AlzAuthors: Rebecca Thesman - How a Long-Distance Caregiver Learns to Cope

By RJ Thesman 

When the memory thief first visited our family, we didn’t think much about it. Mom was, after all, fully capable of caring for herself and she was in good health.

But gradually, ever so subtly, the memory thief began to take from her the basics of life: where she stored her pots and pans, how to read a recipe and produce the finished product, how to find her way home from the grocery store.

The resulting prognosis surprised and challenged us. Alzheimer’s Disease plus an inoperable brain tumor – no cure, no solutions. Mom could no longer stay in her home.

My siblings and I worked together, hoping for an easy transition, but Mom has always been an independent, stubborn woman. It was the doctor who had to be the bad guy as we took away her car keys, “The doctor says you can no longer drive,” then, as we found a beautiful assisted living facility, “The doctor says you cannot live alone.”

Swim Season Nominated for InD'tale Magazine's Annual RONE Award!

  

I'm proud to announce that Swim Season, my  YA  novel released in October, 2016, was nominated for a RONE Award! 

The prestigious RONE (Reward Of Novel Excellence) Award  honors the very best books in the Indie and small publishing industry. Achieving this award is no easy feat, with three distinct hurdles to clear.

First hurdle: Your book must be read and reviewed by the magazine's professional staff of reviewers and awarded a 4 out of 5 star rating to qualify as a nominee. Swim Season was awarded 4 stars. You can read the review here.

Second hurdle: In order to move on in the competition, all books rated 4 stars are voted on by the reading public (the 5 star books advance automatically.)  The books with the highest number of public votes will move on to become finalists. So, this is where you come in. I need your vote! But it's a win-win: You can help me to advance and at the same time discover a terrific, professionally produced digital readers' magazine, for FREE. You'll love it. So let's get started! (If you're already into the magazine you can skip steps one and two and go on to step three.)

Meet Cynthia Hamilton, author of "Finding Ruth"

By Cynthia Hamilton

It took a life-altering crisis to make me realize that despite having known my mom for 50+ years, I didn’t know who she was as a person in her own right. I had firsthand knowledge of many of her trials and heartaches, but that only gave me a one-sided view of what her life had been like, with many gaps.

Nothing I knew about her had prepared me for what I found prior to her move into a nursing home. In the process of rummaging through eight decades of possessions, I came across an old photo album under her bed. As I opened it, an insert slid out, revealing a photo taken when she was 19 years old. The sight of her hamming it up for the photographer, so happy and confident, completely knocked me for a loop. Who was this person? Why didn’t I know anything about that time in her life? How could I know so little about my own mother?

New Release Spotlight: Mrs. Tedesco's Missing Cookbook, YA Mystery

 

MRS. TEDESCO’S MISSING COOKBOOK

This week marks the release of Mrs. Tedesco’s Missing Cookbook – a new addition to the Hannah and Tamar Mystery series for young adults and teens, written by Christa Nardi and Cassidy Salem.

Description

A simple request opens up a savory mystery. 

Hannah never imagined her high school service project with the elderly would draw her into another mystery. Mrs. Tedesco, a lonely widow who loves to bake, has just one simple request — that the teen retrieve her cookbook from her old house. Easier said than done. The house has been ransacked and the coveted cookbook is nowhere to be found. Eager to help the woman, Hannah and her sister, Tamar, are driven to locate the cookbook and uncover its secrets. But the teens aren’t the only ones seeking the cookbook’s hidden treasures, and the other side is playing for keeps.

Mrs. Tedesco’s Missing Cookbook is available at a special introductory price of just $0.99. Click here to get your copy.

 

To celebrate the release, the first book in the series – The Mysterious Package –  will be free on Amazon from April 25-29, 2017.

 

About the Authors

Christa Nardi and Cassidy Salem are both accomplished mystery writers. Christa Nardi has penned the successful Cold Creek mystery series.  Cassidy Salem is the author of the Adina Donati, Accidental Sleuth mystery series.

