Ryan Fish is KGUN 9's Midtown and Downtown Tucson reporter. Send your story ideas to Ryan at [email protected].
TUCSON, Ariz. — Alzheimer’s doesn’t just destroy people’s memories. It slowly destroys their brain functions, and it takes a toll on their loved ones too.RELATED: How this couple is stitching good moments together during Alzheimer's journey
Mark Hall remembers telling his wife Debi, when she was first learning to live with Alzheimer’s, “You can’t give up on me, cause I’m not gonna give up on you.”“We always have been close-knit,” said Mark.One of theirs came while playing cards. “The only time I ever won is if she let me. I could never beat her,” Mark remembered. “And she couldn’t follow sequences and suits very well. And that was maybe six months before her diagnosis.”“It’s a slow, devastating disease and there’s no cure for it,” said Mark.“There’s this idea that’s kinda like it’s kinda like, ‘Oh people are just forgetful and it’s kinda cute,’ and it’s really so much more than that,” he said. “And it’s so much worse than just, like, being forgetful.
“They still get to know ,” Tim said of the grandkids. “She’s still there. She still remembers things. But it’s like building those kind of core memories of things that you get to do, things that you get to experience.Talking is one way to get through it, with support groups or friends. “Knowing that we’re not alone, that there’s other people out there that are struggling as well ,” Mark said. “Not only with the disease itself, but also with the caretaking piece of it.”“I told her, says, ‘As you lose memories, we’re gonna make new memories… We’re still gonna do the things that you love as long as you can do ‘em,’” he said.“There’s not really anything we can do about this, so we’re gonna have to live the best life we can, now… and every day,” said Mark.
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