I Lost a Friend

I had a friend that i have known since 8th grade. Dementia/Alzheimer's runs in her family. Her grandmother, mother and then she got the dreaded disease. Her mother and grandmother were ill a long time. I told her i would visit her when i came up for our reunion. She had been diagnosed a year earlier.

The day of the party, the assisted living staff found her non responsive in the hallway. She was taken to the hospital. I visited her there and we had a good conversation. The next day, they found her on her hands and knees crawling in the hallway of the hospital. They put her to bed and she had a grand mal seizure. The MRI showed no tumors and only mild frontal lobe disintegration.

Her daughter asked that a medicine be discontinued because it was giving her trouble. On Saturday night, she stopped breathing and was pronounced dead at 12:04AM.

I am so grateful I got to see her and so sad to lose my friend.