How We Got Here

On my mother's 89th birthday we arrived in Rome. We had two suitcases each, Irish passports, my cat Mimi in tow, and a plan to rent a spacious two-bedroom apartment with a large terrace surrounded by pine trees in the northern part of the city.

We had many good reasons for leaving our previous lives behind. My mother, Maureen, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in April of the previous year, and although she was tolerating low doses of both Aricept and Namenda, her decline was more evident. Her partner since the death of my father in 1998, Julius (Julie for short), died shortly after his 90th birthday, and I had moved back home to be with her. We were both depressed about politics, the state of our field of education, and the growing difficulties of life in general. The 1936 colonial house we had happily lived in since 1970 in the town of Great Neck, just outside the Queens border on the north shore of Long Island, began to feel like a burden; it was just too big, too full of memories, too many stairs, too full of stuff. Chinese families were buying up real estate in Great Neck as investments, renting to other Chinese families who wanted their kids to go to top public schools. It seemed like a good time to sell.

Before Julie's death, I had applied for an elementary principal job in a private school in Rome. When they decided to hire internally, I felt disappointment, but more because of Rome than the job. We began to wonder about just moving to Rome. Why not? My parents had married there in 1960, and we had spent all our vacations in Italy, plus I had previously lived in Florence and Milan for several years. Some friends began to think our idea was not crazy. We wondered aloud about the pros and cons, and suddenly, we had put the house on the market and that was that. It sold in two weeks.

There is much more to our story, and every day since we got here, there have been stories. But the real reason I am starting this new blog is because I want other caretakers of elders with dementia and Alzheimer's Disease to have hope. Well-meaning doctors prescribe medications, make health recommendations, try to show they care about their patients and their families. But our system of health care is not set up for a true personalized approach to chronic, neurodegenerative diseases. Alzheimer's Disease is now the third leading cause of death in the United States, and it affects more women than men, both as patients and caretakers. I have only just begun to dig into and research available sources of information that speak to non-experts, and so far, it's been pretty grim. Mostly what I've found is not what I was looking for. That motivated me to write.

Promising research by Dale Bredesen of UCLA at the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer's Disease Research, published in the journal Aging in 2014 and 2016, led me to consider enhancements to my mother's treatment beyond the obvious notions of healthy diet, sufficient sleep and rest, exercise, and reducing stress. It was clear that reading the New York Times every morning, and watching the PBS Newshour every evening was creating a toxic anxiety for both of us as we wondered just how much worse things could get with each passing day of bad and then worse news. We both play and love music, but even Bach, Sinatra and Ella were not getting us through the dark times. The fresh flowers and farmer's markets of summer, plus visits from friends and family provided temporary relief, but as our departure date neared we couldn't wait to get to Italy.

In our first days in Rome, driving in our unfamiliar neighborhood, my cellphone service went out and we lost our navigation guidance (which was hilariously mispronouncing Italian street names). "Oh well," my mother said cheerfully, "usually when you get lost you learn something new." We made our way home using instinct and street signage, and it wasn't until the next day when I was driving alone that I realized how profound her sentiment was. In fact, I found myself driving on the previously unfamiliar streets that were now familiar as the ones I had taken back home the day before. I realized I was learning a new way to get back home. I vowed then and there to get lost every day in the hopes of learning something new. That is why I titled this blog Roads to Rome. I plan to get lost and learn something new, and share it with all of you.

Like the sampietrini stones of Rome, the road will likely be bumpy and full of holes. But that bit of green will poke through and give us hope. I just know it will.