pat summitt was my buddy

PAT SUMMITT WAS MY BUDDY

thats what i use to tell people all the time
i read her books
especially the last one about her fight with her diagnosis

i use to always try to watch her games on tv whenever
the tennessee women played
i loved to watch her coach
lets just say she was intense

thats how she approached her diagnosis
when it came
early onset alzheimers disease
mild
well thats where it starts mild then it goes on to worse
thats what happens at the end
it gets worse
things just quit working
death occurs

now
pat summitt and i were diagnosed about the same time
she went to the mayo clinic for her workup
i went to the universtiy of texas southwestern branch in dallas
for my workup
we got labs genetic tests memory tests mri scans etc

she got the worse diagnosis
mild alzheimers disease
i got the milder diagnosis
mild cognitive impairment amnestic type the precursor to alzheimers

we were both placed on meds
she on aricept and namenda
i on aricept

she was further along
she had early onset since she was diagnosed at 59
it seems to go faster than late onset
which it did
real fast it seems

back 5 years ago when she was diagnosed and i was diagnosed
i would watch her coaching on the sidelines
she stared seemed to miss stuff
i thought sadly
thats where i might be in 5 years

actually i really thought thats where i would be today

lucky for me
i am actually better

sadly for her
she went down hill
hitting that downward alzheimers decline that when its reached
it can happen fast
sliding down into those last days before death
a merciful event

at the time of her diagnosis she said
you cant always control what happens
but you can control how you handle it

that was her approach
she handled it with class
establishing along the way
the pat summitt foundation which has done a lot to advance
alzheimers education and research
she left her mark she did

i used her as my inspiration
i adopted her motto
to face my diagnosis in the open
to freely talk about it
to freely talk about alzheimers
and
to do what i can to advance the cause

she did her job
i am trying to do my job

i have gotten a delayed reprieve
which i want to take advantage of
since
like pat summitt
i feel the clock ticking
this disease always wins in the end

hopefully we can stop this trend

thanks for all you did pat summitt
you will be missed
thanks for the inspiration
may you r i p


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www.txalz.org/walk

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for the alzheimers texas williamson county walk on september 24th

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