I often imagine what it would be like if my father were still here to mark his 100th birthday, if Alzheimer's hadn't clawed away years, possibilities, hopes. What would he think of all the commemorations and celebrations?
Patti DavisRead
I think the earlier stages of Alzheimer's are the hardest. Particularly because the person knows that they are losing awareness. They're aware that they're losing awareness, and you see them struggling.
Interpretation
The early stages of Alzheimer's are particularly difficult for both the individual and their loved ones due to the awareness of cognitive decline.
This quote by Patti Davis captures the profound struggle faced by individuals in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. It highlights the painful awareness that accompanies the loss of cognitive function, where the person realizes they are losing their grip on reality and memory. This awareness can lead to feelings of fear, frustration, and grief, not only for those affected but also for their families and caregivers as they witness the decline.
In practice
In a support group for families of Alzheimer's patients.
I often imagine what it would be like if my father were still here to mark his 100th birthday, if Alzheimer's hadn't clawed away years, possibilities, hopes. What would he think of all the commemorations and celebrations?
No one ever saw all of him. It took me nearly four decades to allow my father his shadows, his reserve, to sit silently with him and not clamor for something more.
Life Lesson 3: You can't rush grief. It has its own timetable. All you can do is make sure there are lots of soft places around - beds, pillows, arms, laps.
Because I've been so blessed with a background in nursing and spent so much time with patients at a really intimate, vulnerable time in their lives, the one lesson I've learned is that you never turn down a challenge where you can keep your creative integrity and your heart and soul and your sense of self.
You're nobody 'til somebody kills you.
Life can't defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death.
Leisure only means a chance to do other jobs that demand attention.
I focus on very few things in life - my work, my family, my friends. Those things are important to me and I pay good attention to them, and everything else just comes and goes.
Sometimes it takes a wake-up call, doesn't it, to alert us to the fact that we're hurrying through our lives instead of actually living them; that we're living the fast life instead of the good life. And I think, for many people, that wake-up call takes the form of an illness.
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