To the Editor:
Re “My Mom Showed Me Life With Alzheimer’s Is Worth Living,” by Stephen Gettinger (Opinion guest essay, June 10):
I watched my mom disintegrate over a decade, the dementia robbing her of any semblance of quality to her days. And while I, now 72, am not at the point where I feel that diagnosis is imminent, so many of the symptoms exhibited by the author in the days leading up to his hearing that dreaded word applied to him are now clearly evident in me.
I fear the inevitability of that day. And I wonder, if and when it comes, will I deal with it with resignation or grace? Will I be able to accept my fate and cherish what remains, or rail against the gods for robbing me of my essential being?
Watching my mom disappear from view was one of the hardest things both my sister and I could ever imagine. And though there were moments of light (she sang along with Sinatra tunes even when she could no longer speak), those final years do often haunt me. Both as to the past and the possibility of my own future.
Robert S. Nussbaum
Fort Lee, N.J.
To the Editor:
The beautifully written and supportive essay by Stephen Gettinger about his mother’s journey with Alzheimer’s and his own diagnosis should be read by all families and patients facing this debilitating disease.
We are all facing the “end of life” from the moment of our birth, but with each new arthritic joint, loss of hearing a high note or forgetting a name, the reality of our situation comes increasingly into focus. Adapting and planning are crucial for ending life with equanimity.
I strongly recommend the tools so well assembled by the organization Compassion and Choices. In particular, working through the details necessary to make your wishes known while you still can (if you are facing dementia) could be one of the greatest gifts you could give your family.
L. Michael Glodé
Golden, Colo.
The writer, a physician, is professor emeritus at the University of Colorado Cancer Center.
To the Editor:
Thank you, Stephen Gettinger, for a breath of sweet air on this topic. My husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s two years ago, at age 75. I was filled with panic and despair. The message I seemed to always hear was “prepare yourself; it just gets worse.”
Well, no. My husband is an incredibly upbeat, glass-is-overflowing and “wow, look at that amazing building, tree, painting” kind of man. This disease hasn’t slowed him or shaken him, and his positivity has turned my anxiety into wonder.
A doctor told him early on that “we don’t know the future,” and my husband has taken that to heart. He sees his future as still filled with joy and good times. Yes, there are issues. Words can be hard to find. Math is a challenge.
But if he can persevere, so can I. I’m learning.
Ziporah Janowski
Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.
To the Editor:
“A cheerier outlook” for Alzheimer’s? Is he serious?
Contact the thousands of caregivers who buy food, prepare meals, search out doctors, make appointments, go to appointments, order medicines, administer medicines, struggle to pay co-pays for medicines, change bed linens — or those who give up their jobs, sell their homes, become strangers to their families, cannot afford assisted living or home health aides, burn through their savings, struggle with their own sanity and so much more.
To put a positive spin on a horrible, as yet incurable and mysterious disease is an appalling affront to those of us who suffer (including the patients) with all forms and stages of dementia. To put such an essay front and center is a slap in our faces!
Come live in our world!
Lois Waltzer
Delray Beach, Fla.
To the Editor:
I am glad that Stephen Gettinger is finding some positive aspects in his experience of Alzheimer’s. Like Mr. Gettinger, I also saw my mother die with Alzheimer’s, after 12 years of this terrible disease.
In contrast to Mr. Gettinger, I am doing everything in my power to ensure that I will be able to end my life should I get that diagnosis. My son and I have already agreed that he will accompany me to Switzerland for assisted suicide if necessary.
I wish that our society would respect my wishes as it does Mr. Gettinger’s, and not put me to the cruel choice of leaving friends, home and family behind just when I will want them most.
Dena S. Davis
New York
The writer is emerita professor of bioethics and religion studies at Lehigh University.
Dementia and My Mom
To the Editor:
Re “A Catalog of Losses — and Laughs,” by Cornelia Channing (Opinion guest essay, June 16):
Good for Ms. Channing for finding ways to get “a chuckle” from her father, who had dementia.
When I became my mother’s family caregiver after she was diagnosed with senile dementia, I too looked for ways to make Mom laugh, or at the very least, to smile.
One morning, after tying her sneaker laces, I teased her, “Well, Mom, I guess we can call this payback time.” She looked at me quizzically, then started to chuckle.
“Payback time,” she said, relishing the words. As if she had just realized something momentous: She was cashing in on all her years of good mothering.
She would repeat those words often in the time I cared for her. We would both chuckle.
Kathy King Wouk
New York
The B.D.S. Movement
To the Editor:
“Bowman Makes Amends After Rift Over Israel” (news article, June 11) describes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel as a program “which aims to marshal political and economic pressure on Israel to improve conditions for Palestinians.”
Actually, the co-founder of the B.D.S. movement, Omar Barghouti, has said that his goal is not merely to “improve conditions for Palestinians,” but to eliminate the Jewish state altogether.
For example, in a panel discussion in 2014, Mr. Barghouti declared: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian, rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, would ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”
Rafael Medoff
Washington
The writer is director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
The Dangers of Factory Farms
To the Editor:
Re “Factory Farms Are Helping Bird Flu Spread,” by David Quammen (Opinion guest essay, June 13):
In the 1950s I grew up in Connecticut on a family farm, not a factory farm, and it was a one-man operation. My father refused to feed our chickens medicated feed because he recognized instinctively that it would be dangerous. And he did not overcrowd them in our four coops.
When it became impossible for an independent farmer to survive, my father stopped raising chickens, refusing to be governed on his own farm by an enormous corporation that was interested in profits before safety.
During the 1960s that farm financed seven years of Ivy League education for me, education for which I will be forever grateful. But I also shall be forever proud that my father, without a college education, had the insight to understand the dangers that factory farms present to the world.
Judith Seplowitz Ziss
Falmouth, Mass.