Alzheimer's Disease

-
You say Alzheimer's disease in my family a shiver goes up your spine, a feeling of horror and trepidation becomes overwhelming. There is nothing we can do about it. We are like millions of families impacted by the tremendous loss that Alzheimer's brings to the United States of America. It is a quite killer, slowly strangling every good sense you have from your mind, taking your most precious memories, feelings and skills away. Over 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's Disease today, in fact "every 67 seconds" someone in our country develops the disease. One in three seniors will die from "Alzheimer's or another dementia.[1]

Alzheimer's Disease and other dementia ailments ravage a person's mind, but can also become a bomb that detonates a family and exposes the nerve that unites them. In my family my Grandparents were the glue that kept us all together, Grandma kept us all in check and they each loved us more than we could ever fathom. Alzheimer's crept in and stole that presence of mind, the emotions that make each of us an individual and ravaged their bodies till they were nearly unrecognizable.

I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge my Grandma & Grandpa for a second. This month they would have been 90 and 91 years old. It has been eleven years since we loss Grandma, but really we loss them a long time before that to Alzheimer's disease.  Even in the end there were moments when I saw them in the midst of the fog, looking out at me with that look or they would call me by my nickname, and I knew those were the last moments I'd ever really see them. Those moments became less and less until finally they were released from this world into the next. I miss them dreadfully, but I know they are watching over us and loving us still, just as we will always love them.

Alzheimer's disease incapacitated them, it did not define them; their legacy is much greater than one disease, but defined by their many memories that are still living in each of us, in their accomplishments and the lessons they gave us. Life is not about how you come into this world or how you go out, but what you do in between those times. How you endure and impact the world around you is what matters, it is all about the dash and making it count.



[1] http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_facts_and_figures.asp

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Strother West Roberts (1842-1897)

-
Image
My third Great Grandfather, Strother West Roberts, was born on November 1, 1842, in Blaine, Kentucky, the heart of Eastern Kentucky, to John C. and Esther (Abbott) Roberts. Strother’s younger brother, Reuben C. Roberts, was born the following year on April 9, 1844; three more younger brothers and a sister joined the family. Two siblings, including his only sister Martha, died before Strother was ten years old. By the age of Nineteen, the United States had broken down into the Civil War. Both Strother and his younger brother Rueben were enlisted into the Union Army into the 14 th Kentucky Regiment, Company G, at Camp Wallace in Lawrence County, Kentucky. [1] The Union’s 14 th Kentucky Infantry Regiment of the Civil War was a highly accomplished and engaged unit throughout the intense years of the American Civil War. In its three-year tenure, the unit engaged in many battles from their home city of Louisa, Kentucky, to distant battlefields in Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia. Stro
Read more

HIUS 713-Blog Discussion Thread: Growth in the Post Bellum Economy

-
Image
              The Postbellum American Economy was an irregular period of growth and change, both in the workforce and industry. The experience of American women in the workforce has always been diverse, generally drawing a stringent line between single women and their married counterparts. During a period of intellectual upheavals with the ending of the Civil War, the reforms of the Reconstruction period, changes in American Christendom, and the rising issues of African Americans seeking equality now that freedom had been gained. Often this line was drawn in as a means of defining one’s properness, stemming from “their health, their morals, and the sufficiency of the pay of those living away from home.” [1]   Claudia Goldin states that it was indeed the actions and labor of single women that “shaped female labor force from 1870 to 1920.” [2] From Goldin’s Table: Labor Force Participation Rates of Single Women, 1890 , we can patch together significant evidence demonstrating the diffe
Read more

Keynesian Economics and the U.S. Federal Government Response to the Great Depression

-
Image
            The Great Depression is one of the most challenging periods in American economic history and had national and international influences and origins. In the years following the Great War (WWI) and into the 1920s, the “U.S. economy boomed.” [1] However, tranquility was not on the cards for long as the government interceded in 1928 when the U.S. Federal Reserve “raised interest rates” to “combat inflation.” [2] The timing could not have been worse; Europe was still in a period of rebuilding and establishing new governments for many countries. Ultimately, the burden of the tremendous amount of resources and money loaned by the U.S. to Europe became too much, and many countries began to default on those loans. The result was a slow down of the economy leading to stagnation and the “deflation” of the U.S. economy.             To understand the causes of the Great Depression, we can look to noteworthy economists, like John Maynard Keynes, a British economist who theorized on go
Read more