About

In late 2001, just after my Dad past away, life decided that I needed to chart a new path.  As is sometimes the case, I didn’t know I had changed my course right away.  For me it took years to realize that the scenery had changed, then–in an instant–I knew that a series of events had permanently reshaped my life.  To most people these events would be classified as tragedies and loss–not the fast loss of heart attacks and strokes, but the slow, persistent loss of Alzheimer’s.

I say, for most people, but not in this instant, not for me.  I was lucky, if that word can ever be used in connection with Alzheimer’s disease.  Due to quirk of personalities something happened with this case of Alzheimer’s that doesn’t usually happen.  A battle was fought, and while there was no victory, there was eventually an uneasy truce forged between the disease and the life of my Mom.  She had the disease.  There is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, so it never leaves you. But, with my Mom, we were able to reduce the symptoms and keep her independent until just a few weeks before her passing.

Eventually, in 2008, after complications from surgery to repair an aneurysm, the truce failed and the disease played its horrible games, but not for years…only days.  But, in the most ironic twist, a disease that takes away memory and intellect provided a lesson and showed me that we what we think we know about the human brain is not always based on reality but is instead based on ignorance and assumption.  It’s time to challenge those assumptions and challenge ourselves.  Because, just as a challenged body can be stronger, swifter, better; a challenged mind can be brighter, faster, stronger.

This website is many things…

  • It is a place of knowledge and information about the brain and ways that we can make it work better no matter our age.
  • It is a place of motivation, and inspiration.  Too many times we limit ourselves because of external labels and societal cliches.   A person is not a diagnosis any more than a disease is the person.

and finally,

  • This website is my Mom’s story, because the approaches we found are her gift to others in similar situations, to perhaps change the inevitable just a little.  And it is her legacy so that a modest woman will not be forgotten at least for a little while.

Inspired by and in memory of…

Leonard Watson, December 30, 1922 – September 9, 2001

Eva Watson, August 25, 1935 – May 20, 2008

Len and Eva’s son, Rick