Women of Courage Facing Early Onset Dementia

The sports world was shocked by news that 59-year old Coach Pat Summitt, Tennessee Women’s basketball coach, has an Alzheimer’s type of dementia. The news wasn’t uncovered through investigative reporting—the coach made the announcement herself.

Coach Summitt has met her Alzheimer’s challenge head on and fighting back. She knows this disease is not a game and nothing short of a miracle will allow her to win. Still, she has faced the disease with courage and announced that she will continue to coach as long as she can.

With a staff of veteran coaches and a supportive administration, Coach Summitt may be in the game for a long time. Remaining active and involved is the coach’s way of focusing on what she can do rather than what she can’t.

While the coach made national news, on a more personal level I heard from a friend of mine has always shown remarkable courage and faith. She developed frontotemporal dementia (FTD) while she was in her 30s.

After our initial polite greetings, I asked her how things were going.

“Taking it one day at a time,” she wrote on Facebook.

She went on to tell me that she and her husband had separated. This was sad and surprising news because he had always been so supportive and loving toward her. She goes on to tell me that her teenage son feels responsible for making sure she is all right.

Times are tough for them, and she had tried to find a part-time job to give her something to do and to supplement their income. She had already been fired from two jobs. She couldn’t remember all the steps to putting hamburgers together at the fast food place. She worked as a night clerk at a hotel but couldn’t keep anything straight so she was fired from that job too. She has an interview for a third job on Monday.

My friend had her life turned upside down when she was diagnosed with FTD and now with her husband leaving, her world has flipped again. Unfortunately, rather than making the world right side up for her, it is even more out of kilter.

I think about how her husband must have felt to walk away from her. It would be easy to say what he did was unforgivable and let it go at that. But diseases like Alzheimer’s or FTD do not just affect the person with the disease. Relationships are collateral damage. I do not condone what he did, but I do understand how year after year of caregiving takes its toll. I’ve seen caregivers who sacrificed any semblance of a normal life for a decade or more, and some who sacrificed life itself and died before the person with dementia.

Even the best of us are only human. Loving caregivers do what they can for as long as they can. It takes determination and courage to hang in there day after day until the job is done. No one except a primary caregiver knows how hard that is, and I suspect that those caregivers would be the most adamant that my friend’s husband deserves to be eternally punished for his neglect. After all, he abandoned his wife in her time of need, and abdicated his responsibility to a teenager.

As for my friend, she faces the future with optimism and courage. For now, she will be satisfied with a part-time job. She has her faith and a son who loves her.

I don’t understand why life has dealt Pat Summitt and my friend these terrible blows, but I know they are women of courage, an inspiration, and an example for all of us.

Copyright © August 2011 L. S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

Planet of the Apes: Alzheimer’s Cure Gone Wild

Every now and then, I just have to go see a movie. A few weeks ago I saw The Smurfs with my grandchildren and daughter-in-law. I can relate to that show because I used to watch The Smurfs on TV with my kids when they were little. Jim and I even used the “Not far now” description when we were traveling, although sometimes our destination was still far, far away.

I really wanted to see something that wasn’t animated and thought Rise of the Planet of the Apes looked interesting. My memories of the Planet of the Apes original movie were fuzzy, but I remembered the story was intriguing and that the apes were more human than humans.

It didn’t take long to realize Alzheimer’s played a key role in the Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Will, a researcher, discovered a cure for Alzheimer’s and the apes it was tested on became highly intelligent. Like too many miracle drugs, the fictional ALZ112 had deadly side effects. Apes became highly intelligent and human died from a virus.

The science fiction movie reflects how much our fears today have changed since the 60s when the original Planet of the Apes aired. In the new story, human holocaust is caused by a pandemic rather than a nuclear war. We are all afraid of getting a terrible disease without a cure.

Oh, wait. Isn’t that what Alzheimer’s is today? More than five million Americans are living with a disease that has no cure or effective treatment.

Although the apes were the focus of the movie, Will’s dad was a key part too. His dad was the compelling reason Will sought a cure for Alzheimer’s.

