OverSixty April 2023 Digital

ISSUE 4 | APRIL 2023 | OVERSIXTY.COM.AU 14 LIVEWELL DEBORAH WASKOW LIVE WELL D iagnosedwithAlzheimer’s disease three years ago, at just 59, Deborah Waskow, now 62, lives with her husband, Dan and helps educate people about the disease. "is is her story, as told to Lambeth Hochwald: The diagnosis "ree years ago, I was working as a legal as- sistant. For a year or longer, my work was beginning to su$er. I !nally got to the point where I couldn’t concentrate – one of the ear- ly signs that something was wrong. I was for- getting things all the time. One day, I threw the papers on my desk up in the air and told my o#ce manager, “I can’t do this anymore.” Legal work is complicated, and you have to have a good brain to do that work. Soon after I left my job, I talked to my pri- mary care doctor about my family’s history of Alzheimer’s; my father and grandfather had it and my mum is currently living with the disease. I was sent to another doctor who performed cognitive tests and a PET scan. "e tests con!rmed it: I have early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Needless to say, my life has changed. My husband retired soon after my diagnosis, so we spend a lot of time together. I write on my blog on Facebook. Instead of going to work, I spend my days having lunch with my friends and visiting my mother who lives an hour’s drive away. I was able to drive to see her up until recently, when I’ve gotten lost a couple of times. "e situation wasn’t terrible, but I’d gotten turned around enough that it scared me. I don’t drive out of town anymore. I stay in town and I can do things like drive to the grocery store and back. I’m okay with that. One way my life has really changed is that I no longer bake. I used to lovemaking cakes, pies and cookies, but I had to stop because I kept forgetting the ingredients. My husband even went and bought di$erent measuring cups and he told me to put %our in one cup and sugar in another, but it’s hard to follow the recipes – even ones I’ve made for years. I am a very independent person. I spent time as a single mother to my son after my !rst marriage broke up (and before I met Dan). I lovedmy self-reliance, but now I have to give up some of that independence. I’m okay with letting my husband take care of things like chores and paying bills. We most- ly do the grocery shopping together now be- cause I forget the list. Planning for the future Right now, Dan and I are enjoying life while we can. You hear about people savingmoney for trips years down the road. We’re not wait- ing; we take a trip every year. I’m not scared. We’re just taking it one day at a time. What makes me sad is my hus- band’s sorrow. I hate to think of his future without me. But I kind of know what’s com- ing: I’ve seen my dad, grandfather, and mum go through this, and I know what to expect. Dan says he wants to take care of me as long as he can, but I’ve already told him I don’t want him to do that for too long. I told him I will go to a facility. "at’s the one thing about Alzheimer’s. You have time to prepare. "e one thing I wish I could change is people’s reaction when I tell them I have Alzheimer’s. "ey shut down. I can still talk; it’s not like all of a sudden I can’t remember anything. "is happened with my dad. He was a professor, he was very social, and he had lots of friends. When he got Alzheim- er’s and had to retire, his friends wouldn’t come to visit him. I think people get scared. Instead, they should learn more about Alzheimer’s and realise that people with the disease can still socialise. We need to make the most of life for as long as we can. !is is life since my Alzheimer’s diagnosis LIVE WELL A strange lump in Richard Danzer’s back would bring a shocking diagnosis – could he cheat death again? Photo: Victor Wong LIVE WELL Since her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, Deborah Waskow says the hardest part is others’ reactions Photo: Courtesy Alzheimer’s Association LUC RINALDI LIVE WELL R ichard Danzer !rst cheated death in 1962. As a young man !ghting in the Vietnam War, he was tasked with salvaging a ship that ran ashore on the island of Phú Quôc. Danzer and 10 fellow soldiers freed the vessel from the beach, but to save them- selves from North Vietnamese forces, they needed to brave waves nearly four metres tall in a small rubber raft. Against all odds, they reached the ship and climbed aboard. “Every day since, I’ve thanked God,” he says. “And every day that I see sunshine is a good day.” "at attitude has helped Danzer navigate the choppy waters of ageing. Now 79, he’s re- tired after a 50-year career working in sales and management in the paint industry. His wife