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When Your Loved Ones Have Dementia | Coffee With Kenny · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  Happy Wednesday morning everybody.
• 0:05
  I'm not even going to try to fix my hairs.
• 0:07
  How in the world did I get that type of hairdo look?
• 0:11
  Some look something like they used to do in the 50s.
• 0:14
  Remember they'd split their hair down the middle.
• 0:18
  Hell, all my buddies in school, they had their hair split down
• 0:20
  the middle. I like here.
• 0:23
  I was talking about the little rascals the other day.
• 0:26
  I look like alfalfa, and now I look like the other kid.
• 0:28
  You know, the the one that had the greasy hair split down the
• 0:31
  middle. Hey, maybe I'm part of the
• 0:34
  little rascals. All right, we're going to get
• 0:40
  right to it today. I'm in my favorite spot out
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  here. I like this area.
• 0:48
  I like the back of my house. Today we are going to talk about
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  dementia. You know, all I'm doing is
• 0:58
  talking about what's up. Now listen, I want to, I want to
• 1:01
  be clear, I'm living my best life.
• 1:04
  Everything's happy. However, my my best friend
• 1:11
  Lauren, Lauren Wright and and Aunt Pat, both of them have
• 1:19
  dementia. Kim's heart broke.
• 1:23
  My wife is heartbroke. She loves Aunt Pat dearly like
• 1:28
  we all do. But Aunt Pat has Lewy body
• 1:32
  dementia. Now it's OK to talk about this
• 1:38
  because Kim's mom, Dee put it all over Facebook.
• 1:43
  And I'm glad she did because now we know what's up.
• 1:48
  There's there's this balance of, of HIPAA laws, what to talk
• 1:53
  about and what not to talk about.
• 1:56
  So I understand that people are very prideful and sometimes
• 2:01
  people don't want you to talk about their health, which is
• 2:05
  fine. And I agree with that.
• 2:07
  There's some things people just they're just not comfortable.
• 2:10
  And I get that. I respect that, but I get a lot
• 2:15
  of questions. Say whatever your buddy Lauren,
• 2:19
  my dear friend Lauren, I love him, love him dearly.
• 2:22
  And Lorne Lauren Wright, his wife, Terry, I tease, I tease
• 2:30
  her that she's the mayor of Arnold, MO.
• 2:34
  The Wright family, they're known.
• 2:37
  They're known through all out of Jefferson County.
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  And Arnold and Lorne showed up with dementia and I remember the
• 2:48
  time I called his wife. So today, you know, we're going
• 2:53
  to talk about losing my friend to dementia.
• 2:57
  And an Aunt Pat. She's not, she's not in good
• 3:01
  shape right now, but they're doing their best.
• 3:04
  My wife is over there. Aunt Pat, Aunt by D, Uncle Doug.
• 3:11
  Everybody's doing their best. Dawn to daughter, the whole
• 3:16
  family's over there at Aunt Pat's house.
• 3:20
  So let's let's talk about Lauren for a minute.
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  Lauren went to a lot of races with me and Lauren was always
• 3:28
  good luck. And I'll never forget, we went
• 3:33
  to Boyd Speedway in Chattanooga, TN and John Schneider from the
• 3:41
  Dukes of the Hazzard, he was there, we ate together and it
• 3:47
  was a great trip. But all of a sudden we're
• 3:52
  getting ready to leave. And Lauren and I shared the
• 3:55
  same, you know, hotel room. And Lauren was packing his
• 4:00
  clothes and he was packing his clothes at a really slow rate of
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  speed, really slow. And I, and I noticed, I thought,
• 4:08
  what the Hell's going on there? Well, we started on our way home
• 4:14
  and we were, you know, leaving Boyd's, leaving Chattanooga, TN
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  and we were coming back to Saint Louis.
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  You know what, You know when they they have these things
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  called turning points. It's like I remember the day.
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  I remember the moment with Lorne.
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  We are getting close to the house here.
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  We were coming, you know, up through Nashville and, you know,
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  2457 and 64 and we were on 64 coming into Saint Louis.
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  Lauren looked at me. It was just Lauren and myself.
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  Lauren looked at me as sure as could be.
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  And he goes, now we're in Arkansas, right?
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  I said, Lauren, I'm going to pull this truck over right now.
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  You scare me like that again. Got home and I called Terry up
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  and I said Terry, I said something ain't right.
