Living: the ultimate team sport

Alzheimer’s disease is a murderer

Posted on September 20, 2013 Updated on September 20, 2013

and I’m as mad as hell about the millions of crimes that it has gotten away with.

Alzheimer’s and other dementias are unfair to the one diagnosed and to all those involved in that person’s life.  The unfairness unfolds with the worst day of that person’s life – diagnosis of a disease for which there is no cure – therefore it is always fatal – and it is a disease where little progress has been made in treatment options.

Let me introduce you to two fabulous people who are no longer with us because this disease killed them.  Yes, Alzheimer’s murdered them.

My father, Don, was born in 1918 in Toronto, Canada.  He married my mother, Patricia, and they had three children.  They became U.S. citizens in the late 1940’s/early 1950’s.  My father was an extremely distinguished, courteous, humorous, and dedicated family man.  He received his Alzheimer’s diagnosis on June 3rd, 2005 and I was there by telephone conference, having attended his initial neurological evaluation a couple weeks earlier.  He died at approximately 12:10 a.m. on October 13th, 2007.

My sister-in-law, Nancy, was diagnosed with mixed dementia just a few months after my father died.  Nancy was born in 1942 in Quincy, Massachusetts.  She graduated from UCLA with a degree in flute performance and used those skills in many venues throughout her life.  Nancy had three children from her first marriage – children of which she was very proud.  Nancy was an extremely talented interior designer, opening her own design business in 1987 – the same year that she married my brother, Don.  Nancy died from mixed dementia, that also included Alzheimer’s, at approximately 11:05 a.m. on July 4th, 2012.  Just two and a half months later, my brother and sister-in-law would have celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary.

Saturday, September 21st, 2013 is World Alzheimer’s Day.  One in every three seniors dies with Alzheimer’s or other dementia.  If you do not die from Alzheimer’s, you die with it.   From Alzheimer’s Association 2013 Facts and Figures.

Won’t you consider making a monetary donation in the hopes of capturing this murderer?

U.S. website for the Alzheimer’s Association: www.alz.org

International website: www.alz.co.uk

Other countries have their own dedicated websites as well.  Please find those sites through any search engine you would normally use, and let’s slap the cuffs on this criminal disease.