my story revisited #59-pat summitt my buddy revisited

MY STORT REVISITED #59-PAT SUMMITT MY BUDDY REVISITED

pat summitt the former coach of the tennessee womens basketball team was diagnosed with alzheimers disease and announced it on tv
she became the face of early alzheimers disease
i wrote a blog about her and her pr person contacted me and at one point suggested i be on a panel at her alzheimers organization seminar
it didnt work out though that i could do it 

we were diagnosed at the same time
she with mild alzheimers disease in its early stages 
she was able to coach another year before she had to quit
i was diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment due to alzheimers disease at about the same time as she was diagnosed
mild cognitive impairment is the stage right before early or mild alzheimers disease
both of our brain scans for amyloid would be positive
both or our spinal fluid analysis would be positive
both are memory tests would be abnormal but hers was worse than mine

she lasted a few years after that dying in the final stages of alzheimers
like after my youngers brothers progress with the disease i really thought that now 8 years later that i would be in the mid to late stages of alzheimers
but
luckily im not

below is my blog on pat summitt
__________
PAT SUMMITT MY BUDDY REVISITED
 
pat summitt is my buddy
after she announced that she had early alzheimers i posted a blog
about her called pat summitt my buddy
and got warm responses from people about that blog
it was sent to her office by several people and i got a nice
response from her pr person

we are buddies because we share the same diagnosis
we are buddies with the rest of those millions in the united states
with this diagnosis

it was hard to watch her this year on the sidelines
i recognize that stare
its the stare my mother my father and my younger brother
had and has
its part of the disease
the disease attacks parts of the brain and one thing that
happens is that facial expression or lack of one

i have a stare or so my wife she says and my sons they say and
the nurses that worked with me say i have
but thats not the stare im stalking about
thats the im pissed off stare

since writing this blog i have made contact with people all over
the united states and several countries who have the diagnosis or their
family member has or had the disease

one thing that happens to people many times is that they stay
in their jobs too long and either get fired or realize they cant
do their jobs any longer and quit
they stay too long

i chose because of my occupation as a physician and because i
was able to find out i had a problem before i made mistakes or
before anyone else noticed to quit as soon as i found out
i could not live with myself if i had stayed and harmed someone

in the adni study and via this blog and because of the two articles written
about me (see the upper right side of this blog)
ive made contact with a lot of
people who are still working because they have to or because they
want to but know that the day is coming when it will all end

there is a lot of people out there like this
many know and many dont know
as we are able to diagnosis people earlier the numbers we do
know about will increase greatly
we as a society will need to figure out what do do with all these
people
many like pat still have a lot of potential left and a lot to give

yes pat its time for you to go and stop coaching
it was obvious watching you
you are now a hindrance to the program it needs to move on

but pat you still have so much you can give to your university
i sure hope that they take advantage of this time you have where
you can still help them before the disease takes the rest of you
away

pat
i watched you for years read books about you and love to watch
the fire you have for your job
thats how ill remember you
we wish you the best
we wish you the best in the fight with this disease
we both know though that it wins eventually
but youll go out as a winner though

pat summitt my buddy
we all love you
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one of the points i made in my old blog was that folks with memory loss hang on to their jobs too long 
many arent diagnosed but end up getting fired for mistakes or poor job performance
i didnt want that to happen to me so once i found out for sure my diagnosis i resigned

early diagnosis can sometimes save you a lot of misery

the organicgreen doctor