Jean Lee of AlzAuthors
All Home Care Matters was honored to welcome the Co-Founder of AlzAuthors as a guest to the show, Jean Lee.
Jean Lee worked full time teaching elementary school while she was thrust into a caregiving role for her mom and dad when they were dually diagnosed.
Her memoir, Alzheimer’s Daughter, follows two sisters–– Jean living a mile from her parents, and her sister living 1,000 miles away––through a near-decade journey as they work together to move their parents out of their life-long home, and eventually to a locked memory care facility. At the end of this hand in hand decline, the sisters are honored to be together as their parents breathe their last breath. Sadness and loss contrast with tenderness and devotion as Jean uses the elderly couple’s WWII love letters, found during the final cleanout, as chapter beginnings.
After the publication of Alzheimer’s Daughter, Jean connected with other authors of Alzheimer’s books, to co-found AlzAuthors.com with the goal of eliminating the stigma and silence often accompanying a diagnosis. AlzAuthors enables caregivers and those living with memory impairment to find written resources – memoirs, novels, nonfiction, children’s books and caregiver guides – which educate and enlighten. AlzAuthors, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, is managed by six daughters of dementia and has posted weekly essays from over 300 authors with direct links to their books, all written from personal experience with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Three years ago, they launched an award-winning podcast entitled Untangling Alzheimer’s and Dementia: An AlzAuthors Podcast. Their newest initiative brings real books to real people in real places through Custom Caregiver Collections, placing handcrafted, table-top lending libraries in locations where people whose lives have been impacted by Alzheimer’s and dementia gather.