Trick or Treat?

by Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and tonight is Halloween.

Are you ready to be scared? Do you like to be scared?  Like most kids, I used to love to be scared. When you are young and your imagination is so much more powerful, so much more active, it is so much more a part of your life. They say children’s use of their imagination helps in their cognitive development.

I wonder if it helps prevent their cognitive decline, like that of my wife Terry, who has Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. That is what scares me now.

When I was a kid there was a disc jockey in California named Barry Hansen who was syndicated across the country.  His “stage name” was Dr. Demento, and he was famous for playing off-beat ‘novelty songs.’

Novelty songs are the type of songs that Weird Al Yankovik writes and performs. Weird Al would turn classics like “My Sharona” by the Knack into “My Bologna” or Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” into “Another One Rides the Bus” and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” into “Eat It.”

Dr. Demento was the inspiration for the name of this blog, “A Demented Look at Dementia,” because people used to call me that moniker due to my ‘different’ outlook on life.

One of Dr. Demento’s first novelty songs that made it big was “The Monster Mash” which made it all the way to number one on the charts in October of 1962, just before Halloween. Bobby Picket used a Boris Karloff voice in the song and it has been a Halloween staple every year since.

I was six years old in 1962, prime age for being scared on “All Hallows’ Eve,” a celebration of the dead. I used to love to get ‘scared to death’ when I was a kid. Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein and Scooby Doo cartoons were about as hard core as I got back then. I also enjoyed the television shows The Twilight Zone and Outer Limits, but they were more on the cerebral level than on the spine-chilling scary level.

When I was in high school, when the testosterone began to kick in, we would test our limits on scary movies. Watching the classics like Hitchcock’s Psycho or Rear Window wasn’t good enough anymore, now that there were movies like Carrie, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and, coincidently, Halloween, with Michael Myers. We met our match, however, in the summer of ’74 when The Exorcist came out. If there was ever a scarier movie made, I have not seen it. Nor would I want to. The Exorcist is, to this day, the scariest movie I have ever seen.

I guess because it dealt with the devil, Satan, and it seemed like it could happen.

When our kids were little my wife Terry would make their costumes and they usually turned out pretty good. I remember one year the three of them were M&Ms.

Since Terry began studying the Bible, however, she wants no parts of Halloween. Its roots are pagan, she claims. It originated in Ireland as the pagan Celtic harvest festival, and is associated with the occult. Witchcraft is a real thing, not just costumes of black robes and wide, pointy hats with broomsticks.

The ‘Jack O’ Lantern’ is an ancient symbol of a damned soul.  And All Hallows Eve was originally a festival of fire for the dead and the powers of darkness. A night when the dead supposedly stalked the countryside, and offerings of food and drink were put out for the ghosts and they passed by.

Trick or Treat?

Superstitions linking cats with reincarnation made them special objects of notice on Halloween. Numerous legends surrounded the holiday, but two significant things supposedly occurred on Halloween. It was believed that the dead would rise out of their graves and wander the countryside. Second, it was the supreme night of Demonic jubilation, the celebration of the beginning of ‘Winter and Darkness’ as day light grew shorter and night longer. The hoards of hell would roam the earth in a wild celebration of darkness and death. The only thing superstitious people knew to do to protect themselves was to masquerade as one of them, wearing costumes of devils, witches, etc.

For me, Halloween is simply something to be celebrated by children, amused by costumes and masks, collecting candy, decorating pumpkins, watching a scary show.

When my son was in college he took great pleasure in discovering that, in his words, “Halloween is an excuse for girls to dress slutty.”

Christians have tied Halloween in with All Saints Day on November 1 and All Souls Day on November 2.

Halloween has been a little strange the last few years where I live. Two years ago a trick-or-treater came to our neighborhood dressed as Hurricane Sandy and did some major damage. I can’t remember Mischief Night ever being that bad. We had so many large trees downed by wind fall, some falling on cars and houses, wires, doing incredible damage. We were without power for days just prior to Halloween, causing the festivities to be cancelled.

This year I am expecting the usual crowd of kids coming to the house in full costume, and then later on the teenagers who are way too old to be trick-or-treating to come by.

Me, I am doing what a lot of little kids are doing; using my imagination and pretending I am something I am not. Tonight I will pretend I am not a caregiver.

I am scared enough of the time, worrying about my wife, worrying about the future. Tonight I will enjoy seeing the little ones all dressed up and having a good time. I will remember the ‘good ole days’ when our kids were little. I will remember a more innocent time.

But I won’t be scared. Not tonight.

Until next time, Happy Halloween

Bud

Viruses

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I have been reading about and dealing a lot with viruses lately.  Don’t worry, I am not contagious.

