Posted on 11/14/2007 10:52:46 AM PST by dead
The retired Supreme Court justice's spouse, John O'Connor, has had Alzheimer's disease for 17 years, and after moving into an assisted-living center in Phoenix, he began a romance with a fellow patient also suffering from the mind-debilitating ailment.
But the justice isn't jealous - the O'Connor family believes the love has given John, 77, a new lease on life.
"Mom was thrilled that dad was relaxed and happy and comfortable living here and wasn't complaining," their son Scott O'Connor, 50, told Phoenix's KPNX-TV.
Scott said that when his father recently arrived at the Huger Mercy Living Center, he was depressed.
"He knew this was sort of the beginning of the end," said Scott O'Connor. "It was basically suicide talk."
Then John O'Connor was moved to another part of the center, where he met a lady simply known as Kay.
They are often together and hold hands, Scott told KPNX.
"Forty-eight hours after moving into that new cottage, he was a teenager in love. He was happy."
< snip >
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
That was my mother in law. My husband finally resigned himself to "being" his late father on a regular basis.
When she did remember he was her son she berated him for not bringing his daughter to visit her. A little over a year after she passed away we had our first child, a daughter.
Oh PULEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE.
Did you ever think the headline writer took some liberties with the wording?
Reading the entire article gives no such indication this is anything more than a possibly “romantic” anything.
You have apparently never dealt with a close family member suffering from this ailment.
After 17 years Mr. O’Connor was not exactly “parked” or “turned over” to others.
The last time I saw my great-grandmother she thought my father (her grandson) was her son just coming home from WWII. She finally recognized who he was for about 30 seconds and then reverted. Then she looked at me and my brother — we both had longish hair at the time — and asked “Who are these nice looking girls?”
A new excuse for cheating men everywhere...”Honey, I had/have alzheimers!!!”
“I cannot remember the name of the movie, though.”
Away From Her.
That's probably so. We finally put Mama in a nursing home that cared for Alzheimer's patients about 4 years into her illness. She had refused, from the beginning, to live with any of her 8 kids, so we hired a friend of my older sister's to come and live with her, and we took turns staying with her on the weekends to give Mary a couple of days off each week. This allowed Mama to stay in her home as long as possible, but when her physical needs became more than Mary could handle alone, we put her in the home. By that point, she didn't really care where she was, she just knew it wasn't home, though even when she WAS home, it wasn't home to her, either. She was a totally different person to us, even though she did remember each of our names. She was kinda fuzzy on the grandkids and great grands, though. She died in the summer of 2004, 6 years into the Alzheimer's and we were relieved more than anything else, and thankful that God took her Home before she got any worse, mentally.
Has anyone here seen the movie “A Vow to Cherish?”
It’s based on a true story and it deals with this subject.
It’s too bad Sandra Day-O’Connor couldn’t afford to hire a nurse to provide in-home care.
No, it's not. Neither of them is of sound mind.
Apparently such care was provided for 17 years prior to him being moved to the assisted living facility.
Who is anyone to judge the decisions made by another family?
yes you are right. this is a major lesson on the choice of words and...what can properly be taken from those words. When someone is “having an affair” it usually means grounds for divorce. And when someone is said to be gay, it usually doesn’t mean they are happily excited.
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