Privacy is the Best Policy

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and it doesn’t look like the Kardashians have anything to worry about. From me, anyway.

Upon further review, we will not be ‘Going Hollywood.’ (Technically it would be ‘Going Jersey’, since that is where the broadcasting company is located.)

A radio/television guy I’ve known since the early 1990s gave me a ‘shout out’ when he was broadcasting a college basketball game recently, a game that was watched by, among others, people who knew me and worked with me. He commented on my 35-year career and his personal interactions with me over the years. It was very nice of him to do that and I was sure to contact him and thank him for it.

That is when he informed me about other endeavors he has branched out to, professionally, and one in particular was work he does for a health channel. He told the network about why I retired and they were interested in making my life a reality show.

And by ‘reality show’ I mean one, 20-minute segment. But after giving some serious thought to the idea, that is what it seemed like to me. What they were interested in doing made me feel like I was going to be on Big Brother or the Real World.

They were interested in bringing a television camera or two into my home for a day.

They were interested in interviewing me about what it is like to quit your job and become a full-time caregiver for your wife.

They were interested in interviewing my wife Terry’s neurologist, looking at and explaining Terry’s EEG and MRI results.

They were interested in interviewing Terry on camera.

They were interested in turning my life of being a caregiver and, more importantly, Terry’s life of being a woman in her 50s with Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, into a 60 Minutes type of interview.

That is when I became un-interested.

At first I said okay, and Terry said ‘Whatever you think is best, Bud.’ like she always does. I ran it by our son and he didn’t seem to have a problem with it.

But after giving it some thought I realized it is one thing for me to write a blog, trying to explain what life is like as a caregiver without being a bummer, without being a downer. The blog is about my life.

But this ‘day in the life’ health segment is another thing. It would show the world what life is like to be a woman with Alzheimer’s, in particular, what Terry’s life is like, and I am afraid I couldn’t do that. I don’t think Terry would want that.  She’s always been such a private, reserved person.

Even in her shining moments, her tennis championships, her wedding, HER HONEYMOON, she was always very shy and reserved. Now, when she is having her least shining moments, is not the time to go Kardashian.

So we won’t be seeing a documentary on Terry any time soon.

But if I ever do change my mind and allow a TV crew to film us, if it was this time of year, it would have to be on a Sunday.

Terry has always loved watching football and she enjoys it even more now. And it doesn’t even have to be her beloved New England Patriots. Terry loves the RedZone channel.

She can’t always follow the plots of television shows or movies (unless she is watching one she has seen countless times and laughs every time), but Terry can always recognize and appreciate a nice catch, a nice run, a nice pass or any other nice athletic play on the football field.

And if the game is played on a snowy field, even better. Watching today’s games in snowy Buffalo and Cleveland was a lot of fun for Terry, snuggled up under a blanket on the couch with her hot Ginseng green tea. (Would have been even better if the snowy fields were comprised of grass and mud instead of turf and rubber pellets. Even the redundant ‘frozen tundra’ in Green Bay now has heater coils under the field to heat it.) Even watching the rainy game in Miami made our weather today seem better.

Outside our home, today was a dim and dismal day, cold and dark, a good day to stay in the house, and Terry was in her glory watching the football games while I try to write this.

Normally we try to get outside as much as possible, walking or just working in the yard (we have been trimming trees lately, a good workout for me sawing and Terry carries the wood to the wood pile near the fire pit. It is amazing how many times she can get lost walking the same 20 yards over and over to put the wood in the pile. Afraid she does not take direction very well these days.)

Another reason why I would not want the film crew shooting her, seeing her fail so badly in trying to take direction.  (One thing I have noticed lately is that if I let her do a task her way, even if it is helter skleter, she is able to do it. If I give her direction in how it should be done, how she used to do it, it messes her up and she has trouble performing the task.)

Images like Terry’s ‘instructionally-challenged’ moments get better ratings than shots of her enjoying the football games, enjoying the antics of our son’s dog.  “He’s a goofy boy,” Terry says while laughing at our grand dog, Harry.

No, we won’t be going viral with our lives. We will keep these moments private, the good ones when Terry is laughing and the bad ones when she gets confused. And we will just try to enjoy them.