Virus is a Latin word that means to poison.

A virus is a small infectious agent that replicates inside the living cells of other organisms. These disease-bearing organisms are transmitted in different ways.

Unless you have been living way off the grid, or under a rock, or in Camden, NJ, (which could be a combination of the first two), you have probably heard of the Ebola virus.

They say the Ebola virus comes from Fruit bats in Africa, who carry it without being harmed. Little flying ‘typhoid Marys’. So unless you run into a Megabat, or someone who has been infected by the disease, you should be okay. And even if you do run into someone infected with Ebola, there has to be direct contact with the blood or body fluids of an infected person after symptoms have developed in order to catch it.

If you are a reader of this blog and have yet to catch the Ebola virus you may have noticed that I like to add a graphic or two to the weekly posts. Last week when I downloaded the “Perspective” graphics, one of them came with a new computer virus called Rasom-Ware that corrupted every file in my computer. Needless to say, this “inconvenience” has disrupted my ability to work efficiently, causing me to have to ‘re-invent the wheel,” not to mention many large documents, on numerous occasions.

That is why there are no graphics with this week’s post. Once bitten, twice shy. (not bitten by the fruit bat, that would be once bitten, twice as bad as dead)

I was told by our Office of Information Technologies personnel that as of now there is no cure for the Rasom-Ware.  You have no idea how much I hate hearing that line. I’ve been hearing that line way too often over the last year. “Sorry Bud, there is no cure for your wife’s Alzheimer’s.”

There is another virus I heard of somewhere along the line called a root virus.  Personally, I felt my home was recently infected by that one. A cluster of roots was recently discovered underneath my house, after they entered the drain below my bathroom and corrupted our ability to flush.

Now, I could understand how Andy Dufresne could go into such a drain to escape Shawshank and get his redemption (although I could never do that. I mean what if he got to the end of that 500 yard drain and it had a locked gate on it. What was he going to do, crawl backwards for 500 yards?)

But I can’t understand why a system of roots would ever want to go near the bottom of my toilet. I am sure if they knew what they were getting themselves into they would just as soon curl up and die. When I got the bill from the plumbers I felt like curling up into a fetal position as well. But, at least now I can flush in my own home again.

I later found out that a root virus is really closer to the one that infected my computer than to the one that infected my plumbing.

I have also read that some researchers in the United Kingdom believe the herpes simplex virus can cause Alzheimer’s Disease, since they have found localization of herpes DNA within the amyloid plagues in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. They feel the virus behind cold sores is a major cause of those damn plaques.  The good news is that they feel a vaccination against that virus could prevent the development of Alzheimer’s.  Unfortunately, it does nothing for the patients who already have Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, like my wife Terry.

There is also another virus, so to speak, involving Alzheimer’s Disease. Neil deGrasse Tyson, a famous astrophysicist and the director of the Hayden Planetarium, once said that “Ignorance is a virus, and once it starts spreading it can only be cured by reason. For the sake of humanity, we must be that cure.”

Tyson used to host the NOVA science television show on PBS, as well as the sequel to the Carl Sagan show Cosmos. Although I do not agree with his agnostic beliefs, I do agree with his stance on ignorance.

This month everyone is wearing pink to support the fight against breast cancer. And I support that. I’m confident enough in my masculinity that I’m not afraid to wear my pink tie. It is for a good cause. Susan B. Komen and her Races for the Cure are great. The NFL has gotten away from that a bit, concentrating on more of a ‘manly’ disease, namely prostate cancer. College basketball coaches have Coaches vs. Cancer tournaments and wear sneakers instead of dress shows at selected games to “Stand Up 2 Cancer.”

These causes are all very worthy, but what these people don’t realize is that more people die each year of Alzheimer’s Disease than breast cancer and prostate cancer COMBINED.

It is like what I mentioned in a previous blog post about the ice water bucket challenge. It raised a great deal of money and awareness for ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s Disease). But I bet more of those drenched people know someone with Alzheimer’s Disease than ALS. I bet more people know someone with Alzheimer’s than breast cancer, or prostate cancer.

So for the sake of humanity, we must be the cure. We need to raise awareness about Alzheimer’s.

NAPA is the National Alzheimer’s Project Act that was signed into law in 2011. This law requires the development of a national plan to accelerate research toward the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s, and to improve care, services and support to people with Alzheimer’s, families and even caregivers like me.

I was thinking more of a grass roots type of plan. (and not the type of roots that were corrupting my toilet). A plan driven by the community, on the local level. If people make a big enough stink about it, (again, not talking about my toilet), things will get done.

