Making blankets, cooking dinner, enjoying seeing the kids in their school plays.. those are all things that my Mother in Law loved to do, and wouldn't miss for the world. She can't do any of that now. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease two years ago, and now she can't heat a cup of coffee, much less know what the microwave is.

This disease is robbing her of herself, and it's robbing us of the beautiful, dignified, graceful woman she was. It will keep progressing, til there is nothing of her left. It will take every shred of dignity away from her, and in the process it will continue to bring more pain to our family than we have ever known.

Finally, Alzheimer's will claim her very life, because no one gets out alive. There are no survivors, ever. There is no cure, there is very little treatment to help with the horrific affects of this disease.

Those affects you can't see very well. For most of the first stages, the Alzheimer's patient looks fine. It's what this disease is doing to them on the inside.. their emotions, the fear and anxiety, the stress of feeling like you are losing your mind. Because you are. It changes them, their personality.

My Mother in Law is no where near the person she was, and she's being taken farther into the the darkness bey this disease every day.

We need help. Caregivers need help.

Their mortality rate rivals that of their loved ones they are providing care for, because of the physical and emotional toll of this disease. Patients need help. We need a cure, but we also need relief...from the affects of this disease.

Right now, every patient is a guinea pig. What works for one, probably won't work for another. The combination of drugs that worked last month, may not work anymore this month. And all the while, the stress on the patient grows, of not knowing what today will hold, much less be able to remember anything about yesterday, or plan for tomorrow.. because you simply wont' remember what you planned.

No one should have to live like this. This disease was discovered over 100 years ago. It is an atrocity that we are no further along in treatment or a cure. Money will change this. Money will buy research, relief and help for caregivers and patients, and a cure.

We're going to pay now, or we're going to pay later, because this disease is picking up speed, and somehow, someway, everyone will be touched by it in the years to come.