I imagine some people who would never go to see an “Alzheimer’s” movie might have seen their first glimpse of some of the challenges caregiver’s face. Will’s loving exasperation with his dad is  part of daily life for caregivers as they do what they can to care for loved ones.

The one thing that happened in this movie that hasn’t happened yet in real life was the interlude when the drug temporarily “cured” Alzheimer’s. What would it be like to wake up one morning and find your loved one had returned to normal? That would indeed be a day for celebration!

Will we ever see that day? Dedicated scientists have found miracle cures for other diseases. I carry a scar on my arm from a smallpox immunization. My children don’t have the scar because by the time they were old enough, it was no longer necessary. Smallpox was virtually unheard of during their childhood. Polio was another disease I remember being warned about when I was young.

Both of these diseases were challenging, but cures were found. That is what we need for Alzheimer’s—and the sooner the better. Too many people have journeyed down a road with a dead end. The warning signs are there, but with no way to go except forward, the destination is the same for everyone.

I understand Will’s desperation to stop the disease from taking his dad. I’ve felt that desperation, and I’ve seen it in the eyes of other family members when they hear the diagnosis is Alzheimer’s. Finding a cure seems to be moving in slow motion while we fast forward to the scary parts, and all we really want is a happier ending than we’ve been given. With all the medical advances of the past twenty years, or even the past five years, why can’t Alzheimer’s be cured?

It’s like the key to unlock the mystery of Alzheimer’s is buried in a mountain of keys that all look alike. It seems an impossible task to find the correct key and insert it into the lock. But when that perfect key is found, the lock will spring open.

The cure for Alzheimer’s isn’t just possible in a science fiction movie. The right key is there, it’s just waiting to be found.

Copyright © August 2011 L. S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blospot.com/

Snapshot

I worked at the Missouri State Fair this year taking pictures in the Cooperative building. I’ve had this job before and always enjoyed handing over this personal souvenir of the fair. The pictures are taken in front of a backdrop with the year, a life-sized Buddy Bear, and the words “Fun at the Fair.” I snapped the pictures as soon as the babies stopped crying and the adults quit scowling. Another cooperative employee pulled them up on a computer screen and sent them to the printer.

Part of the fun is seeing the priceless expression on a newbie’s faces when he realizes the picture is free. “You aren’t going to get my phone number or email account number to pressure me to buy something else?” one man asked.

“No, we aren’t even going to ask your name,” I replied. “We just take a picture and give it to you.”

Having their picture taken is on some people’s “must do at the fair” list. They walk through the door and immediately get in line to have their picture taken. One man said, “We have fifteen of these on our refrigerator—one taken each year.” Another man said, “This is our annual family picture.” A woman said with surprise in her voice when she looked at the picture of her daughter, “She’s taller than Buddy Bear now!”

A lot of us have annual events that mark the passage of time. It may be a family reunion, a holiday, or the State Fair. It’s amazing to compare snapshots year-to-year and see how we have changed. It’s always a little bittersweet when you look at your children, or grandchildren, and visually time travel the distance from one year to the next in a veritable blink of an eye.

Pictures used to be harder to take and people my age didn’t grow up in front of digital cameras and cell phones that send pictures to the Internet in a few clicks. We had to buy rolls of film with 12 or 24 pictures on them. We snapped away and then sent the film off to be developed. So we paid for film, paid for photo development, and then threw away about half of the pictures because they didn’t “take.” The good thing about the old-fashioned way is we ended up with print photos. Now, I take hundreds of pictures and store them on my computer, and seldom have print copies of them.

Snapshots are a pictorial history of our lives. They can help us retrieve memories that are filed within the deepest recesses of our brains. Sometimes a picture can remind us of how the sun felt on our skin, or how the breeze smelled. Snapshots are a way of time travel without using any mythical machine.

When Jim went into the nursing home, we surrounded him with photos of family. He had several small photo albums to remind him of better times. Occasionally, he would look at a photo and say the names of the people in the pictures.

