Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Slow Dancing with a Stranger: Lost and Found in the Age of Alzheimer's
    Slow Dancing with a Stranger: Lost and Found in the Age of Alzheimer's
    Slow Dancing with a Stranger: Lost and Found in the Age of Alzheimer's
    Audiobook5 hours

    Slow Dancing with a Stranger: Lost and Found in the Age of Alzheimer's

    Written by Meryl Comer

    Narrated by Meryl Comer

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    Emmy-award winning broadcast journalist and leading Alzheimer’s advocate Meryl Comer’s Slow Dancing With a Stranger is a profoundly personal, unflinching account of her husband’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease that serves as a much-needed wake-up call to better understand and address a progressive and deadly affliction.

    When Meryl Comer’s husband Harvey Gralnick was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease in 1996, she watched as the man who headed hematology and oncology research at the National Institutes of Health started to misplace important documents and forget clinical details that had once been cataloged encyclopedically in his mind. With harrowing honesty, she brings readers face to face with this devastating condition and its effects on its victims and those who care for them. Detailing the daily realities and overwhelming responsibilities of caregiving, Comer sheds intensive light on this national health crisis, using her personal experiences—the mistakes and the breakthroughs—to put a face to a misunderstood disease, while revealing the facts everyone needs to know.

    Pragmatic and relentless, Meryl has dedicated herself to fighting Alzheimer’s and raising public awareness. “Nothing I do is really about me; it’s all about making sure no one ends up like me,” she writes. Deeply personal and illuminating, Slow Dancing With a Stranger offers insight and guidance for navigating Alzheimer’s challenges. It is also an urgent call to action for intensive research and a warning that we must prepare for the future, instead of being controlled by a disease and a healthcare system unable to fight it.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateOct 13, 2015
    ISBN9780062454874
    Author

    Meryl Comer

    Meryl Comer is an Emmy award–winning reporter, veteran TV producer, and business talk show host. She is president and CEO of the Geoffrey Beene Foundation Alzheimer's Initiative, which promotes early diagnosis, innovation, and national public service campaigns like Geoffrey Beene's Rock Stars of Science™ and the 2009 HBO Alzheimer's Project. A co-founder of WomenAgainstAlzheimer's, she is a recipient of the 2005 Shriver Profi les in Dignity Award and the 2007 Proxmire Award. Comer has been the subject of prime time news stories by ABC's Nightline and the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

    Related to Slow Dancing with a Stranger

    Related audiobooks

    Medical Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Letters To The Editor

      Aug 27, 2021

      Dear readers, we love to hear your thoughts on the stories that we publish, what is going on around the world, and what the Lord has placed on your heart! Email your letter through to editor@joymag.co.za for a chance to be featured – please try to ke

      8 min read

    • Article

      Esmé Weijun Wang, Nonfiction

      Mar 21, 2018

      Esmé Weijun Wang, Nonfiction
      5 min read

    • Article

      Saxon Mullins

      Feb 15, 2023

      Saxon Mullins
      2 min read

    • Article

      Inconvenient Truths

      May 17, 2022

      ONE OF THE basic expectations the public have of doctors is honesty. But what would you think if I told you that research has shown that 70 per cent of doctors admitted to lying to their patients? It is inexcusable, surely? Grossly unprofessional and

      2 min read

    • Article

      From The Inside Out

      Mar 29, 2023

      From The Inside Out
      5 min read

    • Article

      Sea Change

      Apr 27, 2021

      Sea Change
      12 min read

    • Article

      A Baby Grudge

      Feb 2, 2020

      A Baby Grudge
      2 min read

    • Article

      I Killed My Wife. Now I Want to Help Prevent Domestic Violence.

      Oct 4, 2019

      “If I could save one man from doing what I did, then I will have found a calling for my final years.”

      6 min read

    • Article

      Life, Death, and Love

      Nov 20, 2018

      Life, Death, and Love
      7 min read

    • Article

      Losing Heat

      Dec 25, 2023

      Losing Heat
      5 min read

    • Article

      Meet Sam.