So that is why I continue to write this blog. The last time I checked there were over 11,000 views of this blog. Hopefully more and more people will realize how many people are affected by this disease, and decide to do something about it. Before it affects someone they know. Before it affects them.

McAfee, Bitdefender and BullGuard are all popular virus removers for your computer. Except at this point there is no cure for the Rasom-Ware that is on my computer.

And there is no cure for the Alzheimer’s Disease that has infected my wife.

For the sake of humanity, we must be that cure.

Until next time, I hope at least my bathroom is cured.

Bud

Perspective

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I have come to realize that a year can make a big difference in one’s perspective. In my perspective.

One year ago this week I took my wife Terry to a neurologist because I was very concerned with her mental health. My concern proved to be justified, unfortunately, when she was eventually diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease.

This past week I took her back to the same neurologist.

On both occasions, the good doctor asked her the same 30 questions.

On both occasions she answered the same questions correctly, and she answered the same questions incorrectly. She was able to perform the same tasks she could perform last year, and she was unable to perform the same tasks she had trouble with last year.

The clock she tried to draw looked like a Picasso painting.

On the first visit, Terry and I left the doctor’s office overwhelmed.  Terry was in tears. I was holding it together, for her sake, until I was alone later that evening.  Then, alone in my back yard, I wept like I had never wept in my life. More so than when my mother passed away when I was 43 years old. More so than when my father passed away, 10 years later.

The reason Terry and I wept that day one year ago was because she was unable to answer some of the doctor’s questions, unable to perform some of the tasks he had asked her to perform. Tasks and questions that an average 12 year old could perform and answer with ease.

But this year was different.  After what we’ve learned in the last year about Alzheimer’s Disease, I have a different mindset. I have a different viewpoint. A different frame of reference.

This year, this week, I was happy with Terry’s answers. Really happy.  Because I have a different perspective.

Terry once again felt bad with the results of the doctor’s appointment. She felt disappointed, maybe even ashamed, with the results, because she was unable to answer the questions she knows she should have been able to answer.

I was happy. Happy because she was able to perform the same way she performed one year ago.

According to the doctor’s tests, she is NOT GETTNG WORSE!!

At least not MUCH worse. At least not yet. 

Alzheimer’s Disease is a cruel disease that ONLY gets worse. There is no cure. There is no getting better. There is only getting worse.

But Terry did not get worse in the last year, at least in the neurologist’s quiz. And that is great news to me.

I am not kidding myself. I know Terry is not the same as she was a year ago. She can no longer do many tasks she could do a year ago. But the meds she has been taking since the spring seem to be working! Her diet of fish oils and coconut oil seems to be helping. Her decline appears to have slowed down.

That is great news. My prayers have been answered.  In my prayers I never asked for a cure. That would be like asking for peace in the Middle East. That part of the world has been screwed up since day one and always will be. Peace in the Middle East? Not gonna happen.

No, I asked for a cease fire. A treaty. A temporary peace. Could the plaques and the tangles forming in Terry’s brain please take a flippin day off once in a while?

The jury is still out, until we get the results of the EEG and the MRI. But for now, I am happy. The happiest I’ve been in a long time. In at least a year.

We have to continue to work her brain like any other muscle in her body. Crossword puzzles or Sudoku I am afraid are no longer doable for her. But she still likes to put together jigsaw puzzles. Terry still beats me in Wheel of Fortune. And I’ve found out that by using the pause button on the remote control, she is able to answer Jeopardy questions before the contestants do. She might not be as fast as she once was (I often tell Terry with a smile that she does things ‘half fast’), but the information is still up there and she can sometimes still find it.

What a difference a year makes, when it comes to how you look at things.  I wonder how I will be looking at things in another year.

Until next time, try to keep things in perspective.

Bud

One Year and Counting

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and my wife Terry and I have an anniversary coming up this week. I don’t think we will be commemorating it or celebrating it, however.

A year ago this week I first took Terry to see the neurologist.  The CRS (Can’t Remember Shit) she was suffering from during the spring and summer of 2013 had gotten to the point where I knew something major was wrong.

Her primary physician said, because of Terry’s age and the fact that none of her tests showed anything wrong, that it was simply menopausal. I feared that I knew better. I knew it was worse than that.

At the neurologist’s office Terry and I sat in the waiting room and I mentioned to her that the date was October 10 and that it was 10am. “Hey, 10-10 at 10,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “Too bad you aren’t a ten,” I joked. She laughed. She always laughs at my jokes. Not that all of my jokes are funny.  Far from it. But like they say, ‘love is blind.’ In the Merchant of Venice Shakespeare wrote But love is blind and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit. For if they could Cupid would blush to see me thus transformed to a boy.