And if it snows, even better.

Until next time, enjoy your moments in privacy, especially your moments of privacy.

Bud

Now What?

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I am now beginning the next phase of my life.

I have enjoyed many phases in my life.

My formative years took place in the 1960s. I was too young to be a hippie, but I wanted to be. I didn’t know what pot was then but I knew I didn’t like the Viet Nam War and I did like Laugh In, the Smothers Brothers and Gilligan’s Island.

The 1970s is when I grew up, attending high school and college. Then I was too busy to be a hippie, I learned what pot was, and I was very glad when the Viet Nam War ended so I would not get drafted.

The 1980s is when I really grew up, getting a real job, getting married and having children.

Since retiring almost two months ago from my job of over 35 years, I am now performing my new full-time job, being a full-time caregiver for my wife Terry, who is in the middle stage of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease.

During the first six weeks of my ‘retirement’ I was still working 30 hours a week, from home, writing press releases and game stories, which eased the transition from working to retirement.

But now that is over.

As I ponder my future, I am reminded of the final scene of one of Terry’s favorite movies, Finding Nemo.

In the movie, a group of fish who live in an aquarium in a dentist’s office long for returning to the sea. When the dentist has the aquarium cleaned, he puts the fish in individual bags of water, like when you bring a goldfish home from the pet store.  The fish manage to hop out the window, cross the street and finally off the pier and into the ocean. (I think that was based on a true story, it was so realistic.) So once they make it back to the ocean they celebrate for a few minutes, marvel over their great escape, but then it dawns on them that they are still in bags floating on the surface. “Now what?” one of them asks.

So, now that I am unemployed, home all day, that is what I am now asking myself.

Now what?

I mean I do have a full-time job, taking care of Terry. I am afraid it has truly become full-time these days. She really needs help in everything she does. And I do mean everything.

By the way, with all of the brouhaha in North Carolina with that Bathroom Law, I have discovered one of the greatest inventions of all time: the Family Restroom. The last year or so when Terry and I would go on road trips and stop at rest areas, I would always worry about Terry when she was in the ladies room. There have been a few times when she would not know how to exit unless there were others in there and she would follow them out. But now Terry needs help in there. She needs to be reminded of what she needs to do. That made me very nervous on our most recent road trip to Rhode Island to visit her family. It is a five-hour drive so we need to stop at least once. But when we stopped at the rest stop I was happy to find that there was a Family Restroom that I could go in with her to help.

And that brings up a question. Twice when we were waiting to use the Family Restroom the person using it ahead of us was a single adult. No kids with them needing assistance, which I believe is the reason for these rooms. What’s up with that? Did they just want the privacy? The second time it was a man about my age and when we went in after him the seat was up, so what did he need privacy for?  So the question is, is using a Family Restroom like parking in a handicap parking spot? I think so. If you can just as easily use the regular bathroom, it is not cool to use the Family Restroom. Not cool!

So back to my next phase. In addition to caring for Terry, I need to find something to do with my time. Ideally, it would be something that would pay. But anything constructive will do.

There are plenty of projects around the house that will keep me busy for the next few months. They don’t pay, but the yard and house will be much better off when I complete these chores. Some tree trimming (not putting tinsel and ornaments on the Christmas tree, but cutting back the many overgrown trees in our back yard that are getting too close to the house and utility wires), some painting. Some organizing. Putting summer clothes away and getting more winter clothes out of storage. (I am sure most people have already done that but yesterday I was sitting out back in shorts enjoying 70 degrees of warmth and bright sunshine. Today our oldest daughter the mail carrier saw snow when she was doing her postal route).

So I am looking forward to working around the house. And when we have nice weather, taking long walks with Terry. She loves to take walks and we have been blessed with unseasonably warm weather lately, and the colorful leaves have stayed on the trees much longer than normal, which made for great walks. But I am afraid that, too, is coming to an end. The temperature dropped about 30 degrees today and the wind is blowing about 30 mph. The leaves that are still hanging on for dear life don’t have much of a chance.

In weeks to come we will still walk, without the scenic foliage and without the warm temps. And we will still go on road trips, as long as there are Family Restrooms. Walking and road trips don’t pay cash, but they pay big dividends for Terry.

