A Quote by Paul Coffey
My mother passed away of complications of dementia. As you get older, it really makes you realize how many people are touched by this disease.
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I've had five grandparents who have had Alzheimer's. I've been involved in raising money for two decades, so I thought, how could I combine my work with this commitment to helping dementia? One of the myths is that it's an older person's disease. We're seeing early onset dementia among people at 45. It's the disease of everybody.
Many physical illnesses are associated with depression and anxiety, including heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, stroke, kidney disease, lung disease, dementia and cancer.
There are so many people getting dementia. It is like an epidemic now. It is a terrible disease because once you get it, your life changes completely.
What happened in the 80's was that all the men died of AIDS. That was a particularly depressing time because so many people passed away and it was a very desperate and lonely time, so I think a lot of people felt that we were somehow, unreceived. Not only by the disease but also by the public image of the disease. It really gave homophobia a real shot in the arm and changed the way people viewed gays, queers. It became an entirely different atmosphere.
When I was in my early twenties, I fell in love at least 20 times a day. You have to be with someone where you think: if the world was full of people like you, I could not be monogamous. As you get older, you get to know yourself a little more. The older you get, the more you realize what you need. And you also realize how your choice in relationships is influenced by how you grew up. Now I feel like I've explored the dynamic of how I grew up, and I'm free to find someone who's really going to be a wonderful companion.
Seven hundred thousand people who have dementia in this country are not heard. I'm fortunate; I can be heard. Regrettably, it's amazing how people listen if you stand up in public and give away $1 million for research into the disease, as I have done.
Our natural thing to do when we break away from our parents and our family is to decide in how many ways they were wrong and bad, and the older you get you start to realize, "By 'bad' I mean 'different'" and then you get a little bit older and you think, "And by 'different' I mean 'pretty awesome but just not like me.'"
Being a very bad daughter, I never really took time to sit down and listen to my mother's story, and she passed away in 2003. I became very guilty and began to spend a lot of time with older people. I listened carefully to their stories.
My father passed away due to Alzheimer's disease, and many things I do are nods to him.
I have found that sharing this very intimate part of my life has been really powerful, because it has brought support from people I wasn't expecting. It's cathartic on many different levels. As I get older, I realize it's so much better to connect with people. It makes everything better to connect. Only connect. Why not have my art be about that? I think of it as moving from the third person to the first.
My father passed away after three years of debilitating disease, which transformed a very strong and bright man into a real wreck. And that is hard. You have to get out of that stronger, if you can, which I was lucky to be able to. I was the eldest of the family, and I had to support my mother and help my brothers.
I think my imagination and my passions are still firing away, but it's really the body that starts to make up the rules. It's not a major problem; it's just when you get a little older you realize how much your body thanks you when you are good to it.
In my opinion, everybody is getting older and older. We have a great deal of dementia because nobody grew old enough to get it.
People don't realize how many aspects of our lives are touched in one way or another by not just the discoveries, the technological breakthroughs, but the process of science.
There are times when I feel I've exposed too much but I also know what I do has touched people and I get so many young girls that tell me how it has helped them navigate through their own personal struggle and that makes it all worth it.
I spent a lot of time researching dementia, read papers on the subject, and also found a lot of dementia diaries on the Internet which were a great help in getting an insight into the disease.
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