What Survivors?

I’ve been seeing images of a “Limited Edition” T-shirt for Alzheimer’s Awareness. The shirt says, “Supporting the Fighters, Admiring the Survivors, Honoring the Taken, And Never Giving Up Hope, Alzheimer’s Awareness.” People seemed to be excited about buying these T-shirts.

I don’t want to burst the bubble of enthusiasm, but this shirt certainly does not promote Alzheimer’s awareness. At our annual Walk to End Alzheimer’s, we cannot have a victory lap for our survivors. The cold, hard fact is that Alzheimer’s leaves no survivors.

Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States and the only one in the top ten that cannot be prevented, cured, or even slowed. Twenty million Americans understand this harsh reality: five million with the disease and their fifteen million unpaid caregivers.

Alzheimer’s does have fighters—millions of them. We have warriors with the disease and care partners who raise awareness and dollars so that we can have survivors someday. These brave people share their stories, their struggles, their highs, and lows as they live life to the fullest. They celebrate each moment of joy and refuse to cave in to despair.

Several years ago, I met a forty-year-old woman in Washington, D.C., who had early onset Alzheimer’s. As we told our personal stories to our senators and representative, she said, “I know it’s too late for me, but I want a cure for my children. I don’t want them to have to go through this.” She is gone and has been for several years, but we continue her fight to make her wishes come true.

Family members and loved ones honor the taken. Jim was taken before his sixtieth birthday. We honor the loved ones we’ve lost each time we join a Walk to End Alzheimer’s. We honor them by becoming advocates, or “voices,” for Alzheimer’s research and hounding legislators to push for increased funding.

Advocacy makes a difference! This week we received word that due to the relentless dedication of Alzheimer’s advocates, increased research funding is making its way through the legislative process. The House Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee has approved an additional $300 million in Alzheimer’s research.

Harry Johns, Alzheimer’s Association CEO said, “Should this increase become law, it will be the largest annual increase ever in federal Alzheimer’s research funding. Following today’s actions, the full House Appropriations Committee is expected to consider this legislation next week. We also anticipate that the Senate will begin to move their own version of the FY16 Labor-HHS bill next week.”  

Advocates will never give up hope! The National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease sets forth a goal to find a cure or effective treatment by 2025. With adequate funding to support the bright scientific minds at work on a cure, our goal is within reach.

When our work is done, I’ll be at the front of the line to buy a T-shirt that has “Admire the survivors” on it. Until then, we need to keep the momentum going and stick to the Plan to find the elusive cure and/or effective treatment for Alzheimer’s no later than 2025, but hopefully much, much sooner.  

      

Copyright © June 2015 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot

The Most Expensive Disease

Alzheimer’s is the most expensive disease in America. Our country faces an impending financial crisis. One out of every five dollars Medicare spends is for a person with dementia. This care amounted to $150 billion in Medicare and Medicaid expense last year.

The cost to Medicare for persons with dementia is three times higher than for seniors without the disease. The emotional impact on caregivers contributes to health issues for them. Caregivers pay an additional $9.7 billion for their own health care.

Dementia is costly to families. It strips away at the family finances. This is a disease fraught with unexpected expenses ranging from adult personal care products to hiring a sitter. Whether caring for a loved one at home or placing them into long-term care, families are hit emotionally and financially on a regular basis. It becomes a way of life.

When facing the dementia financial crisis, families sometimes sell possessions they would have never considered under normal circumstances. Jim and I sold our lake property. It had once been our intention to retire there, but retirement was never to be for us.

Recently, I read an article about Leon Lederman, 92, that really made me pause. Lederman, along with two other scientists, received the 1988 Nobel Prize for discovering a subatomic particle. He said it was just collecting dust. His wife mentioned a more practical reason for the sale. They faced financial uncertainty when Lederman was diagnosed with dementia, and the $756,000 they received for the pure gold medal made them more financially secure.

A gold medal doesn’t hold the sentimental value of a home. A story that made headlines in May of this year was about a former Japanese prisoner of war who needed 24-hour care after being diagnosed with dementia. This story could have taken place in the USA, and probably has. This particular article took place in Cornwall and affected ninety-four-year-old Charles Atkins. His family said the government was “throwing him on the scrapheap.”  The dilemma for the family was that unless he sold his home, his two daughters were responsible for his expensive care.

