Still Phyllis

A Caregiver's Memoir of Dementia and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

Donald Friedman (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

205 Seiten

2024
McFarland & Co Inc (Verlag)
978-1-4766-9434-4 (ISBN)

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In this memoir, Donald Friedman shares a profoundly affecting family drama with themes of reconciliation and of how, paradoxically, closeness can deepen as words are lost - an inspiring truth to anyone with a friend or family member with dementia.

Phyllis was a vital, single woman, a photographer and writer, who was enjoying life in the city when she was suddenly stricken by Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), a disease rarer than a lightning strike that spreads, incredibly, via a non-living molecule called a prion. Terrified to realize she couldn't perform her duties at work, Phyllis very soon couldn't even find her way to her desk or to her apartment from the corner store. Informed of his sister's diagnosis with this dementing and always fatal illness, her estranged brother, her only living relative, brought her home (against the advice of her doctors) to care for her with his wife.

The profoundly affecting memoir illuminates how closeness can deepen when words are lost--an inspiring truth to anyone with a friend or family member with dementia.

Donald Friedman is the author of several novels, The Writer’s Brush: Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture by Writers, and a regular contributor to Interfaces, a French/English scholarly journal devoted to the relationship between text and image. His blogs, essays, short stories, on-camera interviews with famous writer-artists and art gallery can be found at DonaldFriedman.com. He divides his time between Rhinebeck, New York, and Sarasota, Florida.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

1. Dancing in the Street

2. The Breakdown

3. The Psychiatric Referral

4. CJD

5. I Bring Her Home

6. The Diagnosis

7. Cleaning Her Apartment

8. August 20, 1998: Back in the Neighborhood

9. Cannibals and Contagion, Love and Support

10. Compassion Manifest

11. Be Frightened

12. A Surprising Joke

13. The Days Were Lovely

14. Canyon Ranch and a Phyllis Vision

15. Crying Because I Needed To

16. Conversation with Phyllis

17. The Witches Gather

18. Taking Notes and Learning Nothing

19. How Long Do We Give Them?

20. 24/7 with Phyllis

21. Going to Florida

22. Visitors

23. Guilt Again

24. Phyllis Excursions

25. Indulgences

26. Christmas Day

27. New Year’s Celebrations

28. Montego Bay, January 1999

29. Eating Newspaper and Peeing on the Bathtub

30. “We’ll have to find out”

31. “It’s been so long”

32. Carolyn Taking Over

33. Snow

34. Brazil

35. “I’ve had it”

36. Back from the Dead

37. Phyllis’s Birthday

38. Paralysis Overcome; Getting Philosophical

39. Two Days in Roseville, California

40. July 4th Fireworks

41. Heart Strong, Lungs Clear

42. The End

43. Writing the Eulogy

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	05.06.2024
Zusatzinfo	5 photos, index
Verlagsort	Jefferson, NC
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Krankheiten / Heilverfahren
	Medizin / Pharmazie ► Medizinische Fachgebiete ► Geriatrie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik ► Sozialpädagogik
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	1-4766-9434-6 / 1476694346
ISBN-13	978-1-4766-9434-4 / 9781476694344
Zustand	Neuware