John Lithgow Quotes

Mum was in her early 50s when she had four strokes in quick succession that almost took her off. I'd just come down from Cambridge with a rubbish degree. I spent a year reading to her - her eyesight was badly affected - and making sure she got proper rest. It was a special time but very intense, too.

The only real experiences I've had with therapists were the ones who were working with me and my family when my mother was ill.

I've spent a great deal of time over the past decade as a caregiver for various family members. It gives me a perspective on the struggles that many New Yorkers face with illness, disability, health care, insurance difficulties, and trying to work with and also take care of family members.

As well as writing novels and doing short-order journalism, I am also the full-time carer of my husband, who has Alzheimer's. Each day feels like a race that must be run.

My daughter lived with my wife being ill since she was 2.

My husband Don's mother, Denise, was diagnosed with cancer, and she was given eight months to live. We decided to go and stay there and help live her days with her, 'cause you don't get those chances again, right?

My family are all mad. But I got a lot of strength from them.

My mum really depended on me. I'm the eldest of three girls, and she had emotional issues.

When your spouse is given a bleak prognosis, you become an expert in soaking up every moment of every day.

Sometimes when family members least deserve love, they need it the most.

Now I take care of my mother, my father, and my entire family, as well as myself, my woman, and my team that I consider family.

In retrospect, perhaps the biggest reason my mother was cared for but not helped for twenty years was the simplest: Her functioning was not that necessary to the world.

I have three living children for whom this is a father who I want them to love and on whom they're going to have to rely if my disease takes a bad turn.

I'm so blessed to have such enlightened parents. It must have been very hard to watch their able-bodied son lock himself up in his old room for most of his 20s.

I do mean this - I had the good fortune of being around a number of Alzheimer's patients in the last three years of my mother's life. She was in a care facility that was devoted to just people with memory-loss issues. I found those people engaging and generous in ways that I had not imagined.

With my father and sister being very depressed for most of their lives, it was incumbent on me to try to make them laugh, in this ridiculous way. They were the wittiest people I knew, but to get a smile from them was like winning the lottery.

When I was in my early twenties, my mom started repeating things, asking the same questions, telling the same stories. It was like, 'Oh, God, this is not right.' When I was 25, my brother and I finally told our dad we had to take her to the doctor.

I used to work as a volunteer in a hospice, but I don't have any nursing skills or cooking skills or anything, so I was what they call an escort. I would take people to the support groups every night, and I would have to sit sort of on the sidelines so I could take them back to hospice at the end of the meeting.

I am committed to helping Alzheimer's Society in any way I can. My family and I rely on the help of organisations like Alzheimer's Society to help us understand the disease and guide us in the care of my grandmother. It's been a privilege to meet so many people with dementia.

Mum's a worrier, she looked after everybody apart from herself - I think it runs in the family.

First-class delivery of children's palliative care is life-changing. When families are confronted with the shattering news that their children have a life-limiting condition, their world can fall apart.

When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, my middle school friends and myself really had no idea the impact of that diagnosis, but my family did.

By visiting patients in their home, by helping them come to terms with their illness, I could heal when I could not cure.

Then my mother had several strokes and my father, who was 85, couldn't handle it, so Donna came back and we went through the same thing here. She lives in Mill Valley; her group is organizing this event.

There are times where you can't do it yourself and the system takes over, or it's appropriate to do things differently. But I think driving your son and your wife away from hospital was really important to me.