The Pastoral Artist
  • Home
  • Book
  • Blog
  • Contact

BLOG

Happy Thanksgiving

11/27/2014

 
Picture
     It looked as if we’d end up in the ER again yesterday, but Mom flatly refused to go.  So today, I am cooking with abandon and we will be transporting our feast to their apartment to give thanks together.

     I thought I’d take a moment to wish everyone who stops by a truly blessed Thanksgiving.  May you have much to be grateful for!


Why I Do the Things I Do

11/20/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Frozen water was everywhere.  Another polar vortex had arrived turning November into January in one blast of frosty air.

Of course, I could not stay inside and keep warm sipping cocoa.  My mother-in-law had been hospitalized and was being released that day…in a snow storm.  I had been shoveling for four hours.  First, to clear off the walks and steps, then to clear the front of the garage door, and then to dig out a path in the alley to get the car to the main street.  The snow was wet and heavy and I was feeling my age.

But perseverance paid off.  I broke through to the street.  It was now time for a cup of tea and a breather.  Time to try to pull myself together for the next part of the day.  Getting Mom discharged, bundled up, into the car and back to her apartment.  This time, I was leaving Dad at home.  Dealing with dementia and a blizzard plus transporting Mom with an oxygen tank was too much for me and I had to draw the line somewhere.  The left side of my back was starting to throb.

We could have transported Mom home in an ambulance, but she had gone into the hospital in her nightgown and I didn’t want her exposed to the extreme cold.  She needed warm clothes and a warm ride.  When I called to check on the discharge process, she was talking to someone from rehab, so I told her I’d be there in a couple hours and rang off.  Experience told me that when leaving a hospital, it would take hours for every department to sign off so I didn’t hurry.  As long as the nurses knew someone was coming everything would be good.

Sitting down with my cup of tea, I asked myself, why was I doing this?  Why was I working so hard to make it to the hospital as the snow kept coming down?  It had occurred to me as I was lifting that final heavy shovel full of snow that no one would do this for me.  My husband would find a way to get me home, make no mistake, but he wouldn’t shovel out an alley to do it.  I have no kids, nephews or nieces or even cousins that would do this on my account.  My friends all have problems of their own and wouldn’t be able to expend themselves like this.  I pondered on this as I sipped my tea.

John 15:13 (NASB) says, ‘Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.’ I had done this as a sacrificial act of love.  While I love my mother-in-law, this was really for my husband.  He’s been stretched as thin as I’ve ever seen him between long hours at work and caring for his parents, and though I’ve been doing a lot to help and I love them, too, I don’t have the same history or memories that he does and I’m not grieving the same way he is.  This was a laying down of time and effort to show my husband he is not alone in his care journey for his parents and to bring him encouragement.

Sacrifice.  It makes life richer.  I should do it more often.


0 Comments

Hope and a Future

11/1/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
When I took my mother to a neurologist to get a complete workup on her memory issues, the diagnosis came with a thud.  Alzheimer’s.  While Mom sat there unfazed, I was left feeling hollow inside as a variety of emotions fought for control.  The doctor looked at me and said rather casually, “You have nothing to worry about.  This isn’t the hereditary kind.”

Nothing to worry about.  Is that so?  When Mom was diagnosed, the numbers showed that one in twelve adults were developing some sort of dementia.  Over ten years later the numbers are now one in six.  It may not be hereditary, but there is certainly an epidemic happening that can affect anyone.

I have long suspected that something is up environmentally or behaviorally that is causing the increase in the occurrence of Alzheimer’s.    In 2005, a study by Susanne de la Monte's group at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, identified a reason why people with type 2 diabetes had a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's. In this kind of dementia, the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in learning and memory, seemed to be insensitive to insulin. Not only could your liver, muscle and fat cells be "diabetic" but so it seemed, could your brain.

Feeding animals a diet designed to give them type 2 diabetes leaves their brains riddled with insoluble plaques of a protein called beta-amyloid – one of the calling cards of Alzheimer's. Scientists also know that insulin plays a key role in memory. Taken together, the findings suggest that Alzheimer's might be caused by a type of brain diabetes.  When I heard of this study it felt that my suspicions were confirmed.

Because my mother and now my father-in-law developed dementia, I find myself trying to keep up with the latest research on the problem.  There is very exciting news that has come out on a study that actually reversed memory loss.  Dr. Dale Bredesen has had a very promising results with ten patients who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.  Of the ten, nine had their dementia reversed.  The tenth was actually in late stages of the disease.  The doctor is optimistic but does warn that the results are anecdotal and a more controlled clinical trial is needed.

Still, it is an interesting and encouraging approach.  He has developed a protocol and personalizes it to each patient.  In one patient, the program called for a gluten free diet with increased vegetables, fruits and non-farmed fish, stress reduction, taking melatonin at night, getting eight hours of sleep each night, optimizing oral hygiene, fasting 12 hours between dinner and breakfast and for a minimum of three hours between dinner and bedtime, and exercise.  Another patient added coconut oil, probiotics and turmeric to the mix.  If you are interested in reading the paper, you can find it here:  http://impactaging.com/papers/v6/n9/full/100690.html

Be warned, it is pretty technical, but if you scroll down to the case studies you’ll see more of the protocols followed.

I look forward to hearing more about this research.  In the meantime, I’m looking at my own lifestyle and seeing where I can improve my health habits.  Dental floss, anyone?


Sorry about the link.  It should be working now.  
1 Comment

    Archives

    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    Donna Kemper

    Donna Kemper put aside her art career to care for a mother she hadn't seen in over a decade.  For seven years she followed her mother's journey into dementia, caring for her and putting forgiveness into action.

    Categories

    All
    Abandonment
    Adult Care Facilities
    Advocacy
    Alzheimers
    Alzheimers Research
    Art
    August
    Automobiles
    Ballet
    Beauty
    Birds
    Birthdays
    Book
    Books
    Burnout
    Camping
    Cancer
    Care Giving
    Cat
    Colonoscopy
    Community
    Compassion Fatigue
    Computer Issues
    Creativity
    Daughters
    Death
    Dementia
    Difficult Parent
    Discovery
    Documentary
    Dreaming
    Elder Care
    Experimentation
    Faith
    Family
    Father
    Father In Law
    Father-in-law
    Fatherless Daughters
    Fear
    Forgiveness
    Friendship
    Frustration
    Gardening
    Genealogy
    God
    Gold Leafing
    Good Man
    Gourd Art
    Grandmothers
    Gratitude
    Grief
    Growth
    Health
    Hero
    Hope
    Human Trafficking
    Humor
    Husband
    Justice
    Kayaking
    Kindness
    Life Adjustments
    Listening
    Loneliness
    Loss
    Lost And Found
    Love
    Love In Action
    Mother In Law
    Mother-in-law
    Mothers
    Moving Forward
    Music
    Neglect
    Offering Help
    Paintings
    Patience
    Poetry
    Prayer
    Process
    Psalms
    Questioning
    Recovery
    Relevancy
    Restoration
    Rocks
    Rumi
    Sacrifice
    Sadness
    Shakespeare
    Slavery
    Snow
    Social Media
    Sonnet
    Spiritual Formation
    Storytelling
    Studio
    Suffering
    Transformation
    Transition
    Vineyards
    Water
    Worship
    Writing

    RSS Feed

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

STAY CONNECTED!


© The Pastoral Artist 2022 | Designed by Tech with Tasha

  • Home
  • Book
  • Blog
  • Contact