The website is at www.alz.org. Chances are you know of someone with dementia.
There are 35 million of us world-wide.
Please support reserach. The US is way behind other countries.
Thank you!
Quasi
It is? It must have slipped my mind.
Thanks Quasi.
My mom was a Parkinson’s Disease sufferer and dementia was no small part of her life towards the end. I will make a donation today.
What day is it today?
Thank you, jali. My wife and you could probably share some stories about Alzheimer’s related dementia. I can still communicate, but my short-term memory is going and my Parkinson’s isn’t getting any better.
Add to that the fact that my SSDI still hasn’t been approved, and it’s easy to see what a handful I must be for my sweet wife to deal with.
She has an older brother and sister she also cares for, so she carries quite a load.
Thanks, my friend!
Quasi
My greatgrandmother had "dementia and Alzheimer’s ", but we called it senile.
Her last two years she lived with my grandparents in the spare bedroom and seldom came out and didn’t recognize us. I remember her as a great iceberg in a granny dress and slippers floating down the hall to the bathroom and back without a sound. Just glad it didn’t hit anyone else, but then some suffered at the end, so which is worse?
Man! I totally forgot!
:D:D:D
I try to keep it all in perspective and look at it with a lot of humor.
But there may come a day when it won’t be so funny…
Here’s an example which happened a few months ago:
Me: “Honeyyyyyyyyy! Seen the keys? I JUST had 'em!!!”
Wife: “Look in the fridge, babe!”:D:D
See what I mean?
Thanks!
Quasi
Quasi my father, his sister and a brother all had Alzheimer’s. That’s just scary, especially considering I am so much like my father it ain’t even funny.
Also, my funny, bright, super mechanically inclined and all around nice guy of a neighbor was diagnosed at the age of 55. He’s now 62 and living at a VA care facility in Dublin, GA. He has no idea who anybody is, including his wife who goes faithfully every Saturday to see him. The last time she brought him “home” the poor guy had no idea where he was or who anybody was and, saddest (to me) of all, did not even recognize “Bear” the poodle who absolutely adores him and who Harry would walk around in the yard carrying for literally hours at a time.
I know from first hand experience how it affects people.
Quasi just know you’re in my continued thoughts and prayers.
Thanks for sharing your stories with me/us swampy, Brainiac and jali, and for thinking about me and my wife.
It’s no secret how much I love The Dope and you kids, but it is especially gratifying on a day such as this: When world-wide attention is focused on this awful mind-robbing disease.
I am blessed to have y’all as my friends!
Quasi
ETA: I too am like my late Dad, whose diagnosis at THAT time (early 90’s) was “Pre-Senile Dementia”
Forgot to add something else:
A motto (is that the right word?) of the Alzheimer’s Association is: “You are not alone!”
Thanks to folks like you, I know I’m not!
Thanks again!
Quasi
That’s right, we’re here for you, Quasi. {{{hugs}}}
We’ve been thinking of Alzheimer’s a lot today. First there was the projection about cases doubling in the coming years, and then my girlfriend got some sad news about her grandparents, both of whom have Alzheimer’s. Her grandfather is now in hospice and her grandmother’s disease has progressed quickly.
My father died of Alzheimer’s, and so did most of his siblings. I’ll be 64 next week, and every year I get a little more scared. And I have nobody to take care of me, like my father did. If it happens to me, I’ll be planning an exit strategy.
I am sorry, Marley!
That has to be tough to deal with, my friend!
Everyone?
Please educate yourselves about dementia?
Alzheimer’s is just a form of it! There are many kinds of dementia, and we don’t all suddenly go incontinent from it.
Yeah, it takes me a little longer these days to post here, but I am so grateful that I can still hang some words together and make sentences.
As it was explained to me, we have something like 8 years left once we’re diagnosed, and you know what?
I am convinced that if the funds are there, there will be a cure.
8 years will make me 67, and I believe VERY STRONGLY that I will survive this and be able to talk to my Doper kids for a long time after that.
Remember The Kinks, y’all?
Well, “God save the Dope!”
Bill
panache45?
PLEASE get in touch with your local Alzheimer’s Association! They are there to help and will make sure you are not alone. There are all kinds of wonderful people who are volunteers and I BELIEVE they are in every state, now.
PLEASE, okay?
Thanks
Bill
But panache45, you have a partner, right?
Why wouldn’t your partner be your caregiver (if needed) as my wife is for me?
Unless you just wouldn’t want to put your partner through that?
Again, please contact your local Alzheimer’s Association or at least go the site and take a look at what the symptoms and severity are.
Quasi
Thanks Quasimodem. This is a hard time for her because she’s basically not in contact with her family and has been saying for at least a year that she’d like to see her grandparents one more time at their farmhouse. (She didn’t know until yesterday that they weren’t there anymore.) She mailed a card and some pictures of us to her grandmother today and she might call after the card arrives.
It’s difficult to explain, Marley, but as I understand it, it all has to do with the nerve cells in the brain and the plaque that forms because of the disease.
In some people it progresses more rapidly than in others, and this is what it sounds like is what’s happening with your girlfriend’s grandparents.
Y’all be strong for each other.
Bill
That’s my understanding: the plaques build up and damage nerve cells, and then brain function suffers. I’m far from an expert but I’ve written about Alzheimer’s topics a few times. The good news (at least in a relative sense) is that it’s a well known disease at this point, and it’s getting a lot of attention and research.