Can’t happen here, you say? Twenty-eight states have filial responsibility laws where adult children can be forced to provide necessities for their indigent parents, including long-term care. Most states don’t enforce these laws, yet. As the crunch becomes tighter for state assistance, they may begin to close their own financial gap. In most states, this involves civil court action, but twelve states impose criminal penalties and three states allow both civil and criminal.

Of course, if you are like me, you want the best care for your parents. Unfortunately, the enormous cost of nursing home care could force middle-class Americans into bankruptcy in a hurry. It’s a sticky situation, and if selling the family home gets you and Uncle Sam off the hook, it may seem the lesser evil.

Yes, Alzheimer’s is the most expensive disease in America, and it looks like it is only going to become five times more costly by 2050. This just puts the exclamation point behind the statement, “End Alzheimer’s now!” Without a cure for Alzheimer’s, the government and families are going to be faced with the unfaceable, the impossible, the unimaginable.

There is “Hope for Alzheimer’s.” Science is making great strides toward finding an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s and ultimately a cure. We need to keep pestering our legislators! If each of us helps in the fight to end Alzheimer’s through awareness, persistence, and downright refusing to give up, we can make a difference.  A big, life-changing difference. 

Copyright © June 2015 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

Alzheimer’s Awareness, Go Purple!

Purple is my favorite color, and coincidentally, it is the Alzheimer’s movement color too. June is Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month and an ideal time to deck out in purple.

I signed the purple pledge and changed my Facebook profile photo to the “END ALZ” logo. The pledge is to wear purple gear on June 21, the Longest Day, and throughout the month of June.

The “Longest Day” ties well to Alzheimer’s. As any caregiver can attest, some days are not just long—they are endless. Alzheimer’s is an equal opportunity disease affecting people like you and me and creeping into the ranks of the famous.

It was interesting to see that the cast of  “The Big Bang Theory” have joined the fight against Alzheimer’s. Along with other well-known celebrities, they performed at “A Night at Sardi’s” to benefit Alzheimer’s. They were joined by Joey McIntyre, singer/songwriter and a member of New Kids on the Block. The fight is personal to Joey since his mother recently lost her battle with Alzheimer’s. He said, “Mourning is a process, and I have to take my time with it.”

Alzheimer’s can bring families together, and it can tear them apart. Or both. When Glen Campbell announced he had Alzheimer’s, his family was admired for the way they rallied around him. Due to his family’s support, Glen was able to perform well after he had the disease. Eventually, he wound up in long-term care. Now the family is at odds with his fourth and present wife, Kim. His children from previous marriages claim Kim Campbell has barred them from seeing their father, failing to provide Glenn with basic personal care items, and being financially irresponsible. Some of his children are trying to get a judge to appoint a guardian to protect his interests.

Often family members disagree on how to provide excellent care for the individual with Alzheimer’s. They fuss and fight, and before you know it, they become more focused on having their own way than what is really and truly the best resolution to their quandary.

The more you learn about the disease, the more likely you are to make good decisions. The primary care partner will experience a different level of stress and angst than the occasional visitor. Until you walk in their shoes, be very, very careful about criticizing. This isn’t to say that everyone is cut out to be a caregiver. Some aren’t. Unless you are willing and able to step in full-time, proceed with caution. As long as your loved one is not in danger or neglected, be supportive. Be a part of the solution instead of adding to the problems.   

Share your stories, your experiences, and show your support for caregivers and people with the disease. Create awareness with the color purple!

My goal is to wear purple every day in June. This is an easy goal for me since I have a wardrobe rich in purple, even without considering all the purple walk shirts I’ve accumulated over the years. Just in case I get up and forget to don my Alzheimer’s gear, my fingernails and toenails are both polished purple. My toenails have the addition of a layer of sparkle.

Sparkle on the nails makes them look darned cool, but it is a real chore to remove it. That’s when I have to drag out the super-duper polish remover pads and sometimes finish with a bottle of remover. If only we could remove Alzheimer’s from the face of the earth as if it were a thin layer of polish!

