Unlikely Friendships

You’ve always heard of fighting like dogs and cats, so Harold was concerned when the stray kitten showed up on our doorstep. It was a little worse for wear: tail torn off and bloody back legs. The kitten was dehydrated and hungry. What else can you do when a teeny kitten refuses to leave, but just sits there mewing much louder than you’d think possible?

Enter Neptune into the household ruled by Lucy. Just a short year before, Lucy had wormed her way into our hearts in the exact same manner—a stray who took up residence.

Harold was worried that Lucy wouldn’t like the cat. I introduced them by letting them touch noses, and they had many staring contests. The cat stayed on the front porch, and Lucy was queen of the deck.

Cats being curious, Neptune eventually approached the deck. At first, the dog barked and Neptune backed away. That didn’t last long. Soon Neptune was darting in front of Lucy and scooting behind the grill.

“The cat shouldn’t be on the deck,” Harold said as he shooed Neptune away. A few minutes later, the cat slid through the rail to venture on the deck again.

After a few weeks, Lucy quit barking at the cat and they declared a truce. The cat took over Lucy’s bed, and Lucy would lie beside it and nose Neptune. Sometimes they got a little rowdy, but neither seemed to be scared of the other.

While I was gone to the Alzheimer’s Forum, Harold said, “The cat is going to have to go. They mock fight and one of them is going to get hurt.” I don’t believe he was worried so much about Lucy hurting Neptune as he was about Neptune scratching Lucy.

By the time I got home, he had to show me how they acted. When he took Lucy for a walk in the backyard, the cat went down the steps side-by-side with the dog. Then, the cat ran up a tree, only to sidle down and launch a sneak attack.

All was quiet when we were inside. On the surveillance camera, we saw them lying together on the same chair while four other chairs remained unoccupied. Now, Lucy prances about each morning anxious to go onto the deck to play with her unlikely friend.

 

It seems that throughout life, we all have unlikely friends. At the Forum each year, I look forward to spending quality time with my two friends, Kathy Siggins and Sarah Harris. It’s an unlikely friendship when you consider that Sarah lives in Virginia, Kathy in Maryland, and I live in Missouri. Our friendship is never diminished from spending time away and when we meet at the Forum, we haven’t missed a beat. The Forum is like a special homecoming of the heart.

We all lost our husbands to an Alzheimer’s type of dementia. We met at the Forum and had an immediate connection. Now, it would be hard to imagine my life without them.

These serendipitous friendships are promises that nothing is really random. No matter what happens, we will meet the people we are supposed to meet and fulfill the purpose we were born to accomplish.

“If it hadn’t been for Alzheimer’s,” Sarah said, “we would have never met.” This is an undeniable truth. Our adversities defined our strengths and shaped our souls allowing us to embrace our unlikely friendship.

Copyright © April 2015 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot

Advocates and Avocados

David Hyde Pierce, who has been a champion for Alzheimer’s began this year’s forum by joking about how the word advocate in Spanish is abogado, which sounds like “avocado.” It was his observation that “Avocadoes are like Alzheimer’s advocates because they are irresistible, and they have big nuts.” About Alzheimer’s disease, David said, “It’s not going to stop until we stop it.” Then, the most unusual call to action I’ve heard in the thirteen forums I’ve attended, “Avacados, let’s roll!”

Of course, we all laughed at David Hyde Pierce’s jokes because, let’s face it, he knows how to deliver a punch line. Jokes aside, just like us, he is here on a mission—flying back and forth from New York to take part in this forum. Because, like the more than 900 advocates packed into the large ballroom, he has a personal stake in finding a cure for this disease. He’s met Alzheimer’s and knows what a cruel disease it is.

The conference, as usual, was a whirlwind of activities. Dr. Collins, director of NIH, announced that in a unique step, NIH has designated $40 million of its 2013 budget for Alzheimer’s. In addition, an indication of the nation’s attention to the underfunded Alzheimer’s research funds, the president’s 2014 budget allocates $80 million to research.

My Mom and Glen Campbell

Glen Campbell joined us for the National Alzheimer’s Dinner. He entered the room a few feet from me, but I couldn’t get my camera turned on in time to get a picture. After dinner, I managed to work my way to the front of the crowd to get a picture of him and my mom. More important than the photo ops was the presentation of the Sargent and Eunice Shriver Profiles in Courage Award to Glen Campbell and his family. The “Rhinestone Cowboy” strode to the stage and accepted his award with humility that belied his outer showmanship.

After several other deserving awards, the Outstanding Advocate of the Year Award was presented to Dr. Ron Grant who has early onset Alzheimer’s. He thanked God and the Oklahoma/Arkansas Chapter for giving him the courage to face the disease. He said, “We live in the greatest nation on the planet, but I have to ask—in such a great nation, how many more families are going to have to suffer the devastation of this disease?” Grant concluded with a break in his voice, “How many more of us are going to have to die before we stand up and say enough?”

That, I would say, is the most important question of the entire forum. How many precious lives have been lost to the costliest disease in the United States? Officially, 83,437 died from Alzheimer’s in 2010. Other health conditions are often listed as the cause of death although the reason for the condition is caused by Alzheimer’s. In 2013, an estimated 450,000 will die with Alzheimer’s.

 We ended the conference part of the forum armed with statistics and tactics, but the most important element of our visits to the hill would be the power of our personal stories. As this abogado “avocado” prepared to charge the hill, I left the room with Dr. Grant’s haunting question echoing in my brain, “how many?”

Copyright by L.S. Fisher, April 2013

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com