Not just in Shakespeare, but in reality, love truly is blind. That’s not just a figure of speech.  Research has found that feelings of love suppress the activity of the areas of the brain that control critical thought.

Back to Terry’s brain.

Last October the neurologist began our appointment by asking Terry to remember three things; an apple, a penny and a table. People with normal cognitive function would probably do what I did; picture a table with an apple and a penny on it.

Then the neurologist asked Terry some questions that she got right. What is the biggest city near us? (Philadelphia). What time of year is it? (Fall). What state are we in? (Pennsylvania). What is this I am holding? (a pen).  Great!  But then he asked some questions she got wrong. What is today’s date? Terry guessed “October 11 or 12?” Just 15 minutes after I made the joke about the 10’s.  He asked her what floor we were on. She guessed “Second?” Now in Terry’s defense, we had never been in that building before, but we were on the first floor. We had just walked right into the building from the parking lot and went down the hall to the office. He then asked her what the three things were that he asked her to remember. She could barely remember one of them.

The part of the interview that really got to me was when the neurologist asked Terry to draw a clock, and to make the time 11:30. I never saw the drawing but because of the time she spent trying to draw it combined with his reaction to it, I realized that she did not do very well. I don’t even think she had 12 numbers on it.

The doctor said that “something was definitely going on up there,” but he didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. He ordered an E.E.G. and said we needed to see a neuropsychologist.

From the research I had done, I knew all too well what ‘see a neuropsychologist’ meant.  I refused to accept that. So all winter we went to countless doctors, searching for different things it could be. We had Terry tested for Lyme disease. We had her thyroid checked. Doctors found suspicious nods on her thyroid years ago and took half of it out, but it was normal and the tests last winter were also normal. Terry has a couple of herniated discs so we had MRIs and X-rays taken to see if maybe that was the cause of her CRS.

All the tests came back normal.

SHIT!

So, we finally went to see the neuropsychologists in the spring.  They ran Terry through several days of testing and eventually confirmed our darkest fears.  Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease.

SHIT, SHIT!!

That was six months ago. Since then the neurologist has had Terry on donepezil and Namenda (and for some reason the Namenda has become harder and harder to get every month. Two months ago the local drug store sent me to one several miles away to get it because they were all out. This month I had to change to a different chain of drug stores and even had to go out of state to find a store that had it in stock). I have been feeding Terry a steady diet of fish (salmon, tuna steak, tuna fish, swordfish steaks), coconut oil (mix it with everything) eggs and donuts (fried foods help counteract the side effects of the donepezil).

So next week we are going back to the neurologist. He will give her another E.E.G. and ask her more questions. I am so tempted to but I will not help Terry cram for the test. I don’t want a false reading. I want to know exactly how she has changed in the last year.

Check that. I don’t WANT to know, but I HAVE to know. The doctor NEEDS to know.

Over this past year, and especially the last six months since the great doctors at the Loyola Clinical Center came up with their conclusion, my relationship with my best friend has changed.

Terry used to be my partner. Even though in her religious beliefs the husband is in charge and the wife is subordinate to him (as the Bible states, I think somewhere in Ephesians), I have never felt that way and I have never acted that way. We were partners, 50-50. I changed as many diapers as Terry did when the kids were young and I was home. I did as many dishes and as much laundry as Terry did. I swept and vacuumed just as much. I cooked as much as Terry did.

We would discuss money matters. Neither one of us would make a major decision concerning anything without discussing it with the other.

But now I am afraid our relationship has changed. I make all of the decisions now. Terry is now more like a ward, and I am more like a caregiver.

Check that. I am not more like a caregiver, I AM a caregiver.

Not exactly my role of choice.

Kids growing up want to be firemen, cowboys, doctors (I did like to play doctor when I was younger but that is a different story).  

Growing up I wanted to be a sports writer. Oscar Madison was my role model.  As I grew older I wanted to be Frank DeFord, Rick Reilly or Jason Stark.

Not a caregiver.

But now that I am a caregiver (I even have a yellow Promise Garden Flower to prove it) I have not only accepted the job of caregiver, I am pleased that I am able to be Terry’s caregiver. There is no one in the world who could be a better one for her.

Terry and I have had 36 great years together, 33 as true partners. That’s nowhere near enough. The first year, after we got married, was very different.  Unfortunately, the last year has been very different too. But for different reasons.

The traditional gift for a one-year anniversary is paper. A clean bill of health is the gift of paper we would receive in a perfect world, in my dreams, but I know that is not going to happen.