 

Christa Nardi is and always has been an avid reader. Her favorite authors have shifted from Carolyn Keene and Earl Stanley Gardner to more contemporary mystery/crime authors over time, but mystery/crime along with romance and scifi/fantasy are her preferred choices for leisure reading. Christa Nardi is a pen name for a real life professor/psychologist from the Northeast.

 

Cassidy Salem is especially fond of mysteries (both cozy and traditional) and police procedurals. Over the years, her favorite mystery authors have included Agatha Christie, Caroline Keene, Mary Higgins Clark, and Janet Evanovich. Cassidy also enjoys reading historical fiction focused on American and world history, as well as the classics.

AlzAuthors: Elaine Pereira, I Will Never Forget

By Elaine Pereira, MA OTR/L CDC DP

My mother’s was a story that needed to be told. She was a kind, brilliant and talented woman all of my life until dementia took hold distorting her persona and leaving an agitated, bewildered and compromised person in its wake.

In what would be her final months, as my mother continued her rapid descent into Alzheimer’s clutches, her once strong voice faded away. Our quiet visits together afforded me the opportunity to reflect on the vivacious life that defined her. I was determined to remember her as the strong, courageous and gifted lady who was my mom.I Will Never Forget was written in tribute not only to my mother but to everyone going through this struggle. Too many sons and daughters have witnessed their parents’ very essence evaporate as their memories are chipped and chiseled away. My mother’s story is everyone’s story. I simply chose to put in black and white the colorful stories of her life for all to remember.

I was not a full-time caregiver for my mother. She had made it crystal clear that she never wanted to live with her “kids” if she could no longer care for herself, even when her “kids” were whittled down to one - just me - after the premature deaths of both of my brothers.

Regardless of whether you’re caring for a loved one at home or allocating daily care to an assisted living facility, Alzheimer’s leaves a permanent mark on everyone. You are forever changed, no matter how you experience the journey.

AlzAuthors: Dementia Advocate Pippa Kelly's Debut Novel

By Pippa Kelly

Before signing off the final proofs of my debut novel, I read the manuscript for the first time in over a year and realised that it was not just laced, but saturated, with guilt.Invisible Ink tells the story of Max Rivers, a young London lawyer who seems to have it all: a beautiful girlfriend, a burgeoning career, an enviable address – but he harbours a secret. When he and his younger brother Peter were schoolboys, Peter went missing, for which Max blames himself. So it’s fair to say that the novel is about guilt: Max’s guilt, which he tries (and ultimately fails) to suppress.

However, the guilt that I recognised in my writing wasn’t Max’s, it was mine.

I wrote Invisible Ink during the most difficult years of my life. I worked on successive drafts while both my elderly parents were very ill (mum had dementia, dad suffered a series of strokes) and when the pair of them were starting to take up more and more of my time and energy. Without realising it, I – like hundreds of thousands of others – became their carer, albeit at a distance.

This provoked in me a maelstrom of emotions, from pain and grief to resentment (at being taken away from my own life and family) and confusion – all overlain with an unyielding patina of guilt.

AlzAuthors: Rachel Wonderlin, "When Someone You Know Is Living in a Dementia Care Community"

By Rachael Wonderlin

I started my blog, Dementia By Day, three years ago. I had no idea, then, that it would become such a huge part of my life. At the time, I was working for Brookdale Senior Living in North Carolina. I had just finished my Master’s degree in Gerontology at UNC Greensboro, and I was thrilled about my first full-time job in dementia care. My title was “Memory Care Program Manager,” but I did a lot more than manage the activity department. I helped to redesign the community’s look and feel. I completely redesigned the calendar. (In fact, I checked online, the current calendar is still very similar to the first one I made!)

I loved working there, and my friends and family enjoyed hearing my stories about dementia care. “You should write a book,” people kept saying. I had always wanted to write a book, but I never pictured it would be a book on dementia care. Finally, I decided to look into it. Instead of publishing it myself, which was my first plan, a professor from my alma mater told me to look into professional publishers. Johns Hopkins University Press was very interested in my book because they have found much success with their book, The 36-Hour Day. My book is designed as a companion piece to The 36-Hour Day, and I am very proud of that fact.