We want to turn the world purple in support of the 47 million people worldwide who are living with dementia. By being an advocate, a supporter, and raising awareness, the brain you save may be your own. GoPurple and #ENDALZ—not just for June, but for a lifetime.

 Copyright © June 2015 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

Take the pledge at www.alz.org! 

Chasing After the Wind

Sometimes I’m in the right place at the right time to hear a message that resonates with me. That message may be at a high-priced conference in some exotic locale, or it could be in my hometown during one of Pastor Jim Downing’s sermons.

Sunday morning, he prefaced his sermon with the thought that it might be one of the most important messages he would ever give. I don’t remember his exact words, but he gave his self-depreciating smile, and said we might be thinking, “Nice words, preacher” and just go on our way and side-step the importance of the message.

His message was based on Ecclesiastes 4:6 “Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.” We seem to think that more is better, but is it?

When I was growing up in a family of eight, we learned that it wasn’t necessary to have a lot of material possessions to get by. Mom and Dad bought us school supplies and clothes at the beginning of the year. I had a few dresses to wear and one pair of school shoes. We always had the box of sixteen crayons, not the giant boxes some of the other kids had. Funny thing was, I still received the same education.

I had two dolls and not a lot of other toys. Mom always saw that I had books to read. She ordered a children’s version of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. Through those books, the world of adventure opened to me. One of the first stories I read was “Little House in the Big Woods.” I loved it! I was reading about a girl like me that didn’t have much, but enjoyed every moment of being a kid.

After I became a grownup, my life has run the gamut from lying awake at night trying to figure out how we were going to pay the bills to the abundance of today. I worked more than three decades to be able to afford enough clothing to outfit a small nation and enough shoes to earn the nickname Imelda Marcos Junior. I have collections to the point of almost having collections of collections.

Which brings us to the first of three of Pastor Jim’s suggestions, “throw out.” I’ve been doing some of that with bags of clothes and shoes I’ve taken to Open Door. I know I have to get more serious about paring down on the overload of material possessions.

Pastor Jim hasn’t channeled into my internal self, so obviously, I’m not the only one with a crazy busy schedule. My calendar is often double or triple booked. I’m so over stretched that I have reminders of my reminders. “Cut back,” he said. Cut back on schedules. If I look through my calendar I can see things I want to do, but those are often pushed aside for something I feel obligated to do. I’m retired but, by golly, that doesn’t seem to give me a lot more time. My days are full and often hectic. I haven’t found time to write for months and months. Not. One. Story.

Perhaps, part of my time crunch comes from the interruptions of emails, phone calls, social media, Google, and that feeling of constantly being connected. Let’s face it…if I forget my phone on a simple trip to town, I’ll turn around and get it. My smart phone is like carrying a home office with me everywhere I go. It dings, buzzes, and even whistles at me.

“Turn off,” Pastor Jim said. He has a really good point. How do you relax when you are at the beck and call of, well, just about everyone? Not only people you know, but also people you don’t know. How the heck did that happen?

By de-cluttering our lives, we have more time to enjoy life’s breathtaking moments. We have time to look at a beautiful sunset and admire the way the clouds form in the sky. I remember my brother Donnie and I playing, “What does that cloud look like?” We saw angels, ships, faces, and all kinds of goofy things in the clouds. Now if I look at a cloud, I might see the possibility of rain, but it’s been years since I studied the clouds and tried to picture an object.

I’ve been under the misguided notion that’s just the way life is now-a-days. It doesn’t have to be. Is it possible for me to throw out, cut back, and turn off? I’ve been much too busy chasing the wind to enjoy a mere handful of tranquility.  

Copyright © May 2015 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

Four Reasons to Take a Leap of Faith

My granddaughter is on the track team of a small school that doesn’t have their own track. When she decided to jump in addition to running, she watched a You-Tube video and practiced in the yard. It took a real leap of faith for her to try her skill at a track meet. Last year, she advanced to Sectional in the triple jump, and she was determined to do the same this year. At Districts this year, she placed third in triple jump and long jump.

