My Grandfather died of Alzheimer's Disease a few years ago. He worked into his 80's ushering people into the stadium in Milwaulkee, Wisconsin. Baseball was his passion, he didn't need to work but he saw all the games for free and was always a very social man. The first sign, he was taking longer and longer to get home from the ball park, sometimes up to 3 hours. He was getting lost. My Father and Aunt decided that they needed placement for him for safety. My Grandfather was also a diabetic which he could not control on his own any longer. He was moved to a facility in northern Wisconsin near my Aunt. Within the first month he eloped, a term that means escaped in nursing home lingo. He was not found until the next day in a wooded area near the facility. It was late fall with night temperatures in the 20's. When he was found his blood sugar was in the teens. He survived. He was placed in a secure unit where for the next few years he thought he was at the airport and announced flights as people strolled by. He was in a wheelchair, incontinent, and totally dependent for all his needs. I remember my Grandfather as a strong, stern man that demanded respect. In my heart I felt he would have been o.k. leaving on his own terms in a small patch of woods in northern Wisconsin. End stage Alzheimer's Disease is ugly. It is full circle, inability to walk, talk, feed yourself, like the first days you arrive in the world. 50% of all people over the age of 85 suffer from some type of dementia. There are 70-80 types, some are treatable.

I am a nurse. I deal daily with emotions, sickness, devastation, and the reality of incurable diseases of the brain. It is a slow decline of a persons mind and personality. Family members are on-lookers as the disease takes their mom or dad or sister or aunt and turns them into someone that they do not recognize, and the irony is...their mom or dad or sister or aunt no longer recognizes them, literally.

In these days of dementia there are shining moments, "Window Moments," when out of blue, a person suffering from Alzheimer's or some form of dementia will return for a brief moment and share a memory or a feeling. These moments are amazing. Years ago, I sat bedside of a frail woman named Olga suffering from end stage Alzheimer's Disease. Olga was awake, she was so thin. She had not spoken a lot in the past few months and her body was tired. I brought her vanilla ice cream and begin to slowly feed her tiny bites. I was a night shift nurse it had to be 2a.m. Olga began to speak, "I loved to dance," she said, "I was so beautiful and I was happy." "We danced every Saturday night, remember?" I listened to Olga relive her youth she smiled and giggled as a young girl would. Olga's "Window Moment," lasted nearly 1 hour. I was honored to have shared it with her. Olga passed away less than a month after our 2 a.m. ice cream. I felt she was dancing again and she left me with a sense of serenity. I will always remember her.