And that really is my full-time job, preserving and improving Terry’s quality of life.

The quality of the next phase of my life will depend on how long before Terry’s next phase. I pray her current phase lasts as long as possible, because the next phase is not pleasant. Her brain is shrinking. Certain parts of it no longer communicate with other parts, which makes everyday life difficult. The next phase for Terry is when she will no longer be able to communicate with me. Soon after that she won’t even remember me, who I am. That will be hard to take.

But for now we are enjoying life, one day at a time. That is my full-time job. I am glad to do it. I hate that it has to be done, but I am so grateful that I am able to do it.

With the drop in temperatures Terry is like the fish in Finding Nemo. She longs for returning to the sea, the beach, the Jersey Shore, where we enjoyed so many great days this past summer. That is a good six months away, however. God knows what Terry’s condition will be like then, so I am in no hurry to get back to the ocean. I am living for today.

Tomorrow I will ask Now What?

Until next time, enjoy whatever phase your life is in.

Bud

Autumn is Awesome

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I really love autumn.

I don’t think I’ve ever said those four words before. In fact, I am sure I have never said ‘I really love autumn’ before.

First of all, who says autumn? The term is fall. Winter, spring, summer and FALL. No one says autumn unless you are auditioning to be a poet laureate and trying to find a word that rhymes with quorum.

A few hundred years ago it wasn’t even called autumn, it was just called ‘harvest.’ But how many of us these days are busy gathering the ripe crops from the field?

I’m not sure why it is now called fall. Maybe it is because that is what the leaves are now doing.

And that is one of the reasons why I now love the fall. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a weird fixation on raking.

But first, why I have never said those four words before. Why I have always HATED autumn. I mean fall.

For the last 38 years fall not only meant the end of summer, my favorite season, but to me it meant seven-day work weeks. I have never been able to enjoy long walks in the cool crisp air, observing the beautiful fall foliage.  I had to work every fallin’ weekend.

Until now. Since I recently gave up my full time job to be a full time caregiver for my wife Terry, who is now in the middle stages of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, I have grown to not only like the fall but to love it.

Over the last few weeks since my “retirement” Terry and I have gone on several walks through various parks in our area and I have never enjoyed the foliage so much.

And I lived in New England for three years, one of the greatest locations in the nation to observe the beautiful array of autumn colors. But for two of the three years I lived up there I worked every weekend.

My first year in New England, however, my first year out of college, I did have a little more time on my hands.  And since I didn’t know anyone after moving 1,400 miles from Miami to Providence, I used my spare time to see the sites. Sites that are on every tourist’s list of things to see in Southern New England; The Newport, RI mansions and cliff walk, Fenway Park, Club Desire Gentleman’s Club.

Growing up I saw fall’s beauty. I’ve seen it in Thomas Kinkade art where the light through the leaves almost glowed like the paintings were electric. I’ve seen it in Norman Rockwell paintings. I’ve seen autumn beauty in sunflower seeds. (Botanists get that joke, botanists and people who buy sunflower seeds for planting)

But I never really embraced the fall, until now.

With the new found spare time I now have, Terry and I have been out and about, enjoying the fall. And it has been great.

Up until now, the only part of the fall I ever enjoyed was the World Series. And I still do that. But now I am able to appreciate the finer things in life.  

The best part of enjoying the fall is being able to do it with Terry. Someone once said “I will remember some of the great things I’ve enjoyed, but I will remember all of the people I enjoyed them with.”

Terry has been loving our walks. She was always an outdoors person, playing sports her whole life. She has been appreciating the beautiful colors of the trees and the crisp air on our walks. She is having a great fall.

And that is the main reason why I am having a great fall. I mean I really do like the foliage, although I’m not that big on raking. Especially when most of the leaves I rake come from trees that are not in our yard. The other day I saw a guy with a leaf blower, blowing the leaves from his yard, from his tree, into his neighbor’s yard. What’s up with that?  Not cool, man, not cool!

I can’t wait until winter, when I snow blow the snow from my driveway onto his.

Not really. I wouldn’t do that. But I’d like to.

What I also really like to do these days is enjoy the fall. And we really are. Giving candy out to the trick or treaters the other night was fun. More fun than working a soccer game, which I have done in the past on most October 31s.

