The Longest Day is one of the biggest Alzheimer's Association fundraisers of the year, meant to shed light on the burden the disease places on both patients and caregivers alike.
It's a group that's larger than most realize.
“(The doctor) said, ‘Oh my gosh. I can’t believe how far she’s gone at her age,'" Bruce Hamm said.
Hamm has dealt with Alzheimer’s before. Both his mother and mother-in-law died of the disease, but they were in their 90s. He never guessed his wife, Marilyn, would be diagnosed with it at 67.
“After the test, (her doctor) said, ‘It’s probably been going on for 3-5 years before that,'" Hamm said.
That was in 2017. Bruce and a caregiver were able to keep Marilyn at home until last week, when she moved into the memory care unit at MorningStar Senior Living on Billings West End. He says Marilyn has gone severely downhill in the last two months.
"I couldn’t talk to her anymore," he said. "I usually could cue her to do things, but the last couple months, she could maybe get one word out."
"It's so cruel because you still see them, you look at them, but they’re not that same person anymore," said Sean Pearson, community relations director at MorningStar.
Pearson said their memory care unit is full, with statewide numbers trending up. There were 22,000 Montanans with Alzheimer’s in 2020. By 2025, there will be 27,000 - a 22.7 percent increase.
"No matter how good your care is, someday you know you're going to lose someone that you've developed an affection for, that you love," Pearson said.
It’s one of the many reasons volunteers were washing cars, running photo booths and serving some of the longest hot dogs you’ve ever seen at MorningStar Wednesday. It was one of 10 different Longest Day fundraisers across town, and Bruce would go to every one if he could.
"The number of people that have it, and the number of people that are going to have it, it's something that has to be worked on, and it costs money to work on it," Hamm said. "Fundraising for me is an important thing because I’ve been living it."
He’s certainly not alone.
