; they’re already forgetting those basic skills they learned so early in childhood. Let’s not forget them.  Let’s keep walking until we find a cure.