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We were two years into our marriage when Wendy's father Jack was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease; and it changed our lives forever.

Few could not imagine the impact of a father in-law's ailment on his son in-law. After all, we were only 2 years into as a family. However, Wendy and I were childhood enemies who later became teenage sweethearts. Her family lived next door to mine. I remember vividly Jack's concerned look some 20 years ago when my mother was pulling my ear after tattle-tale Lanky Wendy told her about me playing truant at school. And there was his beaming smile when Wendy and I announced our engagement years later. I recall every word of the heartfelt man-to-man conversation we had on the night before our wedding.

It began with the car accident. He forgot his way home and drove into a ditch. The injuries were minor but my insistence on a formal neuro-psychiatric assessment confirmed our fears; moderate, progressive dementia.

What started off as memory gaps became wider and wider. We purchased a video camera and recorded every single possible moment of Jack with the whole family; his wife Jane and only daughter, Wendy.

During the first year, Jack would review the video tapes religiously as to not forget his family members. But memory gaps eventually matured into unbridgeable chasms. Wendy cried herself to sleep in my arms the day Jack asked her, Miss, who are you?'

Countless drama abounded. There was the time during a church picnic; the children suddenly started pinching their noses in disgust and the adults twitching uncomfortably. It took a while for others to realize but I noticed the brimming tears in Jack's eyes. The biggest blow to this war veteran and Vice President of an insurance company was when he lost control of his own bowels. One day Jack held his wife Jane at knifepoint when he woke up to find a strange woman sleeping beside him. Jane moved to our home and fell into depression.

As the only physician in Wendy's family, I was not allowed the luxury of hope I give to my patients. The relentless course of the disease, the low efficacy of known therapies and the lack of understanding of the disease process itself were all first-hand information to me. And with Jack, I was not able to process them in a distant professional manner. All in all, Alzheimer's has all but spread its destructive tentacles into every fabric of my wife's family. Jack's Alzheimer's was a particularly devastating type. He demonstrated rapid regression and died of a heart

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