SPOTLIGHT: Jean McCormack

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 Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday for new updates on who will be spotlighted and get to know your teammates...(each person is picked at random)

In 2006, during a family reunion to celebrate my mother’s 80^th birthday, it became clear that something was wrong. We were unable to send Mom from one room in the complex to another without her getting lost. Shortly afterwards, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

My sister, Ann, had never moved out of our parents’ house. She became Mom’s primary (and only) caregiver. I would offer help but she always declined saying “Mom’s not that bad”. When Ann was let go from her marketing job in early 2008 because of mistakes she was making we all assumed it was due to the stress of taking care of Mom. There were certainly no obvious signs that Ann suffered from the disease herself.

In April of 2010 Mom broke her hip and passed away 2 weeks later. It was then I discovered the Exelon patch on Ann’s arm. I googled the drug, stared at the screen, and thought “Oh my God! The doctors must be wrong.” Ann was a world traveler, hiking Kilimanjaro, Chili, Bhutan and Mongolia on high altitude treks. It must be stress, lack of sleep, lead poisoning, something reversible. Eventually we discovered she was diagnosed in 2008 at the age of 48 with early-onset Alzheimer’s. She never mentioned it to anyone.

After Mom’s death, all Ann wanted was to live in the house our parents built (we’re talking swinging the hammers not just writing a check), in the same bedroom we shared as kids. By August we had someone coming in twice a week, and by Christmas multiple cases of food poisoning led us to have a heart to heart talk with her about moving into Assisted Living.

She now lives here in Boulder about 5 miles from us. She is declining rapidly, has lost 3 of her ADLs, and is having an increasingly hard time with language comprehension and expression. She often has that vague lost look that many Alzheimer’s patients get. She does enjoy visiting us, playing with our 5 cats, taking walks, going out to lunch, gardening, and visiting the cat shelter at which we volunteer. I doubt we have much time left to do even these simple things with her. It’s very difficult for me to see the life basically sucked out of her and to watch her deteriorate. We were not only sisters, but best friends as kids -- she was the older more responsible sister. It seems very unfair that just as she was released from the self imposed responsibility of caring for Mom, she is unable to do the things she loved to do. She can’t travel, she can’t take walks by herself, she can’t even find her room.

This will be my 8^th marathon but I have never run NY before. My husband teases me that after every marathon I swear I’ll never run another one. Hah! It’s like childbirth, you forget how much it hurts a few months later. Last year running took a backseat to dealing with Mom and Ann and a bad case of plantar fasciitis. This year I needed something to relieve stress so I decided to go for the ultimate marathon, the NYC marathon. I entered the lottery, but when I saw the Alzheimer’s Association as one of the charity groups I thought “Cool! I can relieve stress and raise money for a cause that hits so close to home.” So in honor of my mom (Doris Ehlers) and my sister (Ann Ehlers) I’ll be joining you all in New York on November 6^th.