      Dec 1, 2022

      Meet Sam.
      10 min read

    • Article

      Commentary: Old Folks' Home? No Way

      Mar 13, 2019

      My father died after just a few weeks in the old folks' home. I can't forget watching him walk around the place saying, "I don't remember a trial. Was there a trial or just this sentence?" My mother took much longer. Toward the end, her vital signs w

      3 min read

    • Article

      Scars Of Sexuality

      Apr 22, 2021

      When we think of psychological trauma, we tend to think of huge life events that have been witnessed or experienced, leading, at worst, to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Although others might not experience PTSD, they may present with residua

      2 min read

    • Article

      Every Family Has A Story

      Jul 1, 2023

      Every Family Has A Story
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Slow Dancing with a Stranger

    4/5

    19 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Heartbreaking, raw, frightening, enlightening. So many emotions, the compassion shown, the 24 hours a day over decades commitment by caregivers, the isolation and absolute fatigue of caregivers, the horror of this cruel disease and the terrible fear for anyone or their family that they might get this diagnosis.
    • 5/5
      Imagine that your talented, brilliant husband, a renowned scientist and doctor devoted to his patients, starts to exhibit erratic behaviour patterns, becomes aggressive when questioned, and becomes ‘someone else?’ In Slow Dancing with a Stranger, this is what happened to journalist and author Meryl Comer. It took two years and a painful battery of tests before Harvey Gralnik was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at age fifty-eight. This was a devastating blow to both Harvey and Meryl, and their family and friends. What followed is a nearly twenty-year odyssey of trauma, hardship and tragedy as Harvey declined mentally and physically. After a series of disasters with care homes, Meryl gave up her stellar career to nurse Harvey at home with the help of a team of dedicated care-givers. Another blow fell when her mother, too, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and also came to live with Meryl. Caring for these two people became the focus of Meryl’s existence.Meryl’s book dedication is to her grandchildren, that may their memories last a lifetime. Memories are what we take for granted. When we forget something small and inconsequential, like where we placed our keys, it’s nothing. Imagine forgetting everything, even who you are. I was riveted as Slow Dancing with a Stranger detailed how Harvey disintegrated from a true Renaissance man—cultured, elegant, educated, gracious, charming and creative—into a shambling shell who might lash out in rage at any minute against his wife and caregivers. As I read, I could hardly believe the horror of what Alzheimer’s can do, and there is no cure. The statistics on Alzheimer’s are frightening. Every sixty-eight seconds, someone falls victim, but fifty percent are never diagnosed. The disease affects 5.4 million people in the US and 44 million worldwide.What is clear from reading this harrowing memoir is that the average person has no concept of what it is like to live with and care for someone with Alzheimer’s. Forget the sepia tinged idea of a sufferer just having more than a few ‘senior moments.’ There is no glamour and very little reward in caring for an Alzheimer’s sufferer. Meryl’s brutally honest account describes a descent into a kind of nightmarish madness, hideous for both the caregiver and the sufferer. Fighting a dread disease is made easier when the patient can fight back, too, along with their family, loved ones and medical team. Imagine when the silent enemy is insidiously eating away at all that one cherishes: one’s memories, one’s capacity for human behaviour, one’s sense of self.Closeness, or intimacy, and shared memories define relationships. When you have no memories, you have no ‘you.’ The loss of social restraints, the loss of memory and identity, the loss of connection with people they once loved and who love them is painfully and agonisingly described in Meryl’s words. Writing with elegance and simplicity, the author cogently describes a hellish journey that most of us would have given up on, a labour of love beyond what any average person would take on. The author asks and answers many soul searching questions in her book, the most important one being why take on this burden? Was it out of love, duty, or guilt? Perhaps Meryl answers that best with these words: “No one deserves to be forgotten in life because their disease is without hope.” This book is a must-read, no matter your age.
    • 5/5
      Cannot say enough good things about this book! It was so sad, but Meryl is a fighter and puts her family first. Not only does she have a husband with early onset Alzheimer's who she takes care of at home, her mother was also diagnosed with Alzheimer's and she has been caring for both!!! Must read.