Untangling Caring for a Husband with Early Onset Alzheimer’s with Renée Harmon, MD
Today’s guest is Renée Brown Harmon, MD, author of the teaching memoir “Surfing the Waves of Alzheimer’s: Principles of Caregiving That Kept Me Upright.” She and her husband Harvey created, developed, and shared a thriving family medicine private practice in Birmingham, Alabama, for more than twenty years. In 2010, Harvey, at age 50, was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s and forced to retire. Renée became “The Queen of Everything” at work and at home. She was a solo physician at their practice as well as Harvey’s primary caregiver, and primary parent to their two teenaged daughters. With reluctance and resentment, she also took on the role of head of household. It was a lot, but she managed to “surf the waves,” which she shares in her insightful book. Harvey’s dementia journey ended in memory care in 2018. Renée retired in 2019 and uses her time and talents to write and speak on Alzheimer’s and dementia while advocating for caregivers.
In this episode we discuss how being a physician affected her caregiving journey, how she tried to do it all herself but learned to reach out for help, and the creative ways her friends helped her and Harvey.
Read Renée’s AlzAuthors Post: https://alzauthors.com/2020/06/16/renee-harmon-earlyonset-alz-blog/
Start reading “Surfing the Waves of Alzheimer’s: Principles of Caregiving That Kept Me Upright” now! https://amzn.to/3atH7jU
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Connect with Renée
Website: https://www.reneeharmon.com/
Blog: https://www.reneeharmon.com/blog/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reneeharmonauthor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reneeharmon_writes/?hl=en
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Thank you for listening.
