A Long, Long Way From Home

Editor's note: this piece originally appeared on Lisa's blog, My Mom, My Hero This was probably 1942 right after my mom and dad had gotten married. Dad enlisted in the Navy and mom went to work on a army base in Brooklyn, N.Y. This was over seventy years ago. Unfortunately dad passed away 18 years ago and mom has no recollection of any of this. Today my mom is not sure where her home is. When she is having a hard day she repeats many times that she wants to go home, and it is always the home that belonged

We Are Women, Hear Us Roar

Editor's note: This piece originally appeared on Huffington Post Impact Okay, so here is the Alzheimer's disease reality: Women are twice as likely as men to have Alzheimer's. Women are also twice as likely as men to be caretakers of Alzheimer's victims. Have I gotten your attention yet? We of the gentler, weaker, more adaptable sex are screwed. We're talking big numbers -- of the 5,100,000 victims of this fatal disease, 3,400,000 are women. Of the 15,000,000 caregivers, 10,000,000 are women. Many of these women have to quit their jobs because tending to Alzheimer's patients is a 24-7 job with

Ally K. - My Tribute to Daddy

My Daddy passed away from Alz in 1996..I wrote this in tribute to him the Fathers Day 0f 1996, later that week he passed away. I didnt know at the time I when wrote this, that I would someday have the right venue to share my feelings of what I was going through. I hope this helps someone out there who is living through this nightmare now as a caregiver and son or daughter of your loving Daddy. There is a stranger I've come to know... He started showing up about five years ago. He was subtle in his arrival

How do I change what I say?

A few months ago one of my friends mentioned that I am always talking about things related to Alzheimer’s. While I know I spend my days advocating for this disease I did not realize I was that bad. Especially with those I am not trying to convince or influence. Although I appreciate the person telling me, it has really bothered me. I started to give it some thought and tried to understand why and what I could do to change that. Not too long after that my wife made a similar comment, and that really hit home because their comments

My Promises

Editor's note: This piece originally appeared on Karen's personal blog ' Missing Jim' TO FRANCES AND BRAD, MY BEAUTIFUL, LOVING, INTELLIGENT CHILDREN: My promises to you: I promise to try to stay sane through this whole long process. Sometimes I don’t feel like I will be able to, but when I am with you, I know I can. I promise to love you with all of my heart. Loving someone doesn’t mean giving them ice cream and chocolate every day. I promise to love your Dad too, even when he makes me want to pull my hair out and go

For Mom, My Heroine, on Mother’s Day

My mother had a cleft palate. It was fixed when she was three years-old, and you could never tell anything was wrong by looking at her, but it left her with two impediments: her speech and her mother. Because of my mom’s speech impediment, my grandmother told my mom she would probably never get married. Really? Is that the way you bolster your child’s self-confidence? Maybe she thought she was protecting her daughter from the harsh realities of life. To me, it felt like my grandmother was priming my mother for failure. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so judgmental. I mean

Shouting from Mountain Tops

May is a special month for me: Everest and Mother’s Day. The connection is significant. I summited Everest in May and Mother’s Day, well, it is Mother's Day. Ida Arnette, my mom, was the memory keeper for her extended family. With my mom’s eight brothers and sisters, there was a lot to track. Mom did it all while raising two sons, working full time and still finding time to cook amazing holiday dinners and an out-of-this world pecan pie. So the day my mom looked up from her steaming coffee cup and said with a look I will never forget

The Fight of Her Life

As a little girl in what is now North Korea, my mother, Bock Sill, watched as the communist regime dragged away her grandmother to kill her. In the horror, she found strength. She relied on that strength as she fled to South Korea during the Korean War. She used that strength to find a job, meet my father, Tae Hun, and immigrate to the United States to provide a better life for her children. Today, she relies on that strength to care for my father, who has Alzheimer’s disease. Thirty nine years ago, my parents immigrated to the United States

My Mom, My Hero

With another Mother’s Day approaching I can only feel blessed that my mom is still alive and still able to know who I am. For me each day begins with phoning her, because I am a long distance caregiver. Just yesterday I asked if she wanted to speak with me. Her sweet reply was, of course she wants to speak to me, “ for I am her daughter and she loves me.” As she shared her words and sentiments with me, it brought such warmth to my heart and filled my eyes with tears. My relationship with my mom was

Chicken Little and the President

Chicken Little was in the woods. A seed fell on his tail. Chicken Little said, The sky is falling.” So he ran to tell the king and everyone in the kingdom. That got me to thinking about looming research budget cuts caused by sequestration and pondering, is President Obama the Chicken Little of Sequestration? Maybe he’s just making a big deal about the slash in medical funding for research. Or maybe Republicans are right – it’s all just Gloom without the Doom. So I started looking for answers. I looked through less than a month’s worth of news clips. Not