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  And that was the moment. And that was the start of my
• 5:12
  dear friend, my dear friend Lauren Wright.
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  Now, Lauren's going to live a quite, quite a while.
• 5:19
  Lauren's going to, Lauren's going to live quite a while.
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  But damn it, they write articles on this stuff.
• 5:31
  But I'm dealing with two people, two people that love very much
• 5:35
  with dementia. What a cruel disease.
• 5:38
  You know, in the end, that's how we lost President Reagan.
• 5:45
  But I want you to know that with Lauren, Lauren could talk to you
• 5:52
  about something that nobody even knows about.
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  And I just go with him. He could say something is mine.
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  He'll come up to you. And you're like, oh, he's fine.
• 6:03
  And then all of a sudden, like 10 seconds later, he's talking
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  about something that I have no idea what he's talking about,
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  but I love him. We're celebrating him.
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  And he's got the best family, Terry and, and all the kids and
• 6:17
  Chase and Levi and Taylor, Lauren and all of them, they're,
• 6:23
  they're what, they're a wonderful family.
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  So losing my buddy to dementia, dammit.
• 6:33
  And there's there's details. I went over to his house one day
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  not a month ago and I said, Lauren, I said I'm going to take
• 6:45
  you to Steak and Shake and I'm going to get you a milkshake.
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  He looked me right in the face and he says get out of here.
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  I don't want no damn milkshake. Broke my heart about started
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  crying. I thought, oh God, the cruel
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  side of dementia. And then the next day he was
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  just fine. So if you ever have to deal with
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  anybody that's got dementia, I'm letting you know what I'm going
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  through. And I want to let you know that
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  all you can do is stay PMA positive mental attitude.
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  Every time I see Lauren, I just give him a big hug.
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  I say, Lauren, I love you. And we just stay positive.
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  Support their families. Think about what they're going
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  through now. Aunt Pat, Aunt Pat, my wife Kim
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  loves Aunt Pat to the moon and back.
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  And before I knew what was going on, I remember this moment.
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  Aunt Pat said she wanted to meet Kim and I at the Hobby Lobby
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  parking lot. Pulled in there because she said
• 8:11
  she had a little Fender Bender. She wanted me to look at her car
• 8:15
  because she had a Fender Bender. I thought why we meeting at the
• 8:18
  Hobby Lobby? Well, because she wanted me to
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  look at her right front Fender. We met and we pulled in there
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  and my, I was like, this ain't a Fender Bender you wrecked.
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  It was that moment. And of course, I got on the
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  phone to Dawn and I said Dawn and here we are now.
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  So Aunt Pat's got Lewy body dementia and every day the
• 8:52
  family is doing their best. I think it's just awesome what
• 8:57
  the Sunshine family is doing. So Kim's mom, Dee, she's one of
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  ten kids. This is a tough deal.
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  I want to thank all my friends for letting me know their
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  experiences with dementia. It's very hard disease because
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  the people that have dementia, they can't do anything for
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  themselves. So with the Sunshine family,
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  every single day they're trading out.
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  You got Aunt Pat's wonderful daughter Dawn, you got D, you
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  got DS, sister BI, you got Uncle Doug.
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  Everybody's pitching in. It's a tough deal.
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  I when, when this first went down.
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  I'm going to leave you like this.
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  When this first went down, I didn't know really what was up.
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  I was kind of confused. And my wife was gone all the
• 9:55
  time. And I looked at Kim and I said,
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  Kim, are you ever going to come home?
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  Kim looked at me and said don't mess with me and Aunt Pat.
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  I said, OK. So my wife Kim, I love you so
• 10:15
  much and sweet daddy is behind you 110%.
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  You take care of Aunt Pat and we're all right here and
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  whatever you need from us. The reason I decided to share
• 10:27
  this story is I want to help others and let you all know that
• 10:32
  you're not on an island by yourself.
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  Dementia is a bitch because the people you love kind of don't
• 10:43
  even know who the hell you are. And and you're like your, your
• 10:46
  heart broke because the person you love, you see them going
• 10:51
  down and you got to take care of them.
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  So with Lorne and Aunt Pat, it's a it's a lot of work, but
• 11:00
  everybody's up to the task and it takes you down.
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  It wears you out. Breathe deep, everybody.
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  I just want you to know that we're all going through it too.
• 11:13
  We're with you. For everybody that's got
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  dementia, loved ones out there, I love you.
• 11:20
  Have a great day everybody.