Brucye

A compassionate, candid, and often humorous, biographical (and partially autobiographical) narrative/memoir of a six-decade long productive marriage of a remarkable woman and her distinguished veterinarian and professor husband, and how Alzheimer's disease, and its physical and psychological manifestations gradually, yet progressively, affected the couple's last four years, and especially, the author's supportive editor-teammate spouse, as the disease steadily eroded her personality and day-to-day ability to function. The account begins with Brucye's early years and gradually extends through how the couple first met on a "blind" date that was "engineered" by one of their mothers' mutual friend; through their courtship, early marriage, the birth and early development of their two children, the husband's (author's) professional veterinary school curriculum experiences leading to an earned doctorate and, later, his graduate school training, surgical residency, and a second residency earned him a degree in comparative pathology. Later, his career and some notable experiences in private exotic (nondomestic animal) veterinary practice and their life together, as they traveled widely as he served as a popular visiting clinical professor of comparative medicine and pathobiology at numerous North American, European, and Asian colleges and universities. This story is further leavened by relating details of numerous innovative and outrageously humorous "theme" parties and other events during nearly thirty years of the couple's summer recreational boating in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, their planning and collaboration during the establishment of their organic farm and home located in Northern California's Mendocino County, and the wife's eventual development of dementia--which created many challenges. In the latter parts of the book, the author provides a lengthy and useful guide for others contemplating service or who are already serving as a caregiver for a loved one, including numerous specific suggestions and sources for items and services that he found of benefit to all parties while he was involved in being the designated caregiver for his much-loved spouse and best friend. The essentiality of gaining temporary respite from the responsibility as a caregiver is also discussed, as are some external pitfalls that are common to this situation.