Final Arrangements for Kathleen Kaminski

Thank you everyone for taking the time to look at this. As you can imagine, these last couple of years have been incredibly difficult for all of us who loved Kathy, particularly her immediate family and caregivers.

In early 2019, Kathy began to show signs of cognitive lapses that seemed to be increasing in frequency and severity. We were concerned enough to urge her to undergo testing by her doctors, and they determined that the same genetic mutation that caused Kathy’s sisters and father to develop Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) was present in her DNA. This genetic mutation can cause both ALS and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD). Kathy was diagnosed with FTD in Fall 2019 when she was only 53 years old. Unfortunately, this meant that the cognitive lapses that Kathy had suffered before her diagnosis would continue to increase, and she would rapidly lose her ability to communicate and care for herself. Watching that process unfold was one of the hardest things any of us has ever had to deal with, and caretaking for someone with this condition was truly heartbreaking and something we would never wish on our worst enemy. Kathy’s bright sense of humor, compassion, and kindness seemed to evaporate overnight. It devastated all of us and will continue to devastate us for the rest of our lives.

Because of her disease and other hardships, getting Kathy the care she needed has been more complicated than it should be. Though we were finally able to get her into a nursing home, she is declining rapidly, and isn’t going to be with us much longer. Kathy was accepted into hospice on September 18, 2022. As a family, we are reaching out to you to ask if you could help us get Kathy’s final affairs in order, so that we can end this long and painful saga with some sense of dignity. Obviously, whatever help you can offer is appreciated, and will go much farther than you can imagine.