Chase McAllister- Olivarius, Freelance Writer
This week, it seemed no good news would come out of Arizona, which on Saturday morning saw a 22 year old gunman open fire on a crowd that had gathered outside a grocery store in Tuscon, killing 6 people, including a federal judge and a 9 year old girl, and gravely injuring a further 13. His object was the assassination of Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the first Jew to be elected to federal office in Arizona. Despite early, erroneous reports that the assassin, Jared Lee Loughner, had succeeded in slaying Giffords, who was an ardent supporter of Obama’s health care bill and who narrowly won a third term last November, the Arizona congresswoman is in fact alive – though in critical condition – after being shot through the head at point blank range.
While our eyes our riveted on Tuscon and we pray for Giffords’ recovery, elsewhere in Arizona – at Beatitudes, an elderly care facility outside Phoenix – doctors are also struggling to save their patients’ brains from being ravaged by dementia. Though their efforts are less dramatic than those being made on behalf of Congresswoman Giffords’ health, they are perhaps more innovative and no less significant.
Margaret Nance’s experience of dementia, the toll it took on her, and the kind of care she needed at first sounds like a cautionary tale. At 96 years old, Nance was cantankerous, anxious, often opposed to eating, and prone to lose her temper. Her tenure at previous nursing homes often concluded with her assaulting staff members and fellow patients. But, writes the New York Times, “when Beatitudes nursing home agreed to an urgent plea to accept her, all that changed.”
Jewish Care Pearls of Wisdom 