My Race. Our Challenge.
Many of you know that my father passed away on December 17th, 2013 after a very short, two month non-battle with stage IV cancer. He did not want to go to battle. At 80, he accepted his illness and lived his last two months the same way he lived his life. He was stoic, decisive, […]
Greetings friends and family. I shared last month that my dad has terminal cancer, and then I sort of left you hanging — so here’s a quick update. Dad continues to decline, but he is one tough guy. His hospice nurse thought he had “less than a week” over a week ago and he […]
My son and I went on a mini cross-country trip to Colorado last month. I wanted to tell you all about it, but I couldn’t find my words or motivation to write. So I’ll share a tiny bit about our trip, and then tell you why I’ve been quiet. Our trip began on Oct. 2nd […]
My grandmother visited me for a week in 1996 when she had moderate dementia. To ease the burden of having one caregiver, my grandma traveled between her three children’s homes and would stay for up to four months at a time at each place. My home was a stop-over one year as she went from […]
My mother was born on September 11th, 1937. And for most of her life, it was a beautiful day for a birthday. You know how it’s easier to remember events that have an emotional attachment to them? This is called explicit memory and this “emotional memory” seems especially evident in people who suffer from dementia […]
When I began Racing Alzheimer’s, my intent was to share the latest research on how to be healthy so that you and I could hopefully avoid or delay dementia down the road. I haven’t been very good at this. With my mother moving into late stage dementia, this blog became more about racing her Alzheimer’s […]
The strangest thing about the death of my mother is the vanishing. That a person can be on this earth one minute and gone the next, seems like a cruel magic trick that I’m still trying to figure out. As I reflect on her disappearance, I realize the slight of hand happened years ago and […]
It’s been a very long two weeks, but I am back home in Virginia and wanted to post something for friends and family since my mother’s passing on July 6th. The service, mom’s “Celebration of Life” was a beautiful tribute to a life well lived. There were flowers and hymns, prayers and poems, a slideshow, […]
September 2012 -- Mom and I in the backyard of her Assisted Living Home, 7 years after her diagnosis of probable Alzheimer's disease.
Ruth Joanne (Hall) Nelson September 11, 1937 -- July 6, 2013