Posted on 01/21/2004 1:16:30 PM PST by presidio9
NOTICE: I hope and pray that you have no first-hand experience with Alzhiemer's Disease, and I hope and pray your good fortune will continue. Let me tell you how this brain-killer works. It starts with simple forgetfulness — accountants can no longer add basic numbers, skilled mechanics can't even change a tire, great cooks like my wife forget how to turn on the stove. Soon, a victim's loved ones are unfamiliar, simple activities like bathing, dressing and eating require assistance, and control over bodily functions are lost. And it ends in death—always. For some victims, death is mercifully quick, within a few years. Others, however, suffer a lingering death. But Alzheimer's disease destroys more than the lives of its victims. It destroys the lives of everyone it touches, directly or indirectly. For each victim — caregivers, loved ones and friends also suffer as someone they've loved for years turns into someone they no longer know, someone who no longer knows them. My wife of nearly half-a-century is now entering the late stages of Alzheimer's Disease — and now requires my near constant attention. To our readers and writers and boosters I say thank you and God bless us each and every one. The editor's recent illness, hospitalization and prolonged recovery period has simply hastened the end of Toogood Reports. There will be no future updates to this page although we will leave it online for a period of time for readers and writers to access reports.
— Always the best, A. J. Toogood, Editor
My mother and I thank you.
It's a terrible disease.
prayers
Tia
My grandmother and my grandfather’s brother both had Alzheimer’s. He (grandfather) took care of both of them in his house until they died. It takes a certain personality to do something like that, IMO. He always said you had to be sort of “stupid” or you’d go insane.
My grandmother had it for probably 25 years. My great-uncle had it for 15 or so. My grandfather was essentially a 24/7 babysitter.
The great-uncle died first. Then grandma died a few years later. Then – you guessed it – grandpa died within 40 days or so of her. They never found any reason. No heart attack or cancer or anything. Just no longer had a purpose for living? Who knows.
But just when you think Alzheimer’s is bad someone will pop up with ALS or something. My dad had that. He actually died pretty quickly after being diagnosed. But still, in the 8 or 10 months he had it (?) he got to where he couldn’t walk 8 feet without sitting down. No strength, no stamina. He died quick and easy – never got to the point that he had to have someone help him to the bathroom or bathe, etc.
Then I had a cousin pop up with RDS (or some similar acronym). That wasn’t pretty either. She died at 28. Nobody gets out alive, evidently.
Leni
For my own part I learned a bit about the disease while helping out some friends of our family. I was out of work for a while and they needed someone to sit with the father. I sat for him during the night (which isn't so bad to an insomniac like myself). Power naps and all that...
One evening, before his bedtime, the man started trying to move the chair he had been sitting in. Having been told to accomodate him as much as possible, as long as he didn't appear to endanger himself, I helped him move the chair.
Despite his mind being ravaged this man knelt beside the chairside table and started going through the movements of Communion. When he was finished I helped him back into his chair and he appeared no different then any of the other times I'd gone there.
He died shortly after that. I've often wondered if deep inside himself, in some core being of himself, he knew how close he was to dying and he made his peace with the Lord that night. I experienced one of the most touching moments of my life while sitting with him and it is a moment of my life that I'll never forget.
My prayers to the families and to all who suffer this disease and may the families have the strength to perservere through the ordeal.
People began to ask Toogood, if he wouldn't publish their work. And in some cases, he began to do so. Some of the earlier writers he published proved to be irresponsible wackos, with little patience for facts or research, and soon enough, he got rid of them, but some of his writers proved to be durable, quality journalists.
Over the past year or two, the quality got consistently better, and the site even broke stories, such as the expose of the "Greendale School" hoax that feds and journalists alike were using, in their attempt to railroad the scientist, Dr. Steven Hatfill.
In his four years on the Web, A.J. Toogood combined breaking news, syndicated columnists, exclusive TR writers, and Internet journalists whose work appeared at TR and elsewhere, to make Toogood Reports one of the ten or so best news-and-politics sites on the Web. He done good. He will be missed.
I'm part of an e-mail loop where one woman's mother had Alzheimers. None of us lived close enough to help out. All we could do was read her e-mail and try to respond. It was heartbreaking.
Merciful Father, gently lead Mrs. Toogood to Your blessed self ... may this remaining time be a blessing and not a burden. Strengthen this loving husband as he gives his wife over to Your loving care. Thank You, O God, that You know the thoughts within the mind ... fill Mrs. TG with warm memories and a sense of Your presence, despite outward appearances. Bring others to their side for this painful walk, for lighter the burden when it is shared. May it be thus, Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus, I pray, Amen ...
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