I am hoping that the neurologist gives us a sheet of paper saying that Terry is doing great, that there has been limited deterioration to her brain in the last year. That the meds, the fish oil and the coconut oil are working.

That would truly be something worth celebrating.

There is an old anniversary toast. “Remember the yesterdays, plan the tomorrows and celebrate today.”

In the last six months we’ve learned to live for today, and to enjoy each and every today. We try to remember the yesterdays, although Terry isn’t real good at that these days.  But I have her write in and read her memory book every day, which helps.

To tell the truth I haven’t really planned for the tomorrows. Not yet, anyway.

Hopefully the visit to the neurologist coming up next week will help us plan for the tomorrows.

Until next time, wish us a happy one year anniversary. I sure hope it is something worth celebrating.

Bud

Take a Walk

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and my wife Terry and I took a nice walk last Sunday.

It wasn’t 10,000 steps (which is approximately five miles and the recommended distance to walk over the course of a day for fitness and weight loss) but it was nice.

This time of year many people are taking nice walks, now that the air is a bit cooler and the trees are turning beautiful colors.

Besides, regular, brisk exercise of any kind can reduce stress and improve confidence, stamina, energy and life expectancy.

Life expectancy is the reason we were walking last Sunday.

This past weekend I took Terry back to her hometown of Pawtucket, Rhode Island (in New England it is pronounced ‘puh TUCK it, row DIE len’) for a Walk to End Alzheimer’s.

We were two of over 2,000 walkers in attendance, which broke all fundraising efforts in the history of the walk in the smallest state in the union.

Terry and I live in Southeastern Pennsylvania, and there is a Walk coming up in Philadelphia, but this past weekend is the Walk I needed to take her to. In addition to being in her home town, the Walk was in Slater Park, where Terry won many tennis trophies at the City Tennis Tournament in the 1970s.

At the Walk people are given large plastic flowers to carry. Blue flowers are for people who have Alzheimer’s. Yellow flowers are for the caregivers. Orange flowers are for people who contribute to the cause, and Purple flowers are for people who have lost loved ones to this horrible disease, the sixth leading cause of death in America.

Before the Walk started the organizing committee asked one person representing each of the four flower groups to come up on stage, and the emcee, local television anchorman Mike Montecalvo, said a few words about each one of them. Terry was one of the four people asked to come up on stage, holding her Blue flower, and he spoke of Terry coming home to the park where she was a tennis star for a “Walk to Remember.”

Talk about your tear-jerking moments.

Before that, when Terry and I were waiting for the festivities to begin, a woman came up to Terry and asked her where she got her flower. Terry looked to me for help. I showed the woman where the flowers are being given out and I told her “if you have any more questions, whatever you do, don’t ask someone who has a Blue flower.”

Terry got a big kick out of that. Even with her cognitive impairment due to her Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, she still has most of the personality I feel in love with 36 years ago. She can still laugh. She still has her sense of humor.

You would be hard pressed to find anything positive about having Alzheimer’s. But if there is a very, very remote consolation, it would be that my old jokes still make Terry laugh. No matter how many times I have told them.

I often ask Terry “How you feeling?” When she responds in a positive manner I always follow up with “Good, because you look like shit.” and she always laughs. Or I’ll say to her “you know I wouldn’t trade you for anything. What the hell would I get for you?”

However I have seemed to have lost some of my sense of humor recently. Or so I’ve been told.

A few people have told me that the reason they liked my blog in the beginning was because of my demented look at things. They liked how I was able to make them laugh in one paragraph and cry in another.  But they’ve said that lately there seems to be more crying and less laughing.

Well, as one of the top comedians of the 1970s, Steve Martin, used to say, “Excuuuusssse Meeeee!”

I saw Steve Martin perform when he first arrived on the scene in the late 1970s, wearing his white suit and the fake arrow through the head. No one older than two years old thinks a fake arrow through the head is funny, but the fact that Martin acted like HE thought it would be funny was classic.

I wonder why I do not seem as funny as in the past. I wonder if the plaques (abnormal clusters of protein fragments building up between nerve cells) and tangles (twisted strands of protein that destroy the vital cell transport system) forming in Terry’s brain have anything to do with that.

On the walk through Slater Park there were many volunteers along the way. As we walked past one I yelled out “Hi Lisa.” and I waved to her. She answered tentatively “Oh, hi.” with a big question mark on her smiling face that said “How does he know me? Do I know him?” The fact is we’ve never seen each other before, and most likely never will again.  But she was wearing a name tag. I told everyone within earshot: “She seemed bored but now I gave her something to think about the rest of the walk. That is going to bother her the rest of the day, trying to figure out who I am.”