I will be home to watch the Thanksgiving Day parade and cook a turkey this fall for the first time in a while.  That will be more fun than working a basketball game, like I have done most fourth Thursday’s in November over the last few decades.

Since I retired I have still been working, from home, but they finally found a replacement for me and he will start replacing me in a few days. When I heard he was hired it finally sunk in that my 35+ year career was over. And that stung a little bit.

There was an array of emotions. The fear of poverty hit me first. Then the sudden feeling that it is really over. My career. I started to doubt my decision. A large percentage of what I’ve done since 1981 was over. But then I remembered that I could no longer do it and give Terry the attention she now needs. It wasn’t possible to do both. I HAD to make a choice, and I know I made the right one.

So now I am enjoying the fall, and enjoying being a fulltime caregiver. I am spending 24/7 with my wife, and I love that.

And more importantly, she loves it too.

I grew to love my wife almost 40 years ago. And now I have grown to love the fall.

Until next time, enjoy the fall. Or autumn.

Bud

The Good Life

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I’m living the good life. At least I think that is what you are supposed to say when you are retired.

My transition from the work force to the life of leisure has been helped by the fact that I am still working. Until my former employer finds someone to replace me, they are still paying me a little something to keep working. The first week of ‘retirement’ I worked a little over 30 hours.

From home.

And that is where I need to be, now that my wife Terry is in the middle stage of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. She needs me to be home with her more now than ever.

With modern technology, I can perform about 75 percent of my old job responsibilities from home. I obviously cannot attend the home games anymore, but by now my student workers have been trained well enough to survive without me and I now cover the home games the same way I’ve been covering the away games.

I can watch the games on the computer through video streaming and live stats. I can still interview the coach after the game, I just do it over the phone instead of in person. And I easily can still write the game previews, post-game stories and other press releases from home and post on the web  page and send to the papers.

And through e-mail I can still deliver a joke to all of the coaches to break up the boredom at our dry, monthly staff meetings.

Easy peasy. Now I’m living the good life.

One of my favorite authors, Mark Twain, gave tips on how to enjoy the good life. Tips that I have taken to heart.

He said that first of all you have to approve of yourself. “A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”

When I decided to quit my job and stay home to take care of Terry several people close to me and more rational than me tried to convince me I was not doing the right thing.  The difference between them and me is that I was not making this decision with my brain. I was making it with my heart.

I knew in my heart it was the right thing to do. “I am retiring, and I approve of this message.” (Maybe I’ve been watching too many political commercials).

“A person with a new idea is a crank, until the idea succeeds,” Twain said. So don’t let what other people think hold you back.

Twain said that your limitations may just be in your mind. “It is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

That goes for my serious decrease in income. I would say that I now have to buy cheaper beer, but that isn’t possible. I already drink the cheapest beer there is. I guess I’ll just have to drink less of it.  And there are other things that I will learn to do without. Tightening a belt is never comfortable, but it is certainly doable.

Twain said to lighten up and have fun. “Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing,” and “Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”

Terry laughs a lot, every day.  I have always seen to that. And when she laughs, I laugh, or at least smile a lot.

Twain said to let go of anger. “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

I used to be pretty angry about our situation. Why Terry? Why me? But I learned from Frozen to let it go. When Terry has an accident, I no longer get angry. We just handle it and try to make light of it. I don’t even have to say it anymore, Terry says it herself and we both laugh when she says “Gross little girl!”

Along those same lines, Twain said “Don’t go around saying the world owes you something. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

Thinking the world owes you something can cause frustration. It is up to me to shape my own life. We all have to deal with the hand we were dealt. Everyone has their own cross to bear.

And the most important advice Twain ever gave was to do what you want to do. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did.”

I don’t want to look back on my life wishing I had spent more time with Terry. That doesn’t mean that is not going to happen. As a matter of fact I am sure that is what I am going to think. But at least I took the first step in correcting that. I retired, to spend more time with my partner, my soulmate, my wife.

We are now enjoying the fall.  The crisp, cool air, the foliage, the pumpkin spice lattes. (okay, lattes are probably the first thing I will have to give up with the stricter budget.)

