Slow Dancing with a Stranger: Lost and Found in the Age of Alzheimer's - Hardcover

Comer, Meryl

4.05

881 ratings by Goodreads

9780062130822: Slow Dancing with a Stranger: Lost and Found in the Age of Alzheimer's

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 006213082X ISBN 13: 9780062130822

Publisher: HarperOne, 2014

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A New York Times Bestseller

Emmy-award winning broadcast journalist and leading Alzheimer s advocate Meryl Comer s Slow Dancing With a Stranger is a profoundly personal, unflinching account of her husband s battle with Alzheimer s disease that serves as a much-needed wake-up call to better understand and address a progressive and deadly affliction.

When Meryl Comer s husband Harvey Gralnick was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer s disease in 1996, she watched as the man who headed hematology and oncology research at the National Institutes of Health started to misplace important documents and forget clinical details that had once been cataloged encyclopedically in his mind. With harrowing honesty, she brings readers face to face with this devastating condition and its effects on its victims and those who care for them. Detailing the daily realities and overwhelming responsibilities of caregiving, Comer sheds intensive light on this national health crisis, using her personal experiences the mistakes and the breakthroughs to put a face to a misunderstood disease, while revealing the facts everyone needs to know.

Pragmatic and relentless, Meryl has dedicated herself to fighting Alzheimer s and raising public awareness. Nothing I do is really about me; it s all about making sure no one ends up like me, she writes. Deeply personal and illuminating, Slow Dancing With a Stranger offers insight and guidance for navigating Alzheimer s challenges. It is also an urgent call to action for intensive research and a warning that we must prepare for the future, instead of being controlled by a disease and a healthcare system unable to fight it."

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Review:

" s a physician-scientist who has studied Alzhiemer's Disease for more than 25 years, and a son with a 99 year old mom with Alzheimer's dementia, I recommend this book to anyone who is struggling with the tormenting issues of Alzheimer's care."--Michael W. Wiener, MD , Professor of Radiology, University of California, San Francisco

"Meryl Comer is one of my heroes. With unflinching courage, candor, and determination, she eloquently underscores the terrible toll that Alzheimer's takes on patients and families and the urgent need for us to address this unacceptable problem once and for all. "--Eric M. Reiman, MD, Executive Director, Banner Alzheimer's Institue and Professor of Psychiatry, University of Arizona

"Written with great insight and tenderness, "Slow Dancing With a Stranger" is both a cautionary tale and a call to arms as Meryl Comer helps lead the charge to beat this horrific disease before it beats us."--Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D., CEO of Age Wave, author of "Bodymind, Age Wave, Age Power: How the 21st Century Will be Ruled by the New Old and A New Purpose"

"Slow Dancing With a Stranger is a remarkable and moving story that will change the way our generation thinks about how we deal with aging and caring for those we love. An amazing journey of caring, love, and resilience."--Tom Rath, bestselling author of "StrengthsFinder 2.0, How Full Is Your Bucket?, Strengths Based Leadership, " and "Eat Move Sleep"

"Although [Meryl Comer] would say she doesn't deserve the recognition, she definitely deserves the 'Rock Star of Humanity' award for her caregiving and her humanitarian work."--Florence Haseltine, Emerita Scientist NIH and Founder of the Society for Women's Health Research

""Slow Dancing with a Stranger" is a poignant story of Alzheimer's disease robbing memory, personality, life and dignity... Meryl's book is a daily motivation for me personally to find a medicine against this terrible disease which is impacting so many lives."--Professor Dr. Andrea Pfeifer, CEO of AC Immune

"Slow Dancing With A Stranger is the story of how Meryl Comer became an Alzheimer's caregiver...with no warning, no specific training, and no choice. Read this book to understand Alzheimer's but cherish it for the story it is, and you will find that every page breathes with her courage."--Barry Petersen, CBS News Correspondent and author of "Jan's Story: Love Lost to the Long Goodbye of Alzheimer's"

"Meryl is a trailblazer in every aspect of Alzheimer's and it shines through in this wonderful new book chronicling her long and winding journey with this devastating disease."--Dr. Rudy Tanzi, "New York Times" Bestselling author of "Super Brain" and Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School

"Meryl Comer unveils Alzheimer's Disease in a remarkable and vulnerable way. Her personal story provides knowledge, inspiration and hope to us all. Her heroism jumps out from the pages and hopefully will motivate generations to make a difference against this horrible disease."--David B. Agus, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Engineering, University of Southern California and author of "The End of Illness" and "A Short Guide to a Long Life"

"Meryl Comer's heart wrenching story will resonate with the millions of families who know the devastation of Alzheimer's disease first hand. Her journey makes a powerful and compelling case for the urgent need to support Alzheimer's prevention trials."--Reisa Sperling, M.D., Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School and director of the A4 Study

From the Back Cover:

A New York Times Bestseller

From Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist and leading Alzheimer's advocate Meryl Comer comes a profoundly intimate and unfl inching account of her husband's battle with Alzheimer's disease, one of today's most pressing and least-understood health epidemics.

When Meryl Comer's husband, Dr. Harvey Gralnick, chief of hematology and oncology at the National Institutes of Health, began forgetting routine things and demonstrating abrupt changes in behavior, doctors were confounded as to what was wrong. Diagnoses ranged from stress and depression to Lyme disease, from pernicious anemia to mad cow's disease supposedly acquired from a trip to London. Finally, after years of inconclusive tests, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, a seemingly impossible disease for a man in his prime.

Comer gave up her television career and for the next two decades cared for Harvey in their home, tending to his every need while watching him regress into an emotionally distant and sometimes violent stranger. "The man I live with is not the man I fell in love with and married," she writes. "He has slowly been robbed of what we all take for granted the ability to navigate the mundane activities of daily living: bathing, shaving, dressing, feeding, and using the bathroom. His inner clock is confused and can't be reset. His eyes are vacant and unaware."

In Slow Dancing with a Stranger, Comer brings readers face-to-face with Alzheimer's, detailing the realities, its stressful emotional and fi nancial hardships for families, as well as the limitations of doctors and assisted living and long term care facilities to manage diffi cult patient behaviors. With candor and grace, Comer chronicles her personal experiences her mistakes, her heartbreaks, her minor victories to paint an intimate and moving portrait of Alzheimer's and, in the process, she reveals the truth about the disease and everyone it affects.

One hundred percent of the proceeds from Slow Dancing with a Stranger will support Alzheimer's research."

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