[Granville-Hough] 21 Feb 2009 - Grandma & Alzheimer

[Trustees and Executors for Granville W. Hough]

I will now continue to share some of my experience with Alzheimer's 
Disease.

‘Sometimes Grandma Goofs’ – .

Grandma make the best triple chocolate cake. I get to lick the spoon.
Sometimes she reads to me. I try to read to her, too.
She pushes me on the swing. I get to fly really high.
But sometimes Grandma goofs.
She does funny things like put her socks in the fridge.
One day she put a book in the bird cage. The bird sat on it.
She even asked me to put the car in the garage.
She asked me to take the dog out of the bathtub.
She doesn’t have a dog. Or a bathtub. Just a shower. And a cat.
Sometimes Grandma looks at me like she doesn’t know who I am.
So, we took Grandma to the doctor.
The Doctor says Grandma has a disease named after somebody called “Al 
Chimers.” It’s a hard name to remember, so I call it Al’s disease.
The doctor says he treats many people with the same disease.
I worry that I may catch it, but the doctor says it isn’t catching.
He says it can happen to anybody, especially as they grow older.
They can’t remember things.
It’s hard for them. If they go for a walk, they could get lost.
If they just ate dinner, they might not know it.
It must be very hard for people who have this disease. It’s hard for me 
and especially hard for my mom.
What if my mom and dad get it?
I will take care of them. That’s what families are for.
Mom and Dad take really good care of Grandma.
I’m learning to take care of Grandma, too.
Even though Grandma has Al’s disease, she still bakes the best triple 
chocolate cake.
Today she forgot to put in the chocolate.
So I helped and put it in for her.
It was the best triple chocolate cake in the world.
If Grandma doesn’t remember baking it, maybe she will bake another one. 
And then another and another.
And I will keep adding the chocolate!

(The story is by Patricia Rust and first appeared in the Los Angeles 
Times on 8 Jul 2001. It is considered a classic description from a 
child’s perspective of the disease Dr. Alois Alzheimer first described 
in 1906. For more information, go to www.alz.org. It did happen in 
Sullivan’s Hollow years ago, but it was so infrequent that it was 
something of note to be talked about for miles around. It is more 
frequent today.)
Now that we know what is is, we can see it happen in our own families. 
We read about it happening in President Reagan's family. Where I live in 
Orange County, CA, 60,000 people are diagnosed with Alzheimer's at 
various stages. It is believed there now over 5,000,000 Americans in 
some stage of the disease. A quarter million children, like Patricia 
Rust, ages 8 to 18, are the caretakers for family members. It is the 
fifth leading cause of death for people over 65.
My prayers are with any family caring for an Alzheimer's victim. The 
chances are very high that neither you nor the victim did anything wrong 
or abnormal. The best advice I have found to avoid it is to lead a 
normal life, avoiding those activities which cause head injuries, 
strokes, high blood pressure, heart disease, etc. As Satchel Page, a 
famous old baseball pitcher, once put it: "Avoid the social scramble. It 
ain't restful."