For almost 40 years I hated the autumn season. In the late 1970s I LOVED the fall. Going back to college in fun-in-the-sun Miami.  But the last two-thirds of my life fall not only meant the end of fun-in-the-sun summer, it meant going back to no-fun work. Sixty hour weeks, working 9 to 5 plus some night plus every damn weekend.

But now Terry and I can really enjoy the fall season. College football, walks in the park through the fallen leaves, fires at night in the fire pit in our backyard.

Yes, I am living the good life. Now I have to go pay some bills.

I think I’ll buy one of those hats that UMass grad designed and made millions on. The ones that say “Life is Good.”

Until next time, read some Mark Twain, and enjoy life. It truly is good.

Bud

Identity Crisis

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I feel like I am losing my identity, or at least changing it.

Since 1981 I have been the Sports Information Director (SID as we are commonly referred to) at Rider University, an institution with a Division I Athletics Department in New Jersey.

Not as large as a Penn State or Nebraska (although we do compete with them and other institutions of their size in some of our sports), we have 20 varsity teams, 10 for men and 10 for women, so we have a sizeable staff.  In the athletics department only the wrestling coach has been here longer than I have. And he’s been here long enough to rank first in Division I in career wins among active coaches.

All of my friends know me as the Rider SID, probably because almost half of my wardrobe has a Rider logo on it.

When you work at a small university as long as I have you get to know a lot of people. Even if you never formally meet them you see them on campus enough to where you say hi to them and make small talk. And if any of them go to any of our athletic contests they see me there.

When we have alumni events I always try to attend so when the former athletes come back they see a face they remember. Some of them have even used that expression to me, that I am the face of Rider, at least to them.

The last year or so, when I would go home every day at lunch time to take care of my wife, I started doing some math and figured that I have made that drive from home to work over 10,000 times.

Well, I am afraid that is all coming to an end.

This week I gave my two weeks’ notice.

Being the caregiver for my wife Terry, who is now in the middle stages of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, has become my new full-time job. I can no longer do it on a part-time basis. I can no longer do my job at Rider on a part-time basis.  One of them had to give, and it sure wasn’t going to be my wife.

Leading up to my resignation/retirement I was scared. Scared that I could not afford it. And for good reason. I can’t.  But what I really can’t afford is not being with Terry. These days she needs help with just about everything. Someone has to be with her.

Our son gave up a great career and job in DC to come home and live with us, to help in the caregiving. And I could not have made it through September without him.   But he is working again, and even though he is still living with us and helping us a great deal with everything, there are times when he and I are both at work, and Terry is alone.

And Terry no longer handles being alone very well. I don’t either.

Despite the long hours, despite all of the personal things I have missed over the years because of my job, Rider has been good to me. Very good to me. It allowed me to put my three kids through private schools and college. It allowed me to buy a house almost 30 years ago. It allowed me to put food on my table and beer in my fridge. And it allowed me to write. That is the part of my job that I will miss the most, writing the game stories after the contests and putting them on our web page.

Although sometimes that got me in trouble. There have been a few times when I would get a call at night telling me to take down the story I wrote.

About 10 years ago football player Michael Vik went to jail for his role in a dog-fighting ring along with several cruelty to animals charges.  About that time we played the UMBC Retrievers in men’s basketball and we defeated them by almost 40 points. So my lead to the story was “The last time a Retriever was beaten this bad it was owned by Michael Vik.”

That lasted on the web page for about an hour.

But on the other hand there have been some stories that I was really proud of. We played a basketball game during a raging blizzard one time and we won by making 18 of 20 foul shots. So the lead to my story was;

Oh, the weather outside was frightful,

but the foul shooting was so delightful,

and since Rider led with no time to go,

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

In two weeks I will no longer be writing these stories. I will no longer be keeping track of the team rosters, schedules, statistics. I will no longer be taking the team pictures and head shots of the athletes and posting them on the web. I will no longer be hiring workers to announce the games, work the scoreboard, keep the scorebook and stats. I will no longer be asking the TV stations and newspaper reporters to cover our events.

I will no longer be doing the things I have done for the last 38 years, 35 of them at Rider.

And I am going to miss that very much. I am going to miss my old identity.