A storm lurked behind dark clouds on the day of Sectionals. Her goal at Sectionals was to place in the top four and advance to State. After the long jump, she was disappointed because her jumps were short of her personal best, and it didn’t look like she would advance. The skies opened up and a torrential rain sent us to the truck and her to the athletes’ tent.  After the downpour, she jumped the triple jump and, although she placed better than last year, she clearly wasn’t in the top four.

She wasn’t really open to hearing she’d done her best, or how proud of her we were, or “there’s always next year.” We left after her events and by the time we stopped in town for pizza, she was feeling better. Track season was over for the year. She’d had a great year, so her leap of faith to compete had paid off.

It got me to thinking about when a leap of faith is personally beneficial.

#1. When failure, or even humiliation, is possible. When I decided to start my Early Onset Alzheimer’s blog, doubts churned in my mind. Did I have anything of interest to say and would anyone read it? Would I have mistakes in it that people would criticize? Would I get hate mail? Negative images almost kept me from pushing the post button that first time. Once I made the decision to move forward, I never looked back. It is obvious that success is not possible without a chance of failure, and failure can be humiliating. It’s moving beyond the fear that lets us know the thrill of accomplishing our goals.

#2. To follow your dream. My dream was to write. Little did I know when I was clacking out fiction stories on a manual typewriter that the future would hold many ways of publishing my work. Eventually, the time came when the mechanics of writing became about a thousand percent easier and publishing as easy as pushing the “post” button. Not everyone wants to be a writer, but almost everyone has a dream they want to follow. What’s yours? Take a leap of faith and go for it!

#3. Leave a dead end situation. We’ve all been there. The job that went nowhere. The relationship that caused more harm than good, or was downright scary. It is really hard to leave the known for the unknown, but given the correct circumstances, it can be life changing. I once had a job working for a family business. It wasn’t all bad, at first. I liked what I was doing but as the married couple’s relationship went south, conditions became unbearable. I needed a job so I stayed even after I began to dread going to work each day. I was forced into leaving the dead end situation when they sold the business. Thankfully, the demise of the company forced me into the job market and launched a life-long career at a job I loved.

#4. Keep improbable from being impossible. I dropped out of college when I married Jim. Finally, when my children began school, I returned to our local junior college to earn a two-year degree. Still, I always regretted not getting my bachelor’s degree, and the older I got, the more improbable it became that it was going to happen. The opportunity to get a degree came at a really bad time. I was working full-time, Jim was in the nursing home, and I was already squeezing in time to volunteer for the Alzheimer’s Association. Although the situation seemed impossible, I entered an eighteen-month cohort program offered by William Woods University. I graduated in 2005, easily the oldest student in our class. Was it worth it? You bet it was.

Taking a leap of faith doesn’t always pan out, but not taking it strips you of the sweet taste of success.

Oh, during that downpour at the track meet, we missed the announcement of the long jump winners. My granddaughter’s coach collected her medal and gave her the good news that evening that she had advanced to State. Will she win a medal at State? Maybe, maybe not, but without taking that leap of faith she would have never had the opportunity or experience.

Copyright © May 2015 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

Alzheimer’s Research—Climb the Highest Mountain

When you name your company after the highest mountain in North America, you know you have great expectations. A new company, Denali Therapeutics, has taken on the challenge of finding a cure for neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s. Their task is formidable, and that is the reason they chose Denali for their name.

The former Genetech researchers began their venture with an astounding $217 million. Denali’s chairman of the board, Dr. Marc Tessier-Lavigne, believes that the time is right for breakthrough treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.

This group of scientists plan to break away from the study of drugs to block beta-amyloid. Their focus will be on genetics, which has led to effective drugs for cancer. Scientists have discovered new genes linked to brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, ALS, and Parkinson’s. They believe these “degenogenes” will lead to a better outcome than previous drug studies.

Hallelujah! How often have you heard that if you keep trying the same thing you’ll have the same outcome? Alzheimer’s research is at an impasse. No one has found the illusive cure, or even a good treatment for the disease. It is time to try a complete new approach and these seem like just the guys to do it.

