Category Alzheimer’s disease

Dementia-Style Holidays

November 26, 2019 · by · in Alzheimer's disease, Book, Books, Family, Health, Navigating Alzheimer's, The Alzheimer's Spouse · Leave a comment

When Alzheimer’s is on the scale, a drop of anything can send everything crashing. Families long for the traditions that mark the holidays. Special foods, music, colors, clothing, and decor trigger emotions and tie memories of the past with the ones we make today. Sadly, our meaningful traditions are likely to be too much for […]

The Long Inevitable Good-Bye

November 8, 2019 · by · in Alzheimer's disease, Book, Books, Death and Dying, Faith, Family, Navigating Alzheimer's, The Alzheimer's Spouse · Leave a comment

Marshall passed away 8 months ago today. His passage still disturbs me. Witnessing such a strong, active man decline over more than 15 years and then in the end to become so very frail, dependent on total care for every basic need, retching from drug withdrawal, and unable to communicate, was death by a thousand […]

Walking Away from Alzheimer’s Disease

September 10, 2019 · by · in Alzheimer's disease, Book, Books, Navigating Alzheimer's, The Alzheimer's Spouse · 1 Comment

We are counting down the days to the Alzheimer’s Association Walk in my area. I’ll be walking again in honor of my husband, Marshall Brodien, who passed away this past March. I truly do appreciate all who support me and the rest of us who get out there. More than 5.7 million Americans are diagnosed […]

Easing Our Way Out of this World

August 22, 2019 · by · in Alzheimer's disease, Book, Books, Death and Dying, Family, Health, Navigating Alzheimer's, The Alzheimer's Spouse · Leave a comment

We don’t want to talk or think about it. It’s rarely pretty. Some fear what happens afterwards, and we’d rather cling to what we do know, even if it’s not all that great. Death scares most of us, partly due to the fact that those of us who witness loved ones dying often see them […]

Speak to Me

July 22, 2019 · by · in Alzheimer's disease, Health, Language, Navigating Alzheimer's, The Alzheimer's Spouse · 1 Comment

We are people on the move. Work and leisure take us all over the world, and speaking at least a handful of phrases in the local tongue is not only personally helpful but courteous to those we encounter. With a few words, our ability to connect and learn from diverse peoples grows considerably. Actually, there […]

Love Them Where They Are

June 7, 2019 · by · in Alzheimer's disease, Book, Books, Navigating Alzheimer's, The Alzheimer's Spouse · 2 Comments

Like sunshine on an overcast day rays of the man I knew peek through the clouds leaving me longing for more. How well we who have loved ones with Alzheimer’s disease know the feelings of this poem found in the beginning of my book, Navigating Alzheimer’s. One minute our mother seems to recognize us and […]

The Other Side of Mourning

May 21, 2019 · by · in Alzheimer's disease, Book, Death and Dying, Family, Health, The Alzheimer's Spouse · 2 Comments

It’s an unusual kind of mourning. Friends who lost a loved-one to dementia before me told me that the mourning period after death would be different than typically occurs. It isn’t as if our loved one suddenly died in an accident or suffered from a physical illness where we could still speak with them until […]

Memory Keepers

May 6, 2019 · by · in Alzheimer's disease, Book, Catholic, Faith, Family, Navigating Alzheimer's, The Alzheimer's Spouse · 1 Comment

“You think you’re so smart, but you married me,” Marshall would say when he knew I was right about something we debated. He didn’t like to acknowledge when he was wrong. I was OK with that. His response always made me laugh. Shared jokes such as this are one of the many things Alzheimer’s robs […]

Is There a Doctor in the House?

April 5, 2019 · by · in Alzheimer's disease, Catholic, Death and Dying, Family, Health, Young in the Spirit · Leave a comment

In our “take a pill and call me in the morning” culture, who will care for us medically in our senior days? We may think that medical assistance is unlimited for our specific needs, but the older we get, the less likely that is true. As the number of people who are 65 years of […]

The Alzheimer’s Spouse

April 1, 2019 · by · in Alzheimer's disease, Book, Family, The Alzheimer's Spouse · 1 Comment

Alzheimer’s claims the lives not only of those with the disease but all those connected to them as well. And the closer we are to the loved one with Alzheimer’s, the more we are affected. Certainly, Alzheimer’s damages everything about the partner with the disease as he or she slowly diminishes physically, mentally, and emotionally. […]

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