Swimming Solo: A Daughter's Memoir of Her Parents, His Parents, and Alzheimer's Disease

by Susan Rava

Overview

Susan Rava’s story begins with the first suspicion that her father-in-law, Paul, was lapsing into dementia after he set out to swim solo across Lake Michigan. Subsequently, Paul's wife, Silvia, and Susan Rava's parents, George and Dorothy, succumb to Alzheimer's disease. This beautifully written memoir culminates with Dorothy's death, 14 years after Paul's fateful swim. Rava speaks honestly about the emotional and spiritual challenges she, her husband, John, and other members of their family faced as they learned how to say goodbye to four vital, accomplished people as they retreated into dementia.

If you, or someone you love, is facing the emotional and spiritual challenges of Alzheimer's caregiving, this book will offer solace. If you are a counselor, pastor, or spiritual adviser, Swimming Solo will give you new insights to care for the emotional and spiritual needs of caregivers who come to you seeking solace and support. If you are a health care professional, Swimming Solo will give you insights as you deal with the worries and fears of the families of Alzheimer's Disease victims in your care.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940012404770
Publisher:	Plateau Books
Publication date:	03/29/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	308
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Susan Rava, author of the critically acclaimed Swimming Solo: A Daughter’s Memoir of Her Parents, His Parents, and Alzheimer’s Disease, is a retired senior lecturer in French language and literature at Washington University in St. Louis. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times Book Review and the Christian Science Monitor. Two of her short stories received honorable mentions in Houghton Mifflin’s Best American Short Stories of 1986 and 1987.

Editorial Reviews

Susan Rava's account of her and her husband John's parents' serial affliction with Alzheimer's disease strikes a reader with affecting and occasionally numbing force… [as it] traces the mental and physical disintegration of four men and women, active, responsible members of the community, beloved of their children and grandchildren. (Swimming Solo is a) magnificently constructed, gracefully, intelligently written account—which I commend without reservation.

Robert Duffy

Rava’s book (has an) astonishing plot line… her family’s tale of grappling with four old folks suffering from Alzheimer’s disease—her parents and her husband’s parents—a rocky downhill road of 14 years There is the sudden role-reversal routine: we must become parents to our parents. Once, they may have handed us a set of car keys. Now, suddenly, we realize that those car keys have to be handed back to us, willingly or otherwise. This just-publishe

David Bowman

The unenviable decision to place a loved one into nursing care often solely falls upon the shoulders of one person—the caretaker relative. Rava journals the decline of her husband's father as he progresses through each stage of Alzheimer’s until his death. Shortly after, the disease hits her mother-in-law and then both of her parents. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who has, or who ever will, be faced with the decision to care for a loved one or to place them into a

Lyn Sedmina

Rava’s memoir records all the complexities of caregiving for parents with dementia, and conveys her journey in a poignant style that combines the memories of better times within the family constellation and the challenges of deteriorating life quality for the four parents. Rava describes her own doubts about taking on the role of primary caregiver, and includes valuable information about support systems, nursing homes, assisted living places, finances, and hospice care.

The Rev. Diane Moore

A fascinating personal story, painstakingly told, with no unflattering or awkward details spared in the interest of wholeness—and that is its triumph. This book was not a "downer" but a lovingly recounted, intertwined story of the decline of four beloved elderly parents. At the end, the reader feels as though—if you didn't actually know these people, you wish you had. Anders is the author of (among others) Becoming Flame and The Faces of Friendship.

Isabel Anders