My sisters and I started walking in the Walk to End Alzheimer's as our mom was diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment at the age of 61. We started noticing that our mom seemed to get confused about things we had spoken to her about or forget things a lot easier. She of course thought she was just getting "old" and was more forgetful. It started out with lots of tests and nothing being found. Basically once everything else was ruled out a neuro-psychologist diagnosed her with Mild Cognitive Impairment. It was progressing very quickly and thankfully her primary doctor had already prescribed her with medication to help the progression slow down. At that time my mom was still working a full-time job, a part-time job and basically doing everything she had always been doing. Here we are 8 years later and my mom is no longer working either job, is no longer able to drive, and has difficulty doing most basic tasks such as making a sandwich and getting dressed. She has trouble walking due to processing issues with her vision. We have hired a caregiver to help care for her during the week and we all help in evenings and weekends. My mom continues to be very positive & happy which is truly a blessing. She still knows who we all are which is a bigger blessing! We realize that someday this will more than likely change, but no one can tell us when so we treasure the moments we have now and rely on our faith in God to get us through what the future may bring.
When our mom was going through all of the testing, I don't think any one of us even thought about the possibility of dementia or Alzheimer's disease. We certainly had never heard of Mild Cognitive Impairment. My mom was just too young for us to even consider this type of diagnosis or so we thought. Everyone else that I knew that had family members with the disease were much older. What do we do now? How fast will it progress? How will we take care of her? These are all questions we continue to ask ourselves on a daily basis.
We are thankful for the Alzheimer's Association to provide our family with education, support, and research to hopefully one day find a cure!!
If you would like to walk with us, we would love to have you!!! If you feel compelled to donate to help us support other families who are or will be dealing with this disease we would greatly appreciate it!! We can always use prayers as well!
Thank you so much for reading my story!
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