I brought pictures of Jim on my advocacy trips to Washington DC. The first picture in my small album was of Jim dressed in his western shirt, Levis, and cowboy hat before dementia changed him. The second picture was of the early stages, what I called his eccentric stage, when he wore a denim jacket decorated with pins and his battered nametag from Branson. In the middle stages, the picture was taken at the park and he wore a Kansas City Chief’s shirt and sweatpants. His eyes have a blank look. Then in the later stages, the picture showed Jim in the nursing home hallway sitting in his merry walker.

Now, most of the snapshots are put away, and I only look at them occasionally with smiles and, sometimes, tears. The pictures are a one-dimensional view of a full and rich lifetime of memories.

Special events roll around annually and in the meantime, we will snap away to fill our computers and photo albums with people we love and places we visit. Life goes on and we continue to take pictures and record today for tomorrow’s history.

Copyright © L. S. Fisher August 2011
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com/

Look Into My Eyes

I used to play a game with my grandson where I put my forehead against his and said, “Look into my eyes!” For some reason he always thought that was funny. It might have been my goofy tone of voice, or else he could see something in my eyes no one else could.

Recently I found out just how deeply an optometrist can look into my eyes. While I was on vacation, I saw some flashes of light in my left peripheral vision and a few quick Internet searches later discovered that it could mean a detached retina. Knowing that doing something soon was the key, I tried to find someone to look at my eye on a weekend in a tiny town in Maine. Well, that just didn’t happen so I made an appointment as soon as I got home.

After dilating my eyes, the optometrist used a powerful scope to examine them. His verdict was that my retinas were in fine shape, and I didn’t have any eye disease. That was the best kind of news for me to hear. After all, my vision is horrible and I didn’t need anything to make it worse.

Now it seems that eyes may be a way to detect Alzheimer’s. Anyone who has been through the diagnostic process, especially with younger-onset dementia, knows just how painstakingly slow, and expensive, getting a diagnosis can be. It is no wonder that some people skip the testing and just assume they have Alzheimer’s.

Researchers have found a couple of different biomarkers in eyes that would indicate Alzheimer’s disease or the risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease. A new study from Australia discovered that blood vessels in the eyes of people with Alzheimer’s were a different width than those who did not have the disease.

Several years ago, researchers at Boston University found amyloid (the substance in Alzheimer’s plaques) in the eyes of people with Alzheimer’s. Some of the original researchers have been working several years on a laser scanner for early detection of Down’s and Alzheimer’s.

It takes years for research to be put into common use and the eye test for Alzheimer’s is no exception. So it doesn’t look like easy detection will happen soon.

You may be wondering why researchers would be trying to detect Alzheimer’s early when there isn’t a cure available and all current medication does is delay the symptoms, not the disease. One of the most compelling arguments for early diagnosis is to make sure you have Alzheimer’s and not a treatable condition.

It took us nearly two years to get a diagnosis for Jim. At first, we thought his symptoms might be from depression. When treating the depression didn’t help, he was checked for vitamin deficiencies, diabetes, AIDS, and other conditions that we probably didn’t even know they were ruling out.

After psychological testing, we learned that Jim had dementia—and the most likely cause was Alzheimer’s. This brought about a new series of tests. One scan indicated damage from a stroke, but a more sensitive scan showed general brain atrophy rather than stroke damage. A few specialists later, the Alzheimer’s type of dementia diagnosis seemed most likely.

So how would earlier detection have helped? If Jim had been able to take the Alzheimer’s drugs, they would have been more effective during the early stages of the disease. More important to us, we didn’t ignore a treatable condition with the assumption that he had Alzheimer’s.

I had good insurance, or we could not have afforded to explore all the possible reasons for Jim’s problems. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have insurance to pay for the endless testing to rule out reversible conditions.

If an eye exam could be used as a screening tool, it would be an inexpensive way to monitor your health. Looking into your eyes could mean you would know if your symptoms are from Alzheimer’s, or whether you need to keep searching for a different, and possibly treatable, cause.

Copyright © July 2011 L. S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com/

Never a Dull Moment

Last Friday, I visited Four Season Living Center to deliver a packet to the Walk to End Alzheimer’s team captain. I parked my car in my usual spot. My eyes automatically settled on a certain window; I swallowed hard and blinked back the tears. Jim lived in that room for four years, and we spent a lot of time there. Each day when I visited him, I didn’t know what to expect, but it seemed like there weren’t too many dull moments.

