Did you know...

The Alzheimer's Association (www.alz.org) is a great resource and all of the following statistics come from their website:

• Of Americans aged 65 and over, 1 in 9 has Alzheimer's, and 1 in 3 people aged 85 and older has the disease.
• Another American develops Alzheimer's disease every 68 seconds. In 2050, an American will develop the disease every 33 seconds.
• Alzheimer's is the only cause of death among the top 10 in America without a way to prevent it, cure it, or even slow its progression.

There are many more statistics but these are the ones that are the scariest to me. In my mind, it is because there was a boom in the population with the baby boomers, so as that generation ages a larger number of people are going to have Alzheimer's or dementia. This also means that there are going to be a greater number of caretakers as well as more money spent on care. 

There are already drastic changes to Medicare protocol that makes it increasingly difficult to have care covered. We ran into it with my dad. He was too healthy to have Medicare cover the cost of his care even though it was blatantly obvious that he needed more advanced care than my family could provide him. He had an amazing doctor at Beaches Baptist hospital who tried every test he could think of to find something wrong with my dad but to no avail. It causes this feeling of helplessness amongst caregivers and doctors. 

That leads me to another thing that annoys me about this disease. The horrible feelings that the caregivers end up feeling which are totally justified but yet feel guilty for feeling just the same. Is it wrong to feel relief once your loved one has been placed with in a home? No... but yet we still feel guilty for feeling relieved. And there are many more situations that cause the same type of feelings. It sucks and I wish there was a way to easily reprogram our minds and how we feel about a particular situation. 

So on another note, I tried again, unsuccessfully, to persuade my Grandma last  into making the decision to move to St. Pete. Instead, I ended up tasked with finding doctors for her down here. I don't mind, if it makes her more comfortable in making the decision to have all that defined and mapped out, then I'll gladly do it. 

I thank everyone for all of the positive feedback that I've been getting! I'm trying to keep it upbeat for the most part even though it's such a depressing subject so I decided to pick a funny Pop-ism today. My dad is color blind. He can see bright colors but all pastels look the same to him. He can see the nuances between shades of the same color but all the different colors in a similar shade look the same to him. So... hehehehe.... I used this to my advantage when I was in college. I had nail polish that was light blue... and while my dad was taking a nap one day... I painted his toenails pale blue... hehehe... he had no clue. Even looking down at his own feet... no idea... it was awesome! He didn't know until one day one of my brothers came over to talk to him on how to fix something and looked down at my dad's feet. My brother asked him why his toenails blue and my dad had no idea... I was outside and heard this exchange... it was awesome! My dad has a great sense of humor and was always one that enjoyed a great practical joke.