Posted on 11/13/2007 9:44:49 AM PST by COUNTrecount
The husband of retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has struck up a romance with a woman who is a fellow Alzheimer's patient and lives at the same assisted living center as him, according to a television news report.
The retired justice isn't jealous about the relationship and is pleased that her husband is comfortable at the center, the couple's son, Scott O'Connor, told KPNX in Phoenix in a broadcast that aired Thursday.
"Mom was thrilled that dad was relaxed and happy," Scott O'Connor said. An effort by The Associated Press to reach Scott O'Connor on Tuesday morning was unsuccessful.
An official with the assisted living center was quoted as saying people with Alzheimer's need intimacy and sometimes develop romantic attachments with fellow patients.
John O'Connor was diagnosed with Alzheimer's 17 years ago and was sad when he moved into the assisted living center, his son said.
"Forty-eight hours after moving into that new cottage he was a teenager in love," Scott O'Connor said. "He was happy."
The news report showed video footage of John O'Connor holding hands with a woman identified only as "Kay." The retired justice wasn't shown in footage taken at the center.
Though Sandra Day O'Connor, 77, did not appear in the television report, it gave a rare look at the life of the nation's first female justice, USA Today reported. The family's willingness to highlight an aspect of a heart-wrenching illness recalled O'Connor's decision in 1994 to go public with her feelings about breast cancer.
In a speech to the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, she spoke about discovering the cancer in 1988 and undergoing a mastectomy, the paper reported.
Scott said, "For Mom to visit when he's happy visiting with his girlfriend, sitting on the porch swing holding hands," was a relief after a painful period, according to USA Today.
The O'Connors, who have three children, met at Stanford Law School and married in 1952, according to the paper. John O'Connor left a partnership at a Phoenix law firm to come to Washington with his wife in 1981. He worked for D.C. law firms but was limited in his ability to take on matters that could come before the justices.
As her husband's disease became more difficult to handle, O'Connor retired, the paper reports.
It doesn’t work that way.
In many cases, it’s not just memory loss, but a complete dementia. People like this often end up bedridden and incapable of feeding themselves or using the toilet.
And Justice O’Connor doesn’t look to be in the kind of shape for that task.
Words fail me as to how sad and heartbreaking this story is.
I may not agree with Justice O’Connor, but I wouldn’t wish this hell on my worst enemy.
She could afford to do it, had the secret service and lord knows who else to help her.
They can afford in home care. I would have taken him home!
Now the above is the ideal situation, I am a healthy athletic guy and the emotional and physical requirements of the above almost took me to my limits, so how does a woman in her 80s with a guy with little of his old mind left to help her get all this done?
Can’t be done at home without lots of help and money, to think otherwise seems illogical to me, at least based on my life experiences.
Alzheimer’s is one of nature’s cruel little tricks. Both parents were afflicted (Dad died two months ago); we still don’t really know how it’s affected Mom, since she shows very, very little emotion over it - and they were happily married for just under 67 years.
My healthy active mother dropped dead of a heart attack three years ago and we moved my Alzheimer’s dad in with us. After three years it simply became too much and we recently moved him into a lovely nursing home 5 miles from where we live. He’s only one of three men in the 12 room Alzheimer’s unit, by far the highest functioning and two women are now vying for his attention. They don’t talk, dad often doesn’t make much sense but he enjoys talking to them and they just smile and nod back. It really is quite sweet and he is getting much more attention and better care then he was with us. It was heartbreaking for me when we placed him but he definately is in a much better place. I would not wish this disease on anyone.
Every morning he meets her for the first time.
The disease sucks, and as our nation gets older, we are going to see lots more of it.
Sorry about your parents. Love their long term marriage.
I just got married in August. I love her and marriage.
What your parents accomplished is wonderful.
The evaluating shrinks and other medicos all stress doing your utmost to keep them at their familiar home if at all possible.
Fortunately they are marching toward prevention and cure for this disease daily. Drugs are showing progress not only in halting the progress of this disease, but some are showing the ability to reverse it.
The big hurdle as I understand it was developing drugs that could cross the brain blood barrier. This event finally occured a year or two ago, and researchers were able to get chemicals into the brain and latch onto the plaque thats build up in the brain causes this disease.
I recall reading about some preliminary tests of a new drug within the last year that tests have shown not only prevented the disease from getting worse, but had some evidence of removing the plaque that had already built up in labarotory animals I believe.
This disease is terrible, but it does appear we are on our way to conquering it. Time will tell.
God Bless you! My dad died last year with Alzheimer’s.
CBS news?
Man, I know it can be tough.
Sorry for that rough road you have had.
Hope there is a cure for sure.
God bless all those families suffering with it.
My mother in law did the same thing. Grandma always asked for her husband. We all learned fast to say he was at the office or doing some work in the yard. That worked and saved her tears and heartache every day. The disease is cruel.
We’ve come so far in medicine that we are come nearly full circle; each inconvenience is studied, labeled and treated as a separate entity to be brought under control and returned to its former state.
Thus, we have found ourselves where our ancestors began, looking for a cure for death.
She retired to take care of her Husband....and put him in a home.
I guess I should be grateful she retired.
I don’t think this story is “strangely sweet” at all. I think it’s a huge invasion of the family’s privacy. Would the MSM make a story out of Joe Blow down the street’s family?
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