Today is Day 30 of our walk on the Camino de Santiago and we only have 5 days left. We have walked over 450 miles and have less than 60 to go!
Sharing Personal Experiences with Lewy Body Dementia
I have talked with a lot of people over the past month about Lewy Body Dementia but tonight I had an amazing discussion with a woman I met about a week ago while walking. Over the past week, we have stayed in some of the same inns and have walked together a bit every once in a while. However, tonight we were sitting at a table next to her and her friend at a restaurant. After some time talking over eating our pizzas, she said she wanted to talk to me about our Lewy Body Dementia walk. She told me her father died of Lewy Body Dementia and told me about her dad and her family’s experience. It was so similar to my dad’s experience. I felt a connection and empathy with her that is hard to describe.
When her dad exhibited the symptoms of Lewy Body, although at the time they did not know that’s what it was, it was confusing and frustrating. He lost many of the same abilities as my dad…ability to add, speak in complete sentences, he wandered, he forgot how to use the toilet, etc. And yet, he retained his personality, his ability to remember people and talk about everyday things. We shared special moments we each had in our last months with our dads and how we have been coping with our fathers’ deaths. Her and her friend helped me realize that this walk on the Camino is part of my dealing with his death.
Illuminating Points of View
Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with another fellow Pilgrim on the Camino. A woman from Ireland came walking up behind me and asked about the poster. As we spoke we talked about the field of neurology and how huge and broad a field it is. She pointed out something I really had not thought of in the past…there is so much to learn and yet even more unknown about the human brain, one can’t expect a neurologist to know it all. The field is much more specialized and I can’t really blame a doctor if he doesn’t know everything there is to know about brain disorders. It was a point I had not considered.
While I realize this woman is right, no doctor is perfect nor knows everything, part of my mission is to help the Lewy Body Dementia Association and other organizations help physicians become more aware of the disease so it moves to the forefront of the mind, like Alzheimer’s, when meeting with patients to diagnose symptoms.
One More Week to Go
We are at a point in our walk where many new people join the Camino to walk the last 80 miles to Santiago de Compostella. So for me that means many new people who will see our posters and we can have more fantastic conversations about Lewy Body Dementia.
If you would like to donate to help the Lewy Body Dementia Association increase awareness and help research for a cure, please click on the link to the right—100% of your donation goes directly to the Association (minus a small processing fee from CrowdRise). Thank you!!