I dread the day that Terry has that same look as Lisa had, wondering who I am. I dread even more the day I am given a Purple flower at one of these Walks.

When I first signed up for the Walk I donated $200, $100 for me and $100 for Terry. That was the minimal amount you had to donate to be given a tee shirt. Well, Terry’s family got into the donating act, and several of my old friends got into the act, and before you knew it there was over $1600 donated to the cause in Terry’s name.

Now what am I going to do with 16 tee shirts? I guess I’ll have to start a softball team.

We didn’t really get 16 tee shirts, but the Rhode Island Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association did get over $1600 from Team Larivee (Terry’s maiden name) and the Walk raised over $400,000, surpassing their goal.

So Terry and I were not the only ones who had a nice Walk on Sunday.

The Alzheimer’s Association works on a global, national and local level to enhance care and support for all those affected by Alzheimer’s and other dementias. They have local chapters across the country, providing services within each community. They have helplines offering advice and information. The organization runs close to 5,000 support groups.

And they Walk. The annual Walk to End Alzheimer’s is the world’s largest event to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer’s care, support and research. I am very grateful to my friends and family for donating to such a worthy cause.

Many people enjoy walking as a recreation and it is one of the best forms of exercise. For some walking is a way to enjoy nature and the outdoors and for others the physical, sporting and endurance aspect is more important.

Terry and I have always enjoyed walking, as we got older and could no longer run. Governments now recognize the benefits of walking for mental and physical health and are actively encouraging it. This growing emphasis on walking has arisen because people walk less nowadays than ever before.

Walking is one of the easiest ways to get the exercise you need to stay healthy. It is good for the heart and good for the brain. Mortality rates among retired people who walked less than one mile per day were nearly twice that among those who walked more than two miles per day.  In a study on walking and cognitive function, researchers found that women who walked the equivalent of an easy pace at least 1.5 hours per week had significantly better cognitive function and less cognitive decline than women who walked less than 40 minutes per week.

So we will continue to walk as much as we can.  Not as a fund raiser, but as a cognitive function raiser.

Until next time, take a walk.

Bud

Seasons Change

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and yesterday was the first official day of fall. I hate fall.

The Autumnal Equinox, I believe it is called, when there are 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. Equinox means when night and day are equal. It is the hallway point between when the sun rises at its northern most point along the horizon in June (the longest day of the year) and the southernmost point in December (the shortest day of the year).

Some people I know absolutely love the fall, with the beautiful foliage, the cool, crisp air, the aroma of spiced pumpkin lattes waffling from the local Starbucks.

Forgive me if I do not celebrate the harvest season.

Autumn in poetry, as well as in my own life, has often been associated with melancholy. As Frank Sinatra (and my father) used to sing, “It’s a long, long time from May to December, but the days grow short when you reach September.” I’ve always hated it when days grow shorter, at least as far as the sunlight goes.  

Many people turn inward, both mentally and physically, in the fall.

When I was a kid fall meant back to school. Ugh! I’ve never gotten over that, except for my four years in college. I loved going back to school when I was in college. But then I had good reason.  I went to college in fun-in-the-sun Miami, so for me it was just an extended summer.

Summer has always been my favorite season, by far. Growing up a baseball player, I was truly one of the boys of summer. I’ve never out-grown that.

And this past summer was like no other. To quote Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times… It was the season of Light; it was the season of Darkness.”

My wife Terry and I just enjoyed one of the best summers we’ve ever had. We did more things, we visited more relatives, we went on more trips, and we spent more time together, than any other summer in the 36 years we’ve known each other.

Unfortunately, the reason we made the absolute most out of this past summer, the reason we squeezed every ounce of enjoyment out of this past summer, was because of Terry’s diagnosis of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease.

It has been a year now since we’ve known something was seriously wrong, and back on that dark day in the spring when her condition was finally confirmed, we made it a point of emphasis to make the very most out of every day, every week, every month of this summer. And we succeeded.  It was truly a great summer.

But now summer is over. And Terry’s mental health is beginning to fall.

Turn of the century French poet Paul Verlaine wrote the Autumn Song, which has strong, painful feelings of sorrow. “All choked and pale, when the hour chimes, I remember days of old and I cry.”

Unfortunately, Terry and I can relate all too well.

Well before Verlaine, English poet John Keats wrote To Autumn, which speaks of the lush abundance of fall (harvesting of fruits and gourds) but also has a strong sense of melancholic reflection, as winter approaches and everything is dying.

