Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Spotlight: Alex Peralta

Each week we will be picking members to spotlight to tell their Alzheimer's story and why they are running in this year's New York City marathon. Check in each day for new updates on who will be spotlighted and get to know your teammates...(each person is picked at random)


In September of 2001 our life changed forever. It was my junior year of high school. My sister, Alana was in middle school while my older brother was in college. On September morning, my mom woke up bright and early to make her Bustelo coffee. As she brewed her coffee the aroma happened to wake me up in the process. As I’m entering the Kitchen I ask my mom for my blessing and she responds, “Dios te bendiga hijo”. She follows with statement, “I’ve noticed your father has been acting and doing weird things lately. She apparently knew something was wrong but could not pin point it. Several months passed by and my mom received a phone call from my dad’s supervisor Mr. Frank. He starts explaining to my mom strange things he has noticed my father doing. He was arriving to work at 4am and then falling asleep in the parking lot until 6am. Mr. Frank found that very weird and so did my mom. Following that talk, my mom tried to take my dad to see the doctor for a checkup. My dad was a strong Dominican man, who believed that going to a doctor was a sign of weakness. I knew at that point my mom was going to have a difficult time convincing him to go see the doctor. After trying to persuade him for a couple of weeks, he gave in to my mother and went to his first doctor’s visit in years. After several test, analysis, my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the age 56. At this point, he was forced to retire from his position at Pepsi Cola, he worked for over 30 years.
Alzheimer’s???  I ask myself what the heck is that?!  I clearly had no Idea  what the disease was until I did a little research for myself.  While I read countless articles, documents and books on this disease, I could not understand how a strong man like my dad could come down with this disease. As the diseased progressed, my mother refused to “throw” him in a nursing home. It was against her cultural believes and her wedding vows. We had no idea what we were getting into as a family nor all the obstacles and challenges we were going to face. 
            My dad’s condition progressed at a rapid pace. The last 4 years of my dad’s life, were the worst of mine.  I slowly came to realize I had lost what was left of my father. I no longer had that male figure to look up to or the father to discuss the Yankee game anymore. The loss of my dad came prior to his death- it hit me, and HIT ME HARD. Although my siblings and I shared our own unique bond with my father, I was extremely close to him. I was also the one who struggled with expressing my feelings the most. On March 17th, 2012 my dad, my family and I lost the battle with Alzheimer’s.  He was only 70 years old.
            While dealing with the loss on my own, my younger sister signed up to train & run the 2013 NYC Marathon. The idea of running a marathon seemed insane, but coming from my sister, I would expect anything and everything. At first, I was a little doubtful of her commitment until I joined her on a group run. Running has never been my forte but seeing how hard my sister trained and meeting the group completely changed my feelings towards running.  Running became necessary in order to heal. Unfortunately, the team last year was not able to run the NYC Marathon. My sister, Alana, went on with a couple of teammates to run the Miami Marathon on January 27th, which was on my dad’s birthday. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fly down to see her cross the finish line due to an ankle ligament surgery. I am sure my dad was extremely proud and guided her the whole 26.2 miles.
            Now, this year is my turn to RUN for my father, for my mother who cared for him until the end, for my sister who took the season off to bless the family with the first baby, and for ME. This is run is for all the times I couldn’t tell anyone how I felt, for the baseball games we missed. This is me telling you dad that I love you and miss you dearly.

No comments:

Post a Comment