By

Over the weekend, a woman I used to know died.

In the last 10 years of her life, this woman, from a small town in southeastern Kentucky, began showing signs of Alzheimer’s, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that has no cure and is eventually fatal.

She began by forgetting simple things like doctor’s appointments, or that she had already told me that my sweater looked nice. Her memory got progressively worse; she would forget where she was, or who she was with. She even attacked her husband of 55 years. “Who are you?” she would ask. “Where’s my husband?”

She tried several times to run away from home, once actually succeeding in climbing a fence that was as old as she was and escaping from the home she thought wasn’t her own.

At that point, her family decided it would be best to place her in a nursing home where a staff would have 24-hour watch over her, something her husband could no longer do. The disease continued to worsen, so much so that she was confined to a reclining chair that rolled around, losing her mobility, and eventually, her ability to speak.

Her husband had to watch as his wife slowly forgot every detail of her life. He continued to stand by her when she accused him of trying to kidnap her, and he visited her every day when she could no longer walk, talk or function on her own. He loved her until the day she died, even if she couldn’t remember to love him back.

This proud Kentucky woman’s story isn’t the only one.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, more than five million Americans are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and every 72 seconds another person develops the disease.

And yet, according to the Alzheimer’s Association Web site: “In February 2006, President George W. Bush proposed a budget representing the largest cuts in federal spending for Alzheimer research and programs in the history of the Alzheimer’s Association. Congress adjourned on Dec. 9, without agreeing on a final budget. As a result, funding continues flat at 2006 levels until Congress again addresses the budget issue in February 2007.”

How can we continue to let this disease go unchecked? Organizations like the Alzheimer’s Association are actively fighting for research for a cure to this terrible affliction. There have been significant strides in finding combinations of pills that help to control the affects of the disease, but not enough is being done to eradicate it.

Within a decade, baby boomers will begin to reach the target age of 65. Keep this in mind as you worry about the fate of your grandparents: 4.9 million of the 5.1 million people who have been given the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s are 65 or older.

If we do not find a cure for this disease soon, we will soon forget what it was like to remember.

With cancer or HIV/AIDS, the sufferer has months to years to prepare for their death. They have time to get their lives in order, to say good bye to their families. With victims of heart attacks life could be over within mere minutes, or a person can battle through and continue on with life. But with Alzheimer’s disease, there is no time to say goodbye. A person suffering from the disease may realize in the beginning stages that he or she isn’t remembering things like they used to, but as the disease progresses, there is no memory. There are just blank stares.

Not only does this disease cripple its sufferer, it attacks loved ones.

This woman who died was my grandmother. Her name was Betty June Creekmore. She had retired after more than 30 years of service as the baker for Cumberland College, a small, private school. She had been married to her husband, Lum, for 55 of her 79 years. She crocheted me blankets, made me chicken and star soup when I had chicken pox and said “moke” instead of smoke.

These last 10 years, she didn’t know me, but I loved her very much.