I didn’t recognize the lady behind the reception desk, but while I was talking to her, Danna walked up behind me. She greeted me with a smile and a hug.

“The lobby looks different than it did when the deer came crashing through and jumped into Jim’s room,” I said. For the benefit of the new worker, I briefed her on the deer story.

“It’s strange that you walked in here today,” Danna said. “I just got off the phone with Gwyn’s family. They wanted to know if we had a copy of the newspaper article about the deer. Gwyn passed away last week. Suddenly. She was only 46.”

I was shocked, and it took a minute for it to soak in. Gwyn, gone, when all I could think about was her sense of humor and how she was so full of life.

Danna called Gwyn’s family back and I talked to them. It seems that Gwyn had often told the story about the day the deer came to visit the nursing home. I promised to send them the “deer” story from my journal. Here is an excerpt from the story. 

Oh, Deer!

When I arrived at Four Seasons, I saw broken glass in the lobby and the admissions office.

“Linda, did you hear what happened?” Richard, the administrator asked me.

“Yes, they called me, but I can’t visualize how it happened.”

“The deer broke through that window over there,” he said pointing to a gaping hole in the south wall. “Then he ran across the lobby and into Pat’s office...”

“And I was talking on the phone,” Pat said, “this deer came charging into my office. I was just petrified. I just hung the phone up. I can’t even remember who I was talking to. The deer crashed out my window and ran across the lawn. Then we saw him leap through a resident’s window.”

“Then Lois ran down the hall and into Jim’s room and jumped on the deer,” Richard said.

“What? You jumped on the deer?” I asked, looking at the director of nursing. It was hard to believe that someone would do such a thing. “Where was Fred when all this was going on?” Fred was the nursing home’s adopted greyhound.

“He was right here, but he seemed to be as surprised as we were,” Richard said.

I walked rapidly down the hallway, hit the button to disarm the alarm and pushed the door open to the Alzheimer’s unit. Jim’s room was a shambles, with fragments of glass still in his air conditioning unit. Smears of blood on the floor, and deer hair stuck in the cracks and crevices made Jim’s room look like a crime scene. 

Gwyn and Mary started filling me in on the morning’s events: When the six-point buck made his unexpected entry through the window, most of the residents were in the dining room eating breakfast, except Jim, who was wandering the halls.

Mary was just getting ready to take Jim to his room to feed him when the deer careened into the room, glass and blood flying everywhere.  Lois arrived on the scene, pinning the thrashing deer to the floor with her best wrestling hold. Gwyn grabbed a blanket and told Lois she should get off the deer.  Gwyn threw the blanket over the wounded animal, then decided to sit on the deer to make sure it didn’t get up and run down the hall.

“I was sitting on the deer, hanging onto both antlers, and he started bleeding out of his mouth.  I said awwwwwwww, and let go and started petting him. Someone said ‘what are you doing!’ and I grabbed hold of both antlers again.”

Conservation agents responded to the 911 call and cut the wounded deer’s throat. The agent asked Gwyn if she had a hunting permit.

“No, why?” Gwyn asked him. She was alarmed, wondering why she needed a hunting permit when all she did was sit on the deer.

The agent started writing.  “Oh, no!” Gwyn was thinking, “I’m going to get a ticket!” Instead, the conservation agent wrote out a permit allowing Gwyn to keep the deer.

“I’m from Arizona,” Gwyn told me, “where the deer stay in the woods where they belong!  I had never even seen a deer up close. I don’t know what I was thinking, other than I couldn’t let that deer get to my residents!” 

Like I said—never a dull moment. I can still hear Gwyn’s husky voice and her laughter.

Copyright (c) July 2011 L. S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com   

My Recollections, Our Memories

“Mom and I went to the Mennonite restaurant to eat, and there was a hearse parked right in front of it,” I said to my brother, Donnie. I had stopped by the nursing home to visit him while I was in town. “I couldn’t help but wonder if a coffin was in the back—in this sweltering heat! Mom said, ‘Even hearse drivers have to eat.’” I told Donnie about my covert glance into the hearse, and we shared a laugh about my concern.

