When our library staff gathered to discuss our displays for the upcoming academic year, they already had written down Alzheimer’s disease for the month of November. (Depending on the organization, November is marked as Alzheimer’s Awareness Month or National Family Caregivers Month, both of which relate to my experience caring for my father with Alzheimer’s.)
Given my personal experience, I volunteered to put together the display. I researched our own holdings, along with online resources, to put together both a physical display and a digital research guide that would help our students learn about the disease, how it affects families, and how to consider patients they may work with that have Alzheimer’s. It also gave me a deadline for a long dormant project: Collecting the stories and photographs gathered in the days and weeks after my father’s death and publishing them in a book about him, in order to encourage other families to create memory books for aging loved ones.
While the research and writing (both about the disease and about my father) took a toll as I worked on the project, I am proud that I could create this from our experience. It’s a horrible disease, and if our journey can help others learn about Alzheimer’s and navigate caregiving, I’m happy to do it.