{"id":1282,"date":"2014-02-23T21:49:58","date_gmt":"2014-02-24T04:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/?p=1282"},"modified":"2014-03-21T07:26:11","modified_gmt":"2014-03-21T14:26:11","slug":"my-angel-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/23\/my-angel-mother\/","title":{"rendered":"My Angel Mother"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>Last weekend, Angie and I flew out to Atlanta to visit my parents.\u00a0 Some of you may have heard that my mom has been having some health problems lately.\u00a0 We got in late Friday night and on Saturday, we learned that Mom has a very rare condition called Creutzfeldt-Jakob’s disease<\/a>.\u00a0 The disease is caused by misfolded proteins called prions that destroy brain tissue.\u00a0 This disease only affects about one in a million every year, so very little is known about it.\u00a0 What is known is that most people live less than a year after first showing symptoms (the median time is 4 months).\u00a0 For Mom, that began back in September when she started having balance problems.\u00a0 Toward the end of December, she started losing her short-term memory.\u00a0 A variety of tests had all come up negative, but because of her continued decline, she had another MRI early this month and the doctors finally saw the first evidence of this condition.<\/p>\n

After we learned about this disease, we made arrangements for all of her children to come to Atlanta to visit her.\u00a0 Within 36 hours, all six of her children (and some in-laws) were there in her home.\u00a0 It was so wonderful to see her surrounded by loving family.\u00a0 A few days before she could no longer use a pen, she wrote in her journal that she didn’t understand what was happening to her, and why she couldn’t remember things, but she said she remembers “who I am and who I love.”<\/p>\n

When someone begins to lose their ability to think and concentrate, the only thing that is left is their true personality.\u00a0 You can’t put on a front or pretend to be someone you’re not.\u00a0 Mom’s true personality shows through all that she’s been enduring.\u00a0 She is sweet, happy, obliging, and loving even though she can’t understand what is happening to her.\u00a0 I think it speaks volumes about the kind of woman she is.\u00a0 Her love for her family has always been her top priority.\u00a0 She has always been such an amazing example to all of us.<\/p>\n

Losing a loved one changes you in a way that no lesson or book or conversation ever could.\u00a0 Last summer Angie’s dad passed away unexpectedly and it affected us both deeply.\u00a0 After that kind of loss you have a different perspective on nearly everything you do.\u00a0 Things that you thought were important become meaningless and other things become surprisingly precious.\u00a0 I think that this outlook is closer to the eternal perspective we ought to have every day.\u00a0 I think that what’s happening now has the potential to change us for the better.\u00a0 That’s what I hope for and I know that’s what Mom would want.<\/p>\n

While I was in Atlanta, my sister read an email from my nephew to my mom.\u00a0 He asked her how she was doing and what she was feeling.\u00a0 Mom dictated this brief response, “I’m a little down, but I refuse to be defeated.”\u00a0 This is the attitude she had throughout her life.\u00a0 Mom, you have not been defeated; you have been and always will be triumphant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last weekend, Angie and I flew out to Atlanta to visit my parents.\u00a0 Some of you may have heard that my mom has been having some health problems lately.\u00a0 We got in late Friday night and on Saturday, we learned that Mom has a very rare condition called Creutzfeldt-Jakob’s disease.\u00a0 The disease is caused by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[8,270,13],"tags":[274],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8WrW-kG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1282"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1285,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282\/revisions\/1285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}