I am afraid Terry’s winter is coming soon, much too soon. And I feel it very well could be our own winter of discontent. But unlike the way Shakespeare used that phrase in Richard III, I do not mean the time of our unhappiness has passed.  Far from it.

About 100 years ago Nobel Prize winning poet W.B. Yeats wrote The Wild Swans at Coole, where the changing of the seasons represents the aging process. “Upon the brimming water among the stones are nine-and-fifty swans” is in the first stanza and the poem ends with a question “By what lake’s edge or pool delight men’s eyes when I awake some day to find they have flown away?”

Terry is five-and-fifty years old, which should certainly be too young for me to have to worry about waking up one day soon to find that the woman who delight’s my eyes has flown away.

But it is not too young. Not anymore.

Fall is supposed to represent the golden years of our lives. Our summer truly was pure gold, but I am not looking forward to the fall.  I am not looking forward to Terry’s fall.

In the poem by Yeats, the end of summer and the beginning of fall represents the heartache of living in a time when “all’s changed” in the 19 years since he first saw the swans at the lake.

My dear wife Terry is changing right before my eyes, especially in the last 19 months.

Anastacia, an American singer/song writer who has had more success outside of the United States, wrote in her song Seasons Change:

Happy turns to sad

Sometimes life gets bad

Things get rearranged

Nothing stays the same

It just never ends

Here we go again

One thing still remains

Seasons change.

I think I made a point in one of my previous blog posts that I hate change, always have.   But I also made a point in previous posts that I was going to be more positive in the future. Look on the Brightside of Life. The glass is half full.  

So now Terry and I plan on making a concerted effort to enjoy this autumn. Maybe we’ll go apple picking. We’ll buy a pumpkin or two for the front of the house.  I have been known to enjoy a good Oktoberfest in the past. I might even go to Starbucks and buy a spiced pumpkin latte. Or better yet go somewhere that serves hard apple cider.

This fall we’ll continue to enjoy taking walks. With fewer mosquitos we’ll be able to enjoy our walks in the woods more. The sound of crunching leaves underfoot is always a pleasant one.  Maybe I’ll take Terry to a football game. My old high school team plays within walking distance of our house.

This weekend I’m taking Terry to her childhood home in Rhode Island for a Walk to End Alzheimer’s.  Fall always seems to arrive a bit sooner in New England.  The air is cooler up there, and soon it will be at our house as well. When it comes to Terry’s mental health, however, I just hope the temperatures are the only things that gradually decrease this fall.

On the ride up to New England we’ll enjoy the foliage, which has already begun up there. Once there we will enjoy visiting with Terry’s family.  And on the way home, we will begin to enjoy our time together this fall.

So yesterday was the first day of fall. And as the old 1960s expression goes, “Today is the first day of the rest of my life.”

I am afraid of what tomorrow will be. But we will try to make the most of it, with or without a spiced pumpkin latte.

Until next time, enjoy the foliage.

Bud

A Walk to Remember
by Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud, and I am taking my wife Terry home for a walk.

In 2005 Jon Bon Jovi asked “Who says you can’t go home?” on his Have a Nice Day album.

Well Jon, it was Thomas Wolfe, who wrote the novel You Can’t Go Home Again almost 100 years ago about a fledging author who makes references to his small hometown in a book that has national success, but the hometown folks don’t like the way they were portrayed and threaten to kill him.

That sounds like a pretty good reason to me not to go home again.

Like Thomas Wolfe, I’m afraid I used to say that to Terry too, when my work schedule did not allow us to visit her small hometown as often as she would like.

John and Paul, not the disciples (perhaps prophets though) but the great Lennon and McCartney, sang on the Let it Be album “You and I have memories, longer than the road that stretches out ahead…We’re on our way home, We’re going home” in the song Two of Us.

Long before MTV, before there were such things as music videos, the Beatles videotaped themselves performing Two of Us at Apple Studios. The clip was part of the Let it Be film, and was also shown on the Ed Sullivan Show, the final time the Beatles appeared on that famous variety show.

The two of us, Terry and I, have great memories of the 36 years we’ve known each other. Since her Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease has begun taking its toll, however, the more recent memories seem dim and distant. Sometimes nonexistent.

But the old ones are still there.

When we first began dating in the 1970s Terry was a standout tennis player. In addition to playing first singles on her college team, she won her local tennis tournament every summer. It got to the point where the women’s tournament was no longer a challenge for her so she played in the men’s tournament, and even won that one year.

The local park where she won all of those tennis trophies, Slater Park in Pawtucket, RI, is hosting a Walk to End Alzheimer’s September 28 and I am taking Terry home to walk in it.