The company is looking at brain inflammation and the substances that develop between brain cells. They are concentrating on the factors that cause brain cells to die when a person develops a brain disease. They are already looking at twelve drug targets!

The brightest brains in the world have banded together to tackle the most baffling disease left to conquer. Now, they hope to engage the Food and Drug Administration in fast tracking brain drugs for Alzheimer’s as they did for HIV and other diseases.

Today I’m wearing a tee-shirt that says, “Your brain contains about 100 billion nerve cells. Each One is Worth Keeping Around.” I want to keep as many of those precious cells as I can. Don’t you?

Copyright © May 2015 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

sources: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/denali-therapeutics-launches-with-initial-investment-to-discover-and-develop-treatments-for-neurodegenerative-diseases-300083259.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2015/05/14/former-genentech-researchers-raise-217-million-for-company-to-fight-alzheimers-and-parkinsons/

The Alzheimer's Box

Several years ago, I went through piles of papers from my various volunteer organizations and threw them into different totes. This was a haphazard way of sorting them and was much quicker than making file folders and filing them away. Besides, at the time, my file space was quite limited so that may not have been an option.

Today, I sorted through the Alzheimer’s tote. It was quite an interesting assortment of papers.  The first task at hand was to sort into three piles: recycle, burn, and file. I quickly pared down the amount of information to keep to a smaller stack.

In the Alzheimer’s box, I found articles that I thought were lost forever. I found the article about my friend, Karen Henley, published in Newsday Magazine. Karen was caring for her forty-two-year-old husband Mike, who had familial early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Her story is one of courage, perseverance, and most of all, love.

I found an article that made me smile. My friend, David Oliver, was one of the researchers who biked in the Alzheimer’s Breakthrough Ride. I met him when we both served on the local Alzheimer’s chapter board of directors. He had joined the cross-country ride (San Francisco to D.C.) for the segment from Sedalia to Jefferson City. I drove into town early for the send off. David and four others took the scenic route to Jefferson City. David was dedicated to go above and beyond to further Alzheimer’s research funding. David passed away from cancer in March. It was especially touching to see this article and remember his wonderful sense of humor and optimistic outlook on life.

I found several years of Advocate’s Guides and Facts and Figures from some of the fifteen Advocacy Forums I’ve attended over the years. I go through these two books each year to see what we’ve accomplished and what we need to tackle. They serve as a valuable resource for me.

Of course, I had several folders of Alzheimer’s Walks, previously known as “Memory Walks.” I was able to pitch a lot of old forms. At one time, we had to make our own! I spent hours developing signup sheets for team captains and posters for events. It’s much easier now that the Alzheimer’s Association and the chapter have everything online and with a few clicks, we can download and print any report, form, or poster we need.

Then to top it off, there’s always the odd pieces of information. Prints of the airline tickets for one of the years my granddaughter went to D.C. with me. I found a stub from the Smithsonian and a map of the Old Town Trolley. I pitched an outdated congressional book.

Tucked in among the Alzheimer’s papers were a few from Sedalia Business Women. Oops, guess that was in the wrong box entirely. That one is still intact. Who knows, when I go through it I might find more Alzheimer’s memorabilia.

It’s kind of sad to look back at years and years of events that have come and gone. I’m happy to say my passion for Alzheimer’s advocacy is still alive. I’m just looking forward to the day when it is no longer necessary and Alzheimer’s is eradicated.      

Copyright © May 2015 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot

What Is Alzheimer's Disease?

At the first Alzheimer's Memory Walk I coordinated, a reporter from a local radio station placed a recorder beneath my chin, and asked, “What is Alzheimer’s?” When he had asked for an interview, I expected him to ask what our financial goal was for the walk, why I was personally involved, what the money was used for, who our sponsors were, what it was like to be a caregiver, or even why purple was the “official” color. For some reason, it never occurred to me that he would ask me to define Alzheimer’s disease.

I believe my answer was, “Alzheimer’s is an incurable degenerative brain disease that affects memory and a person’s ability to perform daily tasks.”

Alzheimer’s is not an easily defined disease. Even if you give a textbook, or dictionary, definition, it falls so far short of the scope of the disease that you might as well describe a malignant brain tumor as “a headache.”

