Early Onset Alzheimers Hits Home

Introduction: My wife and I heard the Fiske family's story and we felt compelled to act, driven by my own experience with this dreaded disease, Alzheimers.  My beloved mother doesn't even know who I am anymore, but she's 79 years of age so the idea of a young 37 year old married father of two young girls diagnosed with this disease made this only so much more impactful on us.  Please read their story as written by Mateo's wife, Kelsi, and as you feel compelled to give, let's generously help this family.  Please share this on your Facebook accounts, let's make a real difference as a community for this beautiful family!

Kelsi Fiske writes: Mateo was tested positive for early onset Alzheimer's almost two years ago in September of 2013, he was 35.  He had a 50/50 chance to carry the Gene marker passed down from his mother.  Mateo's Grandmother, Mother and 4 out of 7 of her siblings have passed away from this disease by the time they were 50, most of them being in a vegetative state prior to that. His mother was not even 40 when she was put in a home. They have an Alzheimer's research center at UCSD and they have all his family's history there, and even named it after his family line (the Rocha gene) because it such a rare and an aggressive form of early onset Alzheimer's, which typically affects people in there 50s and 60s.  

 After Mateo was tested a year passed and I only saw minor changes in his memory and recall ability but this last year and with in these last few months it has progressed rapidly.  We don't know what it looks like or exactly how long we have but as I mentioned above it acts and looks the same as Alzheimer's but progresses much more aggressively.  Most of his family members had 5 years after they showed beginning signs.  We started seeing signs 3 years ago........

Right now Mateo has limited recall ability from day to day and sometimes hour to hour on a bad day.  He repeats things often and is starting to show signs of Aphasia (loss of ability to understand or express speech, caused by brain damage).  It has also affected his judgment and reasoning and he sometimes (not often) gets disoriented about his surroundings.  He has really good days where you may not even notice but those days are fewer and fewer.  He is able to be present in a conversation when it is in the moment, and he is so young that most people talking to him or looking at him would not know he has this horrible disease!

 Mateo lost his job about 2 months ago as a CHP officer they did not know of his disease and we can't say exactly if his memory and ability to make decisions played into this.  At this point he can no longer work and he was also denied unemployment by the state.  We just went in to see a Neurologist to get him officially diagnosed and to see what stage he is at so we can begin collecting disability.  I have been a stay at home mom since my daughter was born 12 years ago!  Also because he was let go and did not retire medically we did not receive any benefits from his employer.  So at this point we have no medical insurance and no steady income.  We're still trying to figure out what we can do.  We have two children ages 9 and 12, Jonah and Angelina.  I can go back to work but at some point I will have to be Mateo's full time caregiver.  

 I have no words to express how thankful we are for you and how humbling it is.  It's very hard for us to be in this position of accepting as we are coming to terms with our reality.  I know that through you guys and many others God loves us and wishes for us to receive these blessings and not deny him the Glory, so with open arms and a humbled heart we are saying THANK YOU!!!

The Fiske Family