Memoir EPISODES

Until his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Mark Wilson was a human resources executive at Taco Bell. Doctors gave his widowed mom six years to live. Mark retired, moved back home, back to the bedroom of his childhood. And he made a plan. He drew on his corporate experience to build a caregiving team of five aides who cared for his mother 24/7. He researched how particular foods might help his mother and he took over the cooking. He searched for a doctor to help his mother with a ...

Former governor of Wisconsin, Martin L. Schreiber ("Marty") married his high school sweetheart, Elaine. Sixty-two years later, she died from Alzheimer's Disease. To help other spouses on the same dementia caregiving journey, Marty wrote a memoir: My Two Elaines. In it, he says, “None of the books I read conveyed the ugly truth about caregiving: that it can destroy you – even kill you – if you go about it wrong.” Marty also wrote the memoir to help heal his own heart. Recounting his ignorance, frustration, and anger, Marty says he was not a very good caregiver. He talks about how having to ask for help challenged his sense of masculinity, something many men of his generation struggle with. He also talks about coping with alcohol, what he calls "the caregiver's poison," until his children intervened and made him see what he was doing to himself.

Mary Lou Falcone became a caregiver when her father had a massive stroke. She was 10 years old. The experience prepared her for the day, many years later, when her husband, illustrator and 1950s rocker Nicky Zann, was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia...