Separation Part Two September 27, 2013

Since I wrote the previous blog, two spouses of folks in my Alzheimer Support Group died. These caregivers each devoted the past several years to keeping their spouses content and comfortable at home, only recently beginning to tackle the difficult process of separating by placing their loved ones in a care facility.

One woman lived for four weeks in a memory care facility with the assistance of hospice; the other became ill and was diagnosed with cancer, traveling back and forth from hospital to hospital while the physicians attempted to diagnose her condition.

Traumatic separations after years of mourning the losses of intimacy formed during long satisfying marriages. Attendance at a support group during the past year and a half has helped these spouses form relationships with other caregivers so they do not feel so alone with the challenges and losses they now face. Reading my book Put That Knife Away also assisted them in accepting the fact they are not alone in dealing with the difficulties of separation and the challenges of family and well-meaning friends.

I am now on respite in New York where I walked on  Sunday in Coney Island with the Brooklyn chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. We turned the boardwalk purple with more than 800 walkers raising $117,000 for Alzheimer disease research. There will be another walk in Manhattan by the Hudson River on Ocotber 20ieth and in the Southwest chapter in Arizona on Novmber 2nd.Participate wherever you live, raise funds to help find a cure. Contact your employer to get matching funds, form a team, earn your purple long-sleeved t-shirt. Participating helps me feel I am DOING something, not merely toleratng, accepting and waiting.