Posted 1-17-20
I am still recovering from last week and look super forward to the 3 days weekend to catch up on my beauty sleep. (although that ship has clearly sailed…) I trust you will do the same as best you can. If you need help with respite time, call the Alzheimer’s Association or your local Area Agency on Aging. Help is often available! We all need breaks and respite from the grind, especially those of you who are caregivers full-time. Writing tends to be my main “break”. Thank you for sharing it with me every weekday. 🙂
So much can be said about last week and the experience will undoubtedly show up in here early and often. One thing that came to mind as I slipped and slid my way on the ice to work today: The only thing I did for sheer entertainment while I was in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show last week was I took the pretty quick drive south to visit the Hoover Dam. (I even paid my gas and parking fee out of pocket since it wasn’t work-related) . Here is an interesting piece on this beast! Here is another. Here is a really cool documentary.
I was amazed at the size of this structure! It is over two football fields high and wide and thick. I was also amazed and intrigued at the enormous concrete chasm to the south along the spillway that now probably allows overflow but likely originally was a diverting point while the concrete was poured. Neither words not videos/pictures do it justice!
Here is my short little video blurbs:
This dam reminds me of what we are up against in dementia in several ways:
- The problem is huge! Before the dam, flooding was common since the area has little vegetation. I realize that seems odd (flooding in the desert), but the Colorado River would just quickly overflow at a rain and, with nothing to collect the overflow, would flood. In the desert, you need to find and be near water, so a flood’s harm to crops and humanity was very real. In dementia, the numbers are growing like crazy! It is the only top 10 killer that is growing and has no good treatment/cure options. They have overflowed the banks, partially because people are living longer and likely for other reasons too. The damage is real and personal to nearly all of us.
- The solution is also challenging because of the size and complexity of the problem. The Hoover Dam was the first of its size in the world! Over 100 people (depending on where you get the numbers from) gave their lives to build the thing because we really didn’t know what we were doing that well. However…we learned. Today many dams are bigger and generate more power, but they wouldn’t be here without this groundwork performed at the Nevada/Arizona border at this dam. In dementia, we learn more and more about the brain every day…but it is immensely more complex than the dam. However, every failed trial, every experiment in a lab and every scientific journal discussion moves us closer.
- With a solution comes great prosperity. Before the dam was built, Vegas was pathetic and small. With the dam, it is one of the brightest places on Earth, possessing enough electricity partially because of the dam, to continue an extremely long boom. A cure for dementia would be worth trillions (yes, with a “T”) to whomever solves this challenge just in healthcare savings alone without regard to the human cost.
- It takes a lot of folks! The dam took over 20,000 people to build. What an undertaking!!! A dementia cure has and will continue to take more! Many more. We need folks taking trials. We need researchers. We need givers. We need servers. We need prayers. The problem is huge. It will take more than technology to hold back this flood!
- One step at a time. One elephant bite at a time. One day at a time. I am in a hurry for a cure. Selfishly perhaps, with the lives of my mom and the remaining Sweet 17 in the balance, but in a hurry nevertheless. I and you have to be patient and keep fighting. The dam wasn’t built in a day and, had it been, it would have failed. Hold fast, fellow caregiver! Keep looking ahead and praying and serving and helping. We’ll get there!
This was a really fun little hour excursion. If you ever go to Vegas, don’t leave without making the short drive to see what started it all. 🙂
#EndALZ
#CES2020
#Vegas
Update: Mom had another great day yesterday. Nothing much to report, which is always good news. 🙂