When you think about bad things that could happen in your life, what frightens you most? For me, it is quite a short list. 1) My daughter is seriously harmed. 2) I will have a bad accident and not be able to care for myself. 3) I will get dementia.
It seems as though I have been surrounded by dementia and Alzheimer’s disease my entire life. First, it was both my grandmothers. Then, my uncle and next my Dad. After that, it was my mother-in-law who has been incapacitated with vascular dementia for a more than a decade. Four years ago, my own mom started to show the first signs of what is probably Alzheimer’s. While medications have helped her immensely, they do not stop the steady march of the disease.
I’m often searching online for information about new trials or studies and I’ve read a stack of books on the subject. Larry King just hosted a very good special, Unthinkable, about Alzheimer’s that ran on CNN on May 1st. I’m hoping they will repeat it.
Today, I saw this article written by Erin Allday of the San Francisco Chronicle, “Going From Alzheimer’s Researcher to Patient”. The feature story centers on Rae Lyn Burke, a Northern-California career scientist specializing in vaccines, who was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s three years ago at age sixty. Initially devastated, Rae Lynn has decided to fight back. She’s currently taking part in a clinical trial testing a new vaccine to treat the disease—ironically, the very same vaccine that she helped develop a decade ago.
