Alzheimer's Disease

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You say Alzheimer's disease in my family a shiver goes up your spine, a feeling of horror and trepidation becomes overwhelming. There is nothing we can do about it. We are like millions of families impacted by the tremendous loss that Alzheimer's brings to the United States of America. It is a quite killer, slowly strangling every good sense you have from your mind, taking your most precious memories, feelings and skills away. Over 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's Disease today, in fact "every 67 seconds" someone in our country develops the disease. One in three seniors will die from "Alzheimer's or another dementia.[1]

Alzheimer's Disease and other dementia ailments ravage a person's mind, but can also become a bomb that detonates a family and exposes the nerve that unites them. In my family my Grandparents were the glue that kept us all together, Grandma kept us all in check and they each loved us more than we could ever fathom. Alzheimer's crept in and stole that presence of mind, the emotions that make each of us an individual and ravaged their bodies till they were nearly unrecognizable.

I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge my Grandma & Grandpa for a second. This month they would have been 90 and 91 years old. It has been eleven years since we loss Grandma, but really we loss them a long time before that to Alzheimer's disease.  Even in the end there were moments when I saw them in the midst of the fog, looking out at me with that look or they would call me by my nickname, and I knew those were the last moments I'd ever really see them. Those moments became less and less until finally they were released from this world into the next. I miss them dreadfully, but I know they are watching over us and loving us still, just as we will always love them.

Alzheimer's disease incapacitated them, it did not define them; their legacy is much greater than one disease, but defined by their many memories that are still living in each of us, in their accomplishments and the lessons they gave us. Life is not about how you come into this world or how you go out, but what you do in between those times. How you endure and impact the world around you is what matters, it is all about the dash and making it count.



[1] http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_facts_and_figures.asp

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