More About Me
How has life changed since your diagnosis?
Our lives completely stopped. I was doing a graduate program upstate, and now my mom works from home. My mom takes her to all of the appointments, and I help out with cleaning, cooking, and picking up medication.
What are you most passionate about?
I am a writer by heart, and I'm passionate about my family.
What do you hope readers can learn from your health journey?
I hope they realize that they aren't alone. I also hope they can learn from our experience.
Diagnosis
My mom actually started to notice the changes with my grandmother before anyone else. The diagnosis took a while because my family wouldn't see it. The symptoms were slow though, she would start forgetting little things, well, names in particular, and then it progressed to things like what she ate for dinner and her appointments. Though the diagnosis came late, when my grandmother was in her mid-70's, we're doing the best we can to help her.
Treatments
We try to balance treatment with both alternative and prescribed treatments. The prescribed treatments tend to have bad side effects. We told the doctors about it to see if she could be prescribed something else, but as of now, we still have the same medication.
Sandra Rivera