But now I have a new identity. I am the caregiver. I am the guy who gave up everything to take care of his wife.

People say I am noble. No I’m not. I’m in love. I’m in love with my wife, and the only thing that matters now is her quality of life.

When I am not with her, her quality of life is not very good. My kids help a lot and she loves seeing them and being with them. But they have their own lives to live. This is now my life.

This is my new identity. I have been an SID for 38 years. I only wish I could be a caregiver for 38 years.

But for however long I can be a caregiver, it will be my full time job. My old job was 60 to 70 hours a week. My new one will be even more hours, it just won’t seem that way.

Leaving my job at Rider is one of the toughest decisions I have ever made, but in time I know it will be the best decision I ever made. It is going to be tough. It is going to be hard. But as Jimmy Dugan once said, “it is supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great!”

Until next time, hope you keep your identity without a crisis

Bud

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and boy am I out of shape.

But that is about to change, soon, I hope.

When the good doctors at the Loyola Clinical Center first informed my wife Terry and me that she does, in fact, have Alzheimer’s Disease, even though she was still in her early 50s, they told me that I was now a caregiver. And in addition to caring for my wife, they said I have to take good care of myself.

Alzheimer’s.org says that caregivers may find themselves with so many responsibilities that they neglect taking good care of themselves.

Apparently, these people know of what they speak.

Back in the late 1970s when my collegiate athletic career was over I became a runner. Okay, I became a jogger. Not quite running but faster than a brisk walk.  I even ran a 6:00 mile once. Once.

Running or jogging became very fashionable in the late 1970s, when Jim Fixx came out with his Complete Book of Running best seller. You remember, that red cover with his muscular, sculpted legs on it in a running position.

Colorful Nike running shoes were not just for the track & field athletes anymore. The average Joe and Joanne were now becoming joggers, filling the streets with short running shorts for those who could get away with it and warm-up suits for those of us who could not.

I never liked running, but after living an active collegiate life I had to find something to keep the weight off. Something to keep me in shape.  Plus, I found out the cold beer tasted that much better after a three mile run.

I guess I never did like running, but I loved having run.

When I was working as a graduate assistant in New England, having moved there from fun-in-the-sun Miami, I didn’t know anyone at first and had a lot of time on my own, so I began running.

When I met my future wife, Terry, she was the star of the college tennis team in the fall and ran on the track team in the spring.  Terry and I began our dating by running five miles together every lunchtime. Talk about your cheap dates.

When I left New England and began my current job, I continued the lunchtime running for years until my legs just couldn’t take it anymore. But I continued to work out midday, doing the old Stairmaster and playing around with the weights. Nothing serious, just something to give me a little tone.

That mid-day practice of working out continued for years, up until about a year or so ago. That is when I stopped working out and started going home every day for lunch.

It wasn’t to go home and eat, however, it was to take care of my wife.  A year or so after being diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, she could not go an entire day by herself. I had to go home and help her manage her day.

During the last year of not working out, I gained a considerable amount of weight.  The worst part is so did Terry. For the first 37 years that I knew Terry she was 5’2”, 102 pounds. The three times she was pregnant she went from 102 to 152 pounds, but always got back to her playing weight. Terry used to teach a 6am aerobics class at the YMCA so she knew how to drop the weight.

But over the last year, she has been unable to do much of anything on her own. I would take her for occasional walks, but she was so much less active now than ever before.

With our son coming home to live with us to help me in the day-to-day caregiving, I no longer need to go home at lunchtime every day. So I began working out again.

Boy am I out of shape!

The first day working out I lasted about five minutes on the stepper machine before I had to stop. I couldn’t breathe. I thought having a heart attack on the first day of working out again might put a damper on my regiment. I walked around the track for another half hour, but lasting just five minutes on the stepper machine really surprised me. I used to do that machine for 20 minutes, hard, and I was always soaking wet afterward. That machine always kicked my butt, but it didn’t hurt my legs like running did, so it was perfect.

It is still perfect, but I am much farther away from perfect. And I no longer worry about hurting my legs. It is my heart that I worry about. Wouldn’t want it to jump out of my chest like John Hurt’s scene in Alien.

Boy am I out of shape!

I think it was Lao Tzu who said “the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

In my case, one stepper machine.

