Where To, Bud?

Don't worry. I'm not giving you a heads up, and wouldn't anyway. No. That isn't what this entry is about. What it is  about is my wondering, "How many of us diagnosed with Alzheimer's Dementia kill ourselves because of it?" The "short and dirty" answer is, no one knows. No one can  know for sure, because depression   is so prevalent in many of the diagnosed cases. Especially with those of us diagnosed as "Young Onset Alzheimer's" patients. Consider the following true story: A friend of mine, with whom I once worked in broadcasting, had a Grandmother who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's by her doctor, went home and promptly blew her brains out with a double barrel shotgun. How can you attribute that to Alzheimer's and be sure? The answer is, you can't.. You can't because there's no way to blame it. Not even if one leaves a "suicide note". You can say, "Well, he or she was so depressed beca...

It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to our dear friend and teammate Marty Neese, who passed yesterday evening at a local hospital due to complications with his heart and lungs. Team C2CR2C, consisting of myself, Dondra, Becky Purkiss and BillDL, will miss Marty, his enthusiasm and his love for people and animals. Each member of our cycling team played a very important part in making the two rides (our first was in 2008) a success, but we honestly could not have done it without Marty, and we spoke of this many times after the cross country rides from Texas to Georgia to benefit Humane Societies as well as the Spay, Neuter and Adopt project. Our friend had not had an easy time of it, having lost his 9 year old son, Joshua to Muscular Dystrophy  and his daughter Brandie to Ovarian Cancer at age 28 in 2010. Dondra and I, as well as our son Jason and daughter in law Susan and our grandson Julian considered him not only a friend and team member but a part of our family a...

Sorry to have been MIA for so long, guys and ladies, but there really hasn't been a whole lot news-worthy going on with the "German Boy" of late, so we'll make this entry a compilation of sorts, okay? So I finally had the eyelid surgery and am still recovering from that. I don't get out in public much anyway, but everyone who's seen me tells me I look like I've been "rode hard and put up wet". I'll post some "before and after" pictures a little later. =============================================================== =============================================================== In addition to posting to my blog, I have also begun writing about my dementia on my Facebook page. This gets news and information "out there" a little faster and gives me a chance to do some Q&A "live", as it were. If you, as a subscriber to my blog want to befriend me, find me under the name "Wilhelm Trommler" there. ...

Sunday, July 8th...... We aren't sure why, but during the night and early morning of that day Dondra began having seizures. Some so severe she bit into her lip deep enough to draw blood. Because of my sleep apnea and snoring, I sleep in a separate bedroom, so when those seizures began, I wasn't able to hear her crying out, so it wasn't until later Sunday morning that I heard her call my name, rushed into her bedroom just as she was going into another one. (She told Jason and I that she could actually "feel" herself about to go into one of them, and was aware of her surroundings). I immediately called 911 and Rescue and EMT's arrived within minutes. It was very fortunate that our son Jason and his wife Susan were here with us - they kept me calm and helped the EMT's with questions they had. Let me tell you something: I don't care if you've been trained one year or 20, when it's a loved one who is right in front of you, thrashing about, loo...

"Live today. Tomorrow is promised to no one" -- Proverbs 27:1 Julian is my 12 year old grandson and he's spending 3 weeks with us. I always enjoy his visits because he's such a good kid, very polite and like his Dad and myself, very good with animals. Yesterday he and his dad Jason (he and his wife Susan live with us in a small basement apartment) put together a mountain bike made from spare and junk parts gotten from a local bike shop's trash box and then went cycling together, Jason riding my bicycle, a Trek 1000. Anyway, Dondra and I are spoiling "TC" and are pretending while he is here, that he's our son even though we do have to share him. ================================================ ================================================ D o I love and care about Julian and my readers? ================================================= ================================================= That's it for today, but before I go, I want ...