Donnie’s speech is slurred from strokes, and I have to listen closely to hear what he has to say. The hearse story reminded him of a memory. “Do you remember when Butch Gardner bought that old hearse? He thought he was really going to get the girls to go out with him, but none of them would ride in the hearse.”

I laughed at the memory of the hearse. “That wasn’t Butch that owned that hearse,” I said, delving into my own memory. “It was a guy named Bruce—he was Claude and Leroy’s cousin. He was a good-looking guy, and I did go out with him in the hearse. Mom and dad disagreed on whether I could go or not, but they finally let me. The date turned out to be the two of us and a whole carload of kids in the back.”

“Yeah, I remember riding in the back,” Donnie said. “I thought it was Butch.”

“Remember, we went to a creek and went swimming. That was my ‘date’ in the hearse.”

“I think that was our club that went to the creek in the hearse,” Donnie said.

“I believe it was too,” I said. A big group of us country kids formed a club and went on different activities together. Butch was in that club, so that’s probably why Donnie thought the hearse belonged to him.

“Do you remember the skating party?” I asked. “That was the second time I ever saw Jim. I told Jim our club was going to be at the skating rink and he met us there. He wore a shirt with the sleeves ripped off.”

Donnie nodded and I knew that he too was remembering Jim. After Jim and I greeted each other, he went to get his skates. I sat on a bench next to Claude to lace up my skates. “Is that guy bothering you?” Claude asked. I’m sure he thought Jim was some kind of local punk. “If he is, just say the word and I’ll straighten him out!”

I reassured Claude that I knew Jim and had invited him to the skating party. I was touched since Claude was a mild mannered kid and Jim was a former Golden Gloves boxer.

Donnie and I laughed over our shared memories.

In a serious moment, Donnie said, “I think I know more people that have died that I know who are alive.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. The memories I had just shared about Claude and Jim, once a shared memory between the three of us, is now mine alone. Both of them are gone.

I kissed Donnie on the cheek, feeling good about our visit. Some days he is depressed or upset, but today we had found a happy place in our shared memories.

Our visit made me remember how vivid Jim’s memories were before dementia erased them. Before dementia, little slices of life lived in Jim’s memories long after I had forgotten them. I thought about how sad it was when our memories were gone, and how lonely I felt when Jim couldn’t remember our special times together.

Our memories are flawed because we each see life from an individualized perspective. Certain moments in life are etched into our brains with clarity, while others are fuzzy and out of focus. The older we get, the more memories become so buried that we may never retrieve them again.

Memories may be distorted by time or disease, but if we voice our recollections, those reminiscences are a way to reconnect to a shared past. After stories are erased from our brains, they can linger forever in our hearts.

Copyright © July 2011 L.S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

This Amazing Country

Around Independence Day, we often examine our reasons for being proud of our country and count our blessings for living in America. To celebrate this holiday, we eat ourselves silly at picnics and backyard barbeques, take advantage of sidewalk sales, listen to patriotic music, have fun in the sun, drag out all things red, white, and blue, and set off thousands of dollars worth of fireworks. We fairly explode with pride in our country.

I went to the lake to see the magnificent fireworks shooting into the sky over the dam. The display was rivaled by nature’s thunder and lightning. I overheard a woman talking about her plans to watch a pyrotechnical display in a nearby town the next night. She said the best vantage point was the nursing home parking lot. I thought of how Jim hated the sounds of fireworks because they sounded like war to him. I tried to keep him away from the sights and sounds of the holiday. Do you know what an impossible task that is? I wonder if other people with dementia might not understand why the night is full of loud booms and bright lights.

No doubt, we live in an amazing country with opportunity for all. This doesn’t mean everyone appreciates the wide-wonderful country we call home. We find a lot to complain about on a regular basis—the price of a gallon of gas, the government (especially when our political party is not in power), the weather, taxes, and all those immigrants—illegal or not.

This country was built on immigration. Other than Native Americans, we are in this wonderful country because our ancestors pulled up roots and transplanted themselves in America. I cannot imagine how a person could leave his homeland and start over in a new land, or in a new world, as it was known. They came here knowing they would never go home again. To me, this is as attractive as it would be to move to a different planet.