Terry and I enjoy taking long walks, whether on the boardwalk down the shore, on the Delaware Canal tow path not far from our home or just around our neighborhood. Next weekend’s walk will be a bit different, I feel. Full of emotions.

Terry and I have traveled to her childhood home in Rhode Island every summer since we got married, when I took her 250 miles away to live. Her mother and half of her siblings still live in the New England area. This past year, since Terry’s diagnosis, I think we set an all-time PR (personal record) for visits to New England.

We even made a few ‘day trips’ to RI. Nine hours round trip in the car for six hours spent with her family. In the past I would have never done that.  But now it seems well worth it. Besides, Terry and I enjoy traveling together. She gets to listen to music, which is becoming more and more important, and we get to spend time together. Even if it is spent going 60 miles per hour.

Terry was also on her college track & field team. She and I would run five miles together during my lunch hour most days when we were dating. One of the fond memories we have of those runs is that she never did learn how to spit properly. I grew up a baseball player. If there was one thing I could do was spit. But not Terry. You never see tennis players spitting, but runners need to spit every once in a while. Terry would either wear it or get it on me half the time. True love.

We no longer run, but we do walk. The Walk to End Alzheimer’s is a three mile walk. No problem. It will bring back pleasant memories walking though the nice park, especially around the old tennis courts. Terry and I used to ‘hit’ on those courts. We never played a match, we just hit back and forth. I could never give her a game. Terry is 5’2”, 100 pounds, so she didn’t exactly overpower me with her shots, but you could put a handkerchief anyway on the court and she could put the ball right on it, with a serve, forehand or backhand.

I was a decent intramural tennis player in college and even played in an adult men’s doubles league back in the 1980s, but I was never close to being in Terry’s league.

Once I signed Terry and myself up for the Walk, I started receiving e-mails and a package in the mail about how to raise funds for the cause. Ways to gain sponsorship. Ways to recruit walkers and sponsors.

To be honest, that was not my intent. I realize it is a great cause, but the only reason why I donated a few hundred dollars was so Terry and I could walk in her hometown, in the park where she used to be the top dog.

Back in the late 1970s, tennis was big, really big. When Bjorn Borg and Chris Evert ruled the courts.  Unlike now, where courts are overgrown with grass growing through the cracks, neighborhood courts were always full in the ‘70s. You actually had to go to the courts and wait for an open court to play.

And at the Slater Park courts, everyone knew Terry, or at least knew who she was. She not only was the queen of the court, but her humble, shy personality along with her infectious smile made her a fan favorite. Guys loved to play tennis with her because she could hold her own with them. Women loved to play with her to see if they could knock her off, like the local gunslinger.  They never could.

That is why I signed Terry up for this walk, to go back to her old stomping grounds, where she stomped on all comers on the tennis court.

But then I started thinking about this as a fundraiser, and I am reminded of the recent ice bucket challenge.

Back in late July my son sent me a video of himself dumping a bucket of ice water (mostly ice cubes) on himself and challenging his old college suitemates and fellow triathletes to do the same. I thought it was just another outrageous thing he was doing, like the time in college when he ate, despite having a stuffed nose due to a cold, a spoonful of cinnamon in front of an entire college cafeteria, causing crying girls to call 911 in a panic when he started turning blue.

Then in August I saw everyone around the nation getting ice water dumped on them. It raised a shit load of money for ALS.

But it got me thinking.  Did any of these people who did this actually know anyone who is suffering from that horrible disease? Or did they do it because it was fashionable?

Once a year I used to give a spiel for the United Way at my department meetings. I would tell my colleagues that there are many great charities to give to, but unlike some, where your donation could go toward a nice desk for the corporation’s national headquarters, funds given to the United Way go directly to organizations right in your own hometown.

Of all those ice water-soaked people, I wonder how many of them know someone afflicted with Alzheimer’s. A grandparent, an aunt or uncle, a parent?  Maybe even a spouse?

I would bet money that more people know someone with Alzheimer’s than with Lou Gehrig’s disease.

But fundraising for Alzheimer’s is not fashionable right now. Despite the fact that Alzheimer’s disease is the only cause of death among the top 10 in America without a way to prevent, cure or even slow its progression.

Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in America. SIXTH! The top five are heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke and accidents. I don’t see ALS in there. ALS is not even in the top 10.

But it is in fashion.

Terry and I will be in fashion later this month, when we don our Walk to End Alzheimer’s tee shirts at Slater Park.

The next time you are choosing a cause to donate to, remember Alzheimer’s. It may help a loved one remember you.

Until next time, “We’re going home” for a walk to remember.

Bud

                                                   Terry circa 1978