"Racing Sunset"
After a many-decades long battle, in 2024 my husband, Glenn, died due to complications of Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia. My memoir about our journey, Racing Sunset, is so titled, not only because he was a naval aviator. There were many times we were, indeed, racing the disease.
For more than a decade, his illness was misdiagnosed/undiagnosed. It was easy to sometimes feel alone. A new PD diagnosis is made every seven minutes and the incidence is expected to double within the next twenty years. While wanting to honor Glenn and his journey, the greater goal is to help raise awareness of Parkinson’s disease and start a much-needed national conversation.
I never intended to write a book, certainly not about such a difficult and personal subject. I hope our journey offers a window into disease awareness and changes how we interact with, and care for, those touched by life-altering illness. My ‘guy’ would surely want everyone to remember that the ill person (in whatever form) is still there and needs to be honored for who they were. Racing Sunset is available on Amazon
“An insightful, boots on the ground perspective of the impact of Parkinson’s disease on home and family. Families and caregivers will feel a visceral connection to the struggle with PD described in this book and share the sense of burden, grief, and loss experienced by author. Hopefully this story will create a sense of urgency for a national conversation about Parkinson’s disease--the neurodegenerative disease with the fastest growing prevalence worldwide.” ~ Greg Pontone, MD, MHS Co-Director of the Fixel Neuropsychiatry Program, UF