Our newspaper ran a contest for local people to write about why they were proud to be an American in fifty words or less. Since Saturday morning was a more laidback day than normal, I read the short, short essays written by proud Americans. One really caught my eye. Vietnam veteran, Larry D. Stevenson, wrote: “Drafted into the Army, served a tour in Vietnam where I was involved in heavy combat. Received this nation’s second highest combat award, the Silver Star. Came home to a country in turmoil over the conflict. What makes me proud of that? The rights we, as Americans, have to voice our opinions for or against our government’s actions.”

When we can be proudest of the freedoms that hurt us most, we have achieved a higher level. I’ve often noticed that the men and women who have sacrificed the most for this country understand this more than others.

We aren’t proud of our country because everything is perfect. Part of the amazing part about our country is the way we embrace the imperfect, contrary to our own personal preferences, and our tolerance for the melting pot of nationalities and personalities that make up the citizens of this country.

We can bellyache about what is wrong in this country fully confident that although others might not like it, they can’t stop us. Before we label a practice or person as “un-American” it is time to give serious thought to want makes America special. Could it be that the very things we think are un-American are, indeed, the embodiment of why this is a great country?

Copyright © L. S. Fisher July 2011
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com/

Glen Campbell Shows True Grit After Alzheimer’s Diagnosis

During a People magazine interview, Glen Campbell and his wife, Kim, revealed that he has Alzheimer’s. Seventy-five year old Campbell plans a Goodbye Tour when his new album is released this summer. It takes courage and grit, true grit, to make this announcement to his fans before the tour.

How forgiving will fans be? Some fans are going to notice the mistakes, as will the critics. David Lindquist’s titled his June 5 review of Campbell’s performance at the Palladium concert hall, Carmel, IN, “Glen Campbell gives mystifyingly bad show.” In his review Lindquist said, “Facing a sold-out audience nestled in a world-class room, Campbell came across as unprepared at best and disoriented at worst.”

Perhaps this concert was the wake-up call for Glen and Kim Campbell to set the record straight. Kim said, “Glen is still an awesome guitar player and singer, but if he flubs a lyric or gets confused on stage, I wouldn’t want people to think, ‘What’s the matter with him? Is he drunk?’”

I’m sure Alzheimer’s caregivers know what Kim is feeling. Each person has talents that are lost in the labyrinth of Alzheimer’s. Dementia is relentless and unforgiving as it takes away a lifetime of talent and achievement.

Glen Campbell has played the guitar since he was four years old. His talent was his ticket out of poverty to stardom. He has accomplished heights that most musicians just dream about—Gold, Platinum, double-Platinum albums, CMA Male Vocalist of the Year and Entertainer of the Year, four Grammys, and induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Campbell’s music crossed over to top both country and pop charts. “Rhinestone Cowboy and “Southern Nights” were both No. 1 hits. Campbell co-starred in True Grit with John Wayne and Kim Darby, and he sang the title song.

Lindquist goes on to describe Campbell’s performance, “He mangled lyrics (despite unabashed use of video prompts on three onstage monitors), clanged countless off-key guitar notes and generated zero rapport with the crowd.”

I can imagine how Kim’s heart must have sunk. I remember sitting at a family reunion watching Jim struggle to play music with his relatives and some family friends while he was still in the early stages. I remember a mediocre guitar player (one of the invited “friends”) telling Jim he was in the wrong key. This man who had no talent kept criticizing Jim’s playing. Jim just seemed to be in his own little world, but it made me angry. Jim wasn’t playing a concert hall where people had paid dearly for tickets—he was playing at a small park for people that loved him and were forgiving of the occasional mistake. Sometimes Jim forgot lyrics to songs he had sung hundreds of times, or he might play the wrong song in response to a request. Other times, he would play “Buckaroo” from beginning to end without an error. It was always worth the false starts to hear our favorites.

“Campbell struggled to even communicate with long-running band leader T. J. Keunster,” Linquist wrote. “‘What key? . . . Who wrote it? . . . I like this song,” served as an evening-long mantra . . .’”

