Surfing the Waves of Alzheimer’s
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Product Details
Publisher: Many Hats Publishing
Release Date: September 8, 2020
Formats: Paperback, Ebook, Audiobook
ISBN: PB: 978-1-7347917-0-9; EB: 978-1-7347917-1-6
Trim: 5.5 x 8.5
Page Count: 200
Principles of Caregiving That Kept Me Upright
Renée Brown Harmon, M.D.
A compassionate memoir of younger-onset Alzheimer’s disease with thoughtful guidelines for caregivers.
On a family vacation in 2009, Dr. Renée Brown Harmon felt the first jolt of fear that something might be wrong. How could her husband, Harvey, a highly intelligent physician, marathon runner, and devoted father, be struggling to keep up with their guide’s simple instructions or unable to do simple math to calculate their daughter’s age? The heartbreaking truth was confirmed nine months later when he was diagnosed with younger-onset Alzheimer’s disease at age fifty.
Soon after, Harmon felt she had no choice but to inform the state medical board that it was no longer safe for her husband to see patients in their shared practice. Suddenly forced to manage both the family and business they’d built together, she stayed afloat by leaning on friends, family, and her faith through Harvey’s illness.
Part personal story, part instructional guide for caregivers, Surfing the Waves of Alzheimer’s is an essential primer for anyone facing the tremendous challenge of caring for a loved one with memory loss. Each chapter ends with a different principle of caregiving and offers readers suggested best practices to bring greater balance to the role of family caregiver.
Drawing upon principles of compassionate caregiving—from her own experience caring for her husband and her nearly thirty years as a family practice doctor—Harmon offers a uniquely clear-eyed account of how this disease manifests itself and shares her feelings of loss and heartbreak with honesty, grit, and grace.
About the Author
Renée Brown Harmon, MD, resides in Birmingham, Alabama, where she has recently retired from a twenty-nine-year career in family medicine. She and her husband shared responsibilities at their medical practice, and at their home with two daughters, until Alzheimer’s disease forced his retirement.
Visit the author’s website at reneeharmon.com
Reviews
“Seamlessly, sensitively, Reneé Brown Harmon’s aptly described teaching memoir leads us to consider the ever-present opportunities for embracing meaningful relationships with those living with dementia. Surfing the Waves of Alzheimer’s, structured in eighteen engaging story-telling chapters, each followed by valuable caregiving practices, describes her experiences during the years her husband lived with Alzheimer’s, and explores remembering and forgetting, struggle and acceptance, and most importantly—how we might live with kindness as our guide in the present the present the present. An added bonus, this book will appeal to all who welcome the reminder to carry compassion into all of our relationships, moment by moment.” —Cathie Borrie, author of The Long Hello: Memory, My Mother, and Me
“The work Harmon does to combat commonly held ideas about Alzheimer’s using her own experience with her husband is one the most effective elements of the memoir, as it strengthens its status as a guidebook as well as a personal story. The ‘practice’ segment at the end of each chapter is a wonderfully unique tool to engage readers, especially those whose lives have also been affected by Alzheimer’s. This element adds an unusual touch to an otherwise traditionally told memoir.” —The BookLife Prize