We all float down here..

Tomorrow, I wake up at "oh god, the sun's not even up!" to participate in the Alzheimer's Association Memory Walk.

There's still time to donate. Here's the link: CLICK ME CLICK ME CLICK ME!

My team set a goal of $2,000. We're currently at almost $7,000. This is fantastic! I'm really stoked to be participating in this. Probably THE most frustrating thing about watching my mother's mental state decline was the feeling of helplessness. I hate that in any circumstance, but this is my mom. After all she did for me throughout my life, I couldn't do anything but watch, and drive her to doctor appointments, and listen as they told me there was nothing that could be done.

Like I said on the link page, walking I can do. It's a really good cause. It's raising money for an association that helps people like my mother, and families like mine who are trying to cope with watching a loved one suffer a progressively deteriorating brain disease. Someday, maybe, there'll be a cure. I have to think that. I have to hope. Watching this happen to my mother was horrible, but knowing there's no detection, no specific identified gene or cause, adds a level of fear to my life that wasn't there four years ago. Right now, it's my mother. In 40 years, it could be me. There's no way to know, until it starts. There's no way to stop it, once it starts.

Not yet. Hopefully soon.

Click early, click often. Tell your friends. Try the veal.

This, unlike most things in this blog, is something not funny, snide, or sarcastic. I don't recall ever hitting up my audience for cash before, but I consider this cause worthwhile and will be pimping it on every presence I have on the intardnetzweb.

I'm participating in the 2009 Alzheimer's Association Memory Walk.

My mother suffers from a degenerative brain condition very like Alzheimer's, though hers was due to uncontrolled diabetes. Her brain is, at this point, oatmeal. She is nonverbal, incontinent, and mostly non-responsive. There is nothing anyone can do but watch and wait for her body to die, and that could take another 20 years. It has been.. for lack of a sufficiently awful word.. horrible.

I'm joining the Walk because the Association has many programs to help both individuals suffering from Alzheimer's and the families forced to watch the decline of their loved one as this progressive, degenerative disease slowly erodes their mind. (The mind of the victim or the mind of the family - take your pick. I know for my part, it's made me pretty damn crazy with frustration, watching my mother slip away and knowing there's nothing anyone can do to halt it.)

Please contribute to my efforts in the Walk, if you have the funds to spare. My goal is to raise $750.


Click Here to Donate

My personal Walk page - Canadian motif because la Mama is.