These are classic communication mistakes of people with Alzheimer’s. These phrases are familiar to Glen from his years of playing music. When words failed him, he fell back on them.

Will Glen Campbell go through with the Goodbye Tour? If he does, will it be successful? Now that people know why he did not perform to his usual standards, will they be forgiving?

Jayling, a fan who attended the concert, posted a response on the Lindquist review: “It was a flawed show, yes. But overall I enjoyed the show.”

To perform this Goodbye Tour, both Glen and Kim Campbell will need to show more True Grit than Rooster Cogburn had in the movie. Glenn’s witty repartee may be gone and he may stumble on the words to some of his own top 10 hits, but for those who love him these flashes of brilliance that made Glen Campbell a legend in his lifetime will be worth the wait. Those fans will listen with love and applaud Campbell for what he can do, and forgive what he can’t.

Copyright L. S. Fisher, June 2011
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com/

The Call I Never Made

Have you ever had someone on your mind and think, I’ll call tomorrow, or next week? Then, you don’t get around to making that call—you just put it off one more day, and then another.

A few weeks ago, my caller ID was so full that I decided to delete some of the calls. As I was clicking delete, I saw a call from my friend Ted from more than a year ago. That reminded me that I should give him a call and see how things were going—see how his beloved wife Norma was doing. Ted was a devoted caregiver for Norma, who had been in a nursing home for many years.

“You ever see that movie The Notebook?” Ted asked me a few years back. He had invited me to Cracker Barrel, and he was digging in to chicken and dumplings.

“Yes, I saw it,” I said. “It was a beautiful story, but it made me cry.” Most stories about Alzheimer’s do make me cry, even if they are fiction.

“Me too,” he admitted. “What did you think of the ending?”

“It was a sad ending, but it brought the story full circle.” I wasn’t sure where Ted was going with this. I thought the ending was a bit of a stretch as far as believability. The odds are against an old couple dying at the same time.

“That’s how I want it to be for Norma and me. I know it won’t happen, but I wish we could just go at the same time.” Ted took a drink and I could see the wistful look on his face.

“You have to go on living, Ted. You can’t just die to make the ending come out to suit yourself.”

“I know that,” he said. He smiled and his eyes glistened with mischief, and he launched into a funny story.

Ted and I met at a Memory Walk awards luncheon about twelve years ago. I don’t think the Alzheimer’s Association really knew what to think about us. We tormented each other about how much money we could raise and whether Ted in Jefferson City or me in Sedalia could have the most successful walk. Outwardly, we were rivals, but it wasn’t long before we discovered that our friendship was much more important than the competition. That was saying something for two people as competitive as we were.

We ran into each other from time to time—I attended his chicken dinners and Ted drove to Sedalia to come to our Night to Remember dances. We not only spent money at the other’s auction, we would bring items to be auctioned off.

Occasionally, we would “meet in the middle” for breakfast. It was at one of our breakfasts that Ted told me his story for Alzheimer’s Anthology of Unconditional Love. I took notes, typed the story, and dropped it into the mail to him. He called me as soon as he received the story. “Linda Fisher,” he said, “I can’t stop crying long enough to read this story.”

We talked often on the phone, but days turned into weeks, weeks into months, until a year passed. I really felt a strong urge to talk to Ted. I had his home number and cell number programmed into my phone. But it seemed that I was always going to finish a report, answer an email, or edit just one more story first. Another week passed without making the call.

Then, on Tuesday as I finished a few things at work before my trip to Maine, I picked up the phone in response to hearing my name paged.

It was Joetta from the Alzheimer’s Association. “Linda, I wanted to let you know that Ted Distler passed away.” I was just stunned. “He was a recluse for about the last year. He never left his home and never let anyone in to see him.” She went on to tell me about the changes in Ted, a friend who somehow sank into depression, and I never did anything to help. I felt like I had let him down at the time he needed me the most.

Then, I was filled with regret that I had never made that phone call—hadn’t reached out to my friend. Now he was gone, and I could never make it right. There would be no more moments to laugh and joke with Ted.

“Is Norma still living?” I asked Joetta.

“Yes, but she is fading fast and they don’t expect her to last long.”