has Parkinson’s disease and dementia, and he’s had plenty of health issues himself. In 2017, he was diagnosed with bladder can- cer. While treating that illness, Danzer’s doc- tors discovered a squamous-cell carcinoma on his nose, a common but aggressive form of skin cancer that appears as a crust and can spread to other parts of the body if not treat- ed. It was excised, and when he was declared cancer-free, Danzer began attending regular appointments to be sure he stayed that way. In the summer of 2018, Danzer noticed a small lump in the middle of his back. It wasn’t painful, but over the course of a few weeks, it grew large enough that he could no longer comfortably sleep on his back. When he reported it to his general practitioner, the doctor said it was most likely a cyst, perhaps a benign pocket of fatty tissue, or an in%amed hair follicle – in other words, something to watch but not panic about. "e ‘cyst’ continued growing for six months. By December, it was eight centime- tres wide. "at wasn’t all. A sizeable dark-red crust similar to a scabwas also developing on Danzer’s leg. He asked his daughter, Cheryl, who’d moved in with him a few years before, to take a look at his leg and back. “We both agreed I’d better get to the doctor,” he says. At that point, Danzer’s family doctor re- ferred him to a dermatologist, who in turn sent him to a specialist who could perform Mohs surgery to remove cancerous cells from the skin on his leg. Danzer asked his new dermatologist, Dr Brittany Smirnov, to also check out the growth on his back. Immediately, Smirnov was certain it was not a cyst. "ere was no punctum, the small hole typically on a cyst, caused by a prob- lematic follicle. And the growth was !rm, whereas cysts are usually soft and gelatinous, like pudding inside a water balloon. Nor did the lump have a foul smell, another tell-tale sign of a cyst that results from a build-up of hair-lubricating %uid under the skin. Plus, it had grown faster thanmost cysts would have. After dismissing that diagnosis, Smirnov thought it might be a lipoma, a common and benign build-up of fat. She pushed the lump around with her !ngers – lipomas shift eas- ily under the skin with slight pressure – but the bulge stayed put. It seemed a#xed to the back of Danzer’s rib cage. Still puzzled, Smirnov asked Danzer about his general health. Was he experiencing any new issues? Nothing new, he reported, but he did have a chronic dry cough he attribut- ed to smoking a pack of cigarettes every day for more than 40 years."at discovery %icked a switch in Smirnov’s brain. Skin abnormali- ties are occasionally a sign of lung cancer, a plausible diagnosis for a long-time smoker like Danzer. “One of the areas where lung cancers love to metastasise is on the chest wall,” says Smirnov. Smirnov ordered a spiral CT scan of Dan- zer’s lungs. "e results proved her suspicions were correct: he had stage four lung cancer, and cancerous cells had spread from his lungs to the tumour on his back. In all likeli- hood, Danzer’s medical team concluded, he had 18 months to live. “It was a shock. It didn’t immediately reg- ister,” he says. "en, when the news did start to sink in, he “put it in God’s hands.” "ere was a slim chance that, with the right treatment, Danzer could cheat death again. He underwent chemotherapy and !ve rounds of CyberKnife treatments, in which a robotic armzapped his tumour with targeted beams of radiation. Almost immediately, the lump on his back started getting smaller. “As the tumour on his back started shrink- ing, we knew his internal tumour was shrink- ing, too,” says Smirnov. “It was a really good barometer to tell us how well the cancer was responding to the treatment.” Within two months, the growth was gone, leaving only a skin wound; with a topical solution, that healed within a few days. "e chemo lasted several months, during which time Danzer often felt sick to his stomach and depleted of energy. His daughter fed, comforted, and took care of him. “I don’t know where I would have been without her,” he says. About a year after !rst visited Smirnov’s o#ce, Danzer was declared cancer-free yet again. By mid-2020 – which he wasn’t sup- posed to live long enough to see – he was back to enjoying retirement and spending time with his daughter, relieved to be alive and grateful to Smirnov for saving his life. “I’ve exceeded my checkout date by over two yearsf now,” he says. “I !gured, after Vi- etnam, I was on borrowed time anyway. "is just came as another blessing.” Deborah Waskow was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease at 59. Here’s her story. His doctor thought it was a cyst – then it kept growing Medical mystery "les BONUS SECTION