It is going to be a long journey, but I am going to get back in shape. But not if it kills me.

That is the whole reason why I am trying to get back in shape. My vain days are long one. Anyone of my kids will tell you that when they see what I wear to the store.

No, I am not trying to get back into shape to look better. To impress the chicks.  No, now that I have reached the BIG 6-0, I have to keep myself in good health, to stay alive, for Terry.

I am her caregiver. She needs me more now than ever before. If I died tomorrow who would take care of Terry? I don’t want to put that burden on my kids.

All three of my kids have really stepped up and helped in the caregiving. Our oldest daughter takes Terry for long walks in scenic places, trying to get Terry some needed exercise.  Our youngest daughter comes home when she can to make us nutritious meals. And our son gave up his career to come back home and live with us, to help take care of Terry.

But I am still the main caregiver. That is my job and I can’t let anything happen to me that would prevent me from fulfilling my duties.

So I am going to get back in shape, to prolong my life, to better take care of Terry.

I just have to pace myself. Like I said, having a heart attack while working out might put a damper on things.

So for now I will take it slow. So I can continue to take care of my wife.

Until next time, slow and steady wins the race, and hopefully will make me stronger rather than kill me.

Bud

Team Effort

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I have always enjoyed being on a team. The comradery.  The sharing of the thrill of victory.  Having someone else to blame for the agony of defeat.

I grew up playing sports and have been on too many teams to count, whether it was Little League during the summer or bowling during the winter. I played on high school and college varsity teams, intramural teams and even as an adult on football and tennis teams.

I always liked playing tennis, an individual sport, but it was more fun, for me, being in a doubles league.

And for the past 38 years since graduating I have worked with college athletic teams, sharing with them their highs and lows.

Now I am part of another team, a team of caregivers for my wife Terry, who is in the middle stages of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease.

For the first two years or so after Terry was diagnosed I felt it was my job, my responsibility, to be the caregiver. Terry was my wife, my partner, to love and cherish in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, in good times and bad. Our kids had their own lives to live and I didn’t want to burden them with such a daunting task.

Despite all I read about how you shouldn’t try to handle this caregiving thing on your own, I knew I wanted to do it. What I didn’t know is that I couldn’t do it.  Not by myself. Not anymore, now that Terry’s condition has worsened to the point where there is very little she can do without guidance, without help.

Alzheimer’s.org says that being a caregiver for someone in the middle stages requires flexibility and patience, two virtues that I have never been accused of having much of. It says to take family and friends up on offers to help.  But I was resistant.

Until now.

Terry and I have been blessed with a great family, great kids, and great friends, who all want to help. And I have finally realized I need their help. Terry needs their help.

A large majority of caregivers are sons and daughters, taking care of their parent. But that is because a large majority of Alzheimer’s patients are elderly and many do not have a spouse anymore or at least a spouse who can take care of them.  So the child has to step up.

But my Terry is far from elderly, still in her mid-50s. (Although when I was in Little League someone in their 50s seemed elderly to me.)

Terry and I have been ‘empty nesters’ for some time now. Even when our youngest was still living at home it was only during the summer, since she was living on campus during the school year.

The kids always came home to visit, more so once they learned of their mother’s situation, but unless I had to go out of town for work it was more just to visit than to actually help with the caregiving.

But now they are helping in that manner. They have joined the team. Our youngest lives walking distance to where I work, so now if I have to cover a game in the evening Terry can visit with her.

Our oldest lives an hour or so away but continues to come home at least once a week to help out.

This weekend our son is moving back in with us. He gave up a lot to do it. But he wanted to help with the caregiving. He wanted to join the team, on a full-time basis.

I have always liked being on a team. This is a team that I wish did not have to exist, but it does. So now I am happy that I am not alone. I am not playing singles anymore; I have a doubles partner living at home. I have teammates who I can take Terry to or who can come home at the drop of a hat to help when needed.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who probably led his teams to more wins than anyone who ever played a sport (71 consecutive wins in high school, three national championships in college, six world championships in the NBA), once said “One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.”

I am finding that out now. I always liked having teammates. Now I need teammates.

Until next time, I will be learning how to be patient and flexible, with help from my teammates.

Bud