Alzheimer's - You're On My Brain

Losing my mother to Early Onset Alzheimer's has been molding me and remolding me my whole adult life. She died in 2011.  I was 33.  I believe she had been living with the disease since I was in college, 1996-2000.  I can now see early signs when I look back at our relationship and weird events that happened which should have been clear "warning signs,"  But you don't know what you don't know, especially since "awareness of Alzheimer's symptoms" is very low - even though it's the 6th leading disease to cause death in the world.... and the only one without a single survivor. 

I turn 39 on May 17, 2017. That's 16 days from this post. I haven't written my Alzheimer's story before but feel like the time is now. Starting with this TED talk from Lisa Genova that just happened last week in Vancouver.  It again reminds me of living my life to the fullest for myself and family is the most important thing I can do. (Thanks for sharing, Dad!)

The importance of sleep, as Lisa Genova points out, is one of the ways we can fight Alzheimer's.  Since it's 3:09am right now, I'll save more thoughts on ALZ and go back to bed.  Sweet Charlotte, my four-year-old climbed into bed our at 1:24am, and my "everyone is asleep and you could be accomplishing stuff" brain lit up.  Thus this post and now the end of this post.  

Plus, back to bed is key since the second item that helps keep Alzheimer's at bay is exercise, and my alarm is set to go off at 5am to get my butt into the YMCA for spin class. 

Nighty Night - so much more to come. 

Lotsa Love,

Leah