Tag Archives: 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 […]

I Am

August 5, 2019 · by · in Book, Books, Catholic, Christian, Faith, Family, Young in the Spirit · Leave a comment

“Memory is essential to our well-being, but why do we forget so much as we grow older? For some, it is a challenge to recall all but the most significant events and details. And even the events that once defined us fade away. In later stages of Alzheimer’s, many do not even know their own […]

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 […]

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. […]

We Can’t Know for Sure

February 15, 2019 · by · in Alzheimer's disease, Book, Books, Death and Dying, Family, Health, Navigating Alzheimer's · 7 Comments

We want to know how and when. And we want to know now! In our age of information, we have little patience for situations that aren’t easily answered with data, definitive answers, and quick fixes. We just want to take a pill or pay the bill and get on with things. Yet, there are so […]

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