I thought about chicken and dumplings at Cracker Barrel, a football game, breakfast, auctions, dances, chicken dinners, sitting on a park bench while I interviewed him for a research paper, a hug and kiss on the cheek—my friend, Ted. So many images and good memories of a dear friend. Lastly, I thought of The Notebook and wondered if maybe Ted didn’t get his happy ending after all.

Copyright © L. S. Fisher, June 2011
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com/

Cicada Ice Cream, Really?

Those pesky thirteen-year cicadas are about to drive everyone crazy with their incessant mating call. Is it any wonder that someone came up with the bright idea of sugar coating cicadas and mixing them up into ice cream? Cicada ice cream, really?

Sparky’s Homemade Ice Cream sent employees to scavenge in their backyards to find the perfect texture for a popular new flavor. What’s not to love about getting the final revenge for the critters making that irritating noise?

The national news picked up the story—because, let’s face it—Columbia isn’t the only place putting up with the bumper crop of cicadas. Cicadas are setting up shop everywhere. The national news reported that the health department ordered Sparky’s to stop selling cicada ice cream. That, according to the original reporter was an exaggeration. Actually, the health department admitted that consumption of cicadas were not addressed in the health code, but they thought the “eww” factor was not to be ignored. Of course, they put it in more official language than admitting it was totally gross and tossed around words like “could not recommend” instead.

That news was probably well received by whoever had the job of de-winging the cicadas before they were boiled and coated with brown sugar and milk chocolate. Hmmm. Rumor has it that they taste a lot like peanuts. I’m supplying these details for the homemade ice cream experts.

So, even though Sparky’s pulled their most popular flavor of the season, this is definitely ice cream weather. Today in Columbia, I heard this strange music. “What the heck is that?” I asked.

“It’s an ice cream truck,” my friend said.

“Think we can catch it?” My mouth watered as I thought of how good ice cream is on a June day.

I’ve always loved ice cream. When Jim and I lived in Manhattan, Kansas, while he finished out his obligation to the U.S. Army, we stopped by the 50 flavors place on a nightly basis. It was a hot summer in Kansas, and I was a hugely pregnant woman with a craving for blueberry ice cream.

We lived in a one-room apartment—two rooms, if you count the bathroom. Of course, we had no air-conditioning. We cooled the room with a box fan in the window. It didn’t exactly cool the room since the outside air was more than 100 degrees throughout the entire month of July.

One day, Jim and I had a spat and rather than argue with a cranky woman on the verge of heatstroke, so he jumped in the car and left me. Now, wasn’t I in a fix? No telephone, barefoot (who could stand shoes?) and pregnant, and my husband just drove away in our only car.

He wasn’t gone long, and soon he came back with a peace offering—a banana split. I never cared much for banana splits because the toppings made it sickening sweet. But, Jim brought it to me, so I sat down at the table with my back to him and tackled the enormous banana split, while he rested on our only other piece of furniture, the twin bed.

I will not gag, I told myself, pumping myself up with a psychological pep talk. I will eat every bite, even if I have to throw up afterward. This is the tastiest ice cream ever—it’s just the syrupy topping I don’t like, and all that whipped cream, and nuts, and that plastic tasting cherry on top. And even the good ice cream is melting faster than the Wicked Witch of the West.

I finally scraped up the last spoonful of the soupy ice cream, and Jim said, “I really thought you would offer me some of the banana split.”

Oh, now, that was just too much! My back was still turned to him, but he saw my shoulders shaking and rushed to throw his arms around me. “Oh, honey,” he said, “I didn’t mean to make you cry.” Yes, the tears were running down my face, but it was from laughter.

“It almost made me sick to eat the whole thing, but I didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” I finally managed to say when my laughter calmed down to uncontrollable giggles.

Later this month, on June 25, I can eat ice cream for a great cause at our second annual “Let’s Cream Alzheimer’s” Ice Cream Social. The Ice Cream Social and silent auction are team fundraisers for the September Walk to End Alzheimer’s.

We will be serving vanilla and chocolate with yummy chocolate chip cookies. We will not be serving cicada ice cream—Really!

Copyright © L. S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com/