Posted 3/8/21
Salvation belongs to the Lord;
your blessing be on your people! Selah Psalm 3:8
(Quick note re: my Bible verses. I tie the chapter and verse to the day of the month. I know some of you read often and some not at all…but all can get a smattering of semi-random verses here. I know the chapter and verse designations were added much later and are not “inspired”, but it never hurts to see a verse, eh?)
A couple of “happy”s this week! Happy two year Blogversary to all of you! You (and my semi-selfish need of catharsis) are the reason this blog exists and I will, Lord willing, keep this up indefinitely. We now have well over 8,000 subscribers, we help thousands on social media, and we have opportunities on traditional media a lot as well. 🙂 Thank you for all you do every day…for the shares, for the “Hey, have you heard of Digital Cornbread”‘s, and for the many encouraging things you say and do. 🙂
Another (un)happy anniversary is coming this week as well: One year of Shawshank Re:Dementia. If you have missed the point of this phrase, it is a play on words of the amazing prison movie Shawshank Redemption that represents the anniversary of losing day-to-day visits with mom and the Sweet 17 (and your loved ones) due to the pandemic. I sincerely hope to remove that from the tagline soon as we are welcomed back with open arms once the pandemic all-clear is sounded…but for now, the show must go on until we finally realize a world without Alzheimer’s and related dementias.
With that in mind, one aspect of the goal is fundraising (ugggh.) and I have been hard at work. Here are the current initiatives:
- My uber-niece Erin is donating 25% of this weeks’ sales to our GoFundMe from her amazing clothing site, Gingham & Grace, found here and here. Erin is an amazing, work-from-home mom who is sewing ’til she turns purple for a cure this week. Please check out her stuff this week and beyond. She does great work, in my unbiased opinion, and sells it all over the globe!
- My GoFundMe for direct donations to these two excellent non-profits: Link
- My T-Shirt Shoppe: Link: I have known the Banners for years and think a lot of them. The CEO was my Sunday School teacher for several years and is a great guy and his whole family is wonderful. The Banner family businesses, Creator Designs and Creator Delights, are both amazing. 🙂 Here is the link, once more: https://creatordesigns.com/collections/easy-teesy/products/short-sleeve-tee-seniorage-and-alzheimers-association
- Coming for the entire month of April:
- May potentials: A restaurant fundraiser; a computer cleanout day (donation-based), others?
- General options: a corporate sponsorship? Purple super soakers for sale to shoot water at me with when I run by…; Other options? I am open to suggestions. 🙂
Update on Runnin’ ‘Til I’m Purple: I was vaccinated Saturday. I was fortunate to cob into a site that had the Johnson & Johnson single dose model and I hopped in line with 400 of my closest friends and got my stabbin’. All was fine all day and the next morning. I felt soooo good I decided to get my week’s long run in. This week required a run from Walnut Grove to Bolivar, approximately 18-19 miles on the trail. ( I say approximately because GPS hats the trail an loses signal a lot). Knowing next weekend is going to be a rainy, sloppy mess and feeling good enough, I hit the path. I make it about 6-7 miles with no pain nor much difference in feeling from a normal long run…then the vaccine (?) reared its ugly side-effecting head. All sorts of things started aching that never have ached yet. I ended up calling my daughter to pick me up at the 16 mile mark. By the time I got home I was shivery and had a fever and lots of things hurt. I am fine this morning and worked from home all day as a precaution. My thick-headedness in preparation does give a pinch more proof of why women live longer than men…
But, as you know, the show must go on.
Another area in which the show must go on is the searching and finding of a cure. It seems that COVID has slowed or stopped much of the innovation that was going on as recently as last March. We are on a timer here, science…mom, the Sweet 17, and millions more don’t have the time to wait. Make the show go on, will ya??? In that line of thinking, I and a couple of colleagues watched an interesting webinar presentation today called “Type 3 Diabetes: The New Pathway Towards Risk of Dementia” which was sponsored by The Aging and Memory Clinic Speakers Series at Saint Louis University. The speaker was Dr. Suzanne de la Monte (from Brown University) and the information was very interesting. If I can get the recording and complete slide deck, I will share it here soon. :). Here are a few (out of context) slides I screenshot:
Let me give you a tip list on how to research and study innovations, promised “cures”, and other, similar information from someone who has watched around 100 this calendar year alone:
- Find GOOD research schools/hospitals when possible. Washington University (St. Louis), RUSH (Chicago), Kansas University, Mayo Clinic, others. Here is a good list.
- HOWEVER, not everything that uses these and other schools’ names are automatically ideal. Former students, phonies, etc…do try to buttress their legitimacy on the back of solid schools and hospitals. The oldest trick on the book. (See the Gospel of Thomas and a bunch more extra-Biblical sources often written centuries later and stealing the name of an apostle to add legitimacy.
- Beware (!) of the word “Cure” in the title. There are no cures nor life-extending treatments for dementia as of 3/8/21/
- Watch for lots of “They are all getting it wrong” talk. Good science doesn’t tear down, it builds on itself….
- As much as I hate to say this as it will make friends mad, beware of Eastern “cures” and Chiropractic/Homeopathic “cures”. Just because something is ancient doesn’t make it right. Remember, we used to bleed people with leeches to cure them.
- Don’t assume the cure isn’t ancient….these folks weren’t fools, they were just less informed by generations who learned after them.
- Supplements and CBD oil MAY help with symptoms…but are not a cure whether they are $1 at Dollar Tree or $1,000 from your local con man.
- Watch for .org, .gov and .edu in the website and be less confident of “.com”…unless it is digitalcornbread.com 😉 (Really, be skeptical of me too if I pick sources that don’t follow this rule. Oh, and remember, if it is underlined, it is very likely m source that will open in a new tab on your browser so you don’t lose your place).
- Search the Alzheimer’s Association Science Hub app. This free app is a great resource and should be on everyone’s phone. 🙂 Want to see important research that has been vetted…grab this app!
- Beware of any site selling anything regarding dementia.
- Look at the credentials of the presenter. Google his or her name and see what there is to see first.
- Feel free to reach out to me or your local Alzheimer’s Association office if in doubt. I would LOVE any information you have.
- Be optimistic for a cure knowing that it the disease is complex and will require a complex, multi-faceted cure.
- Pray for wisdom…
Update: Nothing new with mom. I will see her Saturday in the visiting room (a small room with a plexiglass wall separating visitor from visitee. It is better than nothing, but it still smells like a prison without the visitation corded phone next to the divider. 🙁 No news to report from hospice this week. Sometimes no news is good news…so the show goes on as we fight for a cure and to #EndALZ once and for all.
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