Cherished memories

Mom’s generosity, compassion set example for others.

By By Debbie Miller The Morning News

Posted: November 1, 2009 at 1:40 a.m.

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WASHINGTON COUNTY — Christian Baldwin remembers his mom as someone always reaching out to help others.

She was the first one to bake a pound cake for a friend or neighbor, he says, and the one who would call with an encouraging word to someone struggling with depression and addiction.

“She was just an angel, to be honest with you,” says the Fayetteville man. “I like to brag on her just because she really was ... a great wife, a great mother.”

Jan Baldwin served tirelessly in the Junior League and other charitable groups. Her faith was strong, her son says, and she strived to be a good Christian example. She taught fifth-grade Sunday school for many years, and she cared deeply about her young charges. On Sunday mornings, the family would leave the house extra early so that his mom could pick up and transport to church other children in their town - kids who probably wouldn’t have attended Sunday school otherwise.

“We kind of joked with her that she had a bus service on the side,” Baldwin recalls. “She wanted to make sure that those kids got there.”

In his eyes, “she was just the model citizen. ... She is, was, the type of woman that just loved everybody.”

Present and past tensetend to blend together in his conversation.

Jan Baldwin has Alzheimer’s disease, an irreversible, progressive brain disease that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills and eventually robs the patient of the ability to carry out the simplest tasks.

Christian’s mom resides in a nursing home in Little Rock and doesn’t have the ability to eat or to walk. She can still sense comfort and caring and perhaps takes consolation in a loving touch, but she does not recognize her son, Christian; her daughter, Shelly; or her husband, Ron.

It’s been a long process, but in recent years, the son has become an advocate for Alzheimer’s disease causes.

“You have to be at a certain point to be able to deal with it, if it happens to somebody that you love,” he says. “There was a period of time where I really didn’t want to be involved in anything that had to do with it (Alzheimer’s) because it was like this disease is taking my mother away from me.”

But he’s managed to move past that sentiment. And he apparently demonstrates a commitment to the cause that’s not unlike what hismodel-citizen mom might have displayed.

“He stands out amongst all of us,” says Karen Gray, who serves with Baldwin on the Western Arkansas Leadership Council for the Alzheimer’s Association. “He’s like a light bulb on the committee. ... His biggest quality is the fact that he passionately cares. ... He is driven probably harder than the rest of us to get something done.” The diagnosis

Before Jan Baldwin received the official diagnosis, there was the realization that something was wrong, terribly wrong.

She was in her 50s when the symptoms began. Alzheimer’s cases identified in patients before the age of 65 are considered “early onset.”

Christian Baldwin was away at college, studying at the University of Virginia.

His father, Ron, is a pediatrician, and the couple had moved from their home in Magnolia to Little Rock. At first, some of his mom’s symptoms could be attributed to the move and distress at being in a new place away from longtime friends.

But odd occurrences persisted.

His dad came home to find the oven on for no reason. His mom tried to back the car out of the garage, but neglected to raise the door.

Baldwin recalls her sending mail to him in Virginia and scrawling the address all over the envelope. He remembers Thanksgiving in 1999 when he came home from college and hismom, who typically prepared a feast that would have fed an army, forgot to cook the meal.

The incidents raised questions for all of the family, but they troubled his mom greatly.

“She was scared,” he says. “She just didn’t know what was really happening.”

His father sought out more rigorous medical testing. She finally was diagnosed in 2001. She was 57.

After the diagnosis, Baldwin’s parents moved a couple of times into safer and more contained environments. In 2005 his mom broke her hip and the orthopedist said she would need rehabilitation in a skilled-care facility. The decision was made to place her in a nursing home, where she has received excellent care, he says. Some mild strokes have resulted in her inability to feed herself; his dad authorized a feeding tube to be inserted.

That decision is one of many difficult choices the family has faced. Baldwin’s mom became ill at a young age and she didn’t have any kind of legal directives in place advising what steps she wished to be taken to save or prolong her life.

Coming to terms

Baldwin says it was important to him to come to terms with what was happening to his mother.

“For me, it was sitting down one day in my closet and just reading all the old letters that I had from her,” he says, “and just crying until I couldn’t cry anymore. ... letting her go as the person that I knew and the mother that I loved, and just kind of coming to terms with it. OK, I still love her, but it’s different now. Now I need to be the compassionate one and just understand that it’s outside of my control.”

He and his wife, Allison, lived in Tennessee and North Carolina before moving to northwest Arkansas in 2006. About two years ago, he decided he was ready to get involved, to give back and perhaps start helping educate others about Alzheimer’s.

He participated in the Memory Walk, one of the Alzheimer’s Association fundraisers.

His passion for advocacy is readily apparent, says Sandra Warmack, state director for the Alzheimer’s Association, Oklahoma and Arkansas Chapter.

Baldwin was asked to join the Leadership Council. He serves in public policy and advocacy efforts through a statewide committee and helps others stay informed on legislation and possible advocacy actions, Warmack says.

He says a dream would be if research could find a cure or preventive steps so that Alzheimer’s could be eradicated and talked about as a past health concern, like polio is now.

Baldwin’s message these days also includes a men

News, Pages 2 on 11/01/2009

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