Yes, official definitions might give a clinical description that says “a general term for memory loss and other intellectual abilities serious enough to interfere with daily life.” I’m not so sure that this disease “interferes with” daily life so much as it replaces life with a new reality. You go to a place where nothing is the way it had been, and you know it never will be the same.

It is important to know what Alzheimer’s does to the brain; otherwise, you will expect the impossible. Without the knowledge that the brain is deteriorating, it is too easy to believe that someone is being willfully stubborn or “pretending” they cannot remember.

In 1906, Dr. Alois Alzheimer, a German psychiatrist and neuropathologist, had a fifty-one-year-old patient, Auguste Deter, who died after she exhibited odd behavior and suffered from memory loss. During the autopsy of her brain, Dr. Alzheimer discovered shrinking of the cortex, and the presence of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. Amyloid plaques and tau tangles became the hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.

Most research centered on ways to rid the brain of amyloid plaques. More recently, researchers at Mayo Clinic have focused on tau. The study’s lead author, Neuroscientist Melissa Murray, Ph.D, in Brain described the role of tau as “railroad ties that stabilize a train track that brain cells use to transport food, messages and other vital cargo throughout neurons.” She described tau as “the driver of Alzheimer’s.”

As research moves closer to unlocking the mystery of Alzheimer’s, it is important to note only 45% of those with Alzheimer’s, or their caregivers, report being told of the diagnosis. This compares to 90% of people with cancer and cardiovascular disease knowing their condition.

Why is it so important to know of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis since the disease is incurable and has no treatment to slow the progression? I know from experience that crucial decisions need to be made while the person with the disease can help make them. It is important to get finances in order and to put in place medical and financial durable power of attorney documents. Knowing the diagnosis will also help families connect with community resources.   

The video attached to this blog explains how Alzheimer’s affects the brain. To know how it affects lives and hearts, talk to a person with the disease or a caregiver. They are all too familiar with the daily challenges that truly define the disease.   

Copyright © April 2015 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

Death and Taxes

April is a month that makes me think of death and taxes. April 15 came with alarming speed, and for the first time in a decade, I filed a joint return. Of course, we used a handy-dandy program to plug in the numbers. But what can I say, other than taxes are a little bit complicated. Bottom line turned up a shocking sum that I owed in taxes. Even paying what I thought was an unreasonable amount of quarterly estimated taxes throughout 2014, I wound up in debt to the IRS and to the state of Missouri.

Now, to prepare for the current year. Last year’s estimated taxes were only about a third of this year’s amount. Ouch! For all my complaints about taxes, I feel fortunate that I have a great retirement plan.  

What is it they say about death and taxes? April is also the month that hurts my heart. Jim left this world April 18, ten years ago. A decade. It doesn’t seem possible that it could be that long ago when I remember that day so plainly. Funny, how the more you want to forget something, the less likely you are to do it.

The only positive thing I can say about Jim’s death is that it gave me back the man I knew before dementia. During the years struggling in the grip of the disease, it came to a point where the person he was faded, and he became a different person. In order to make it through that tough time, I refused to compare who he was to who he had been. It was easier to accept the unacceptable changes and love him “as is.”

After Jim’s death, I eventually was able to embrace the man he was before the disease. I could smile at old photos and memories before the dark days of dementia. I could remember our Colorado vacations, our trips to Oregon, and our big adventure of building our own home. So many good memories outweigh the sad times.

Life is a balance: good and bad, smiles and tears, joy and pain. You can’t fully appreciate one without the other. If you were never sad, you wouldn’t appreciate being happy. Part of the wonder of life is that we don’t know what is going to happen the next day. Life can change in a heartbeat. Our world can turn upside down and it may take years, or decades, for it to righten again.

Ben Franklin said that death and taxes were the only two certain things in life. As for taxes, I guess, it means we do have income, and we can be thankful for that. It’s hard to find much good to say about death, unless we can say we lived fully until that time. Jim lived fully until dementia made that impossible.

On April 18, I want to remember Jim’s life and not his death. I want to remember his laugh, his corny jokes, and most of all, his loving heart.

Copyright © April 2015 by L.S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot

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