Fund edwardcharris' 'Stache -- uh..er...Beard!

That’s right folks, it’s the end of the beginning of this facial hair journey that I’ve undertaken to generate money and awareness for the R&D and hopefully cure of Alzheimer’s. We' ve managed to raise $650 so far and with my matching $500, that brings us up to a whopping $1,150!!!

There’s still time to donate! My beard will be going strong until June 16th and then it’s gone for a bit.

I’ve already dyed it black as per the caveat of one donation and starting tomorrow it’s going to be coming off piece by piece! Want to see it? The only thing you can do is donate to be part of the action. Everyone who donates will get photos of me as the beard comes off in some very …creative ways.

So what are you waiting for? Breakout those credit cards and donate now!

I would like to thank the following individuals for contributing to my charity and supporting me in this endeavor.

Thank you!

Kate and John, Brittany, T.K.G., I.E.M. II, Dyanna, Kathleen, Jeff and Veronica

We’re less than a week out from when my beard will finally start to go the way of the dinosaur. A new twist has been thrown in to the mix though! One of my gracious donators had a caveat with her donation — before the shaving starts it must be dyed black! That’s right folks — I’m going to be dying my beard black.

So the plan is to dye the beard starting on Saturday June 12th, then shave off a small piece of the beard each day until the 17th when it’s all going to be gone.

Should be interesting no?

YOu want to see it don’t you?

Well, here’s the catch — you CAN — but only if you donate to the cause! That’s right! Even as little as $1 will get you in the circle of the super elite set of folks that will get to see me in embarrassing shades of beard! So hurry up and get those donations in!

Just click on the giant red [ DONATE NOW] button over to the right there. Stand up and make a difference!

To Be Continued….

The end is finally in sight! Not only for the end of Mustache May 2010, but for the understanding and potential cure for Alzheimer’s!

That’s right, every penny generated here will help fun the research, development, prevention and hopefully cure for this devastating disease that just annihilates families and the loved ones who are effected by it.

Researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara have outlined in a new book some ways they think that the pending epidemic can be slowed down by way of various dietary regimens, cognitive and physical exercises plus ways to ease the pain and trauma that so many dementia patients suffer from.

Read more here: http://bit.ly/cE2jWH

In the meantime, check out the beard photo posted above. I still have two weeks more to go until I’m going to start shaving this sucker off. Be sure to keep an eye out for those photos being displayed exclusively here at Fund-a-Stache!

So keep those donations coming and make sure you spread the word to your friends and family!

Here’s a photo taken at work the other night. The beard is coming in thick and curly. I’ve got some long spiral curls along the sideburns and this almost annoying ‘wave’ of hair along the right side by my jaw.

Just about three more weeks of growth before the shaving begins!

Good thing it’s not too hot here in AZ these last few days because it’s going to suck over the next few weeks.

…not as much as it would suck to have Alzheimer’s though. So keep those contributions coming in and tell all your friends too!

Hey hey hey!

It’s that time of the week where I call out thanks and praise to the folk who are helping to support me (financially) for this cause!

This week I pay tribute to:

-Lonn and Heather D. -Sam K.

Thank you all. Your contributions are stepping stones to a better understanding and future cure for this disease.

I appreciate your support.

The core research effort currently funded by Cure Alzheimer’s Fund is the Alzheimer’s Genome Project (AGP) initiative, led by Dr. Tanzi, which has the objective of identifying all relevant remaining Alzheimer’s genes that have not yet been discovered, thereby identifying more targets for the development of therapeutic interventions. A milestone for this project was achieved in 2008 with the identification of 70 new genes that confer risk for or protection against Alzheimer’s. This effort represents some of the most important Alzheimer’s breakthroughs in recent history, as the genes will greatly facilitate the development of effective therapies for the disease. Each newly identified gene offers fresh understanding of the pathology of the disease and holds promise for the development of therapeutic intervention.

There are other related projects helping to contribute to the AGP.

Alzheimer’s Disease Brain-Genetic Study: http://bit.ly/cDxq4M

This program, led by Dr. Bradley Hyman (MIND), compares the pathological features of autopsied brains of deceased AD patients with those of non-demented subjects to link AD pathology to genetic factors.

Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical-Genetic Study: http://bit.ly/bYMTjb

This program, headed by Dr. Deborah Blacker (MGH), tracks patients with “benign forgetfulness,” mild cognitive impairment and AD using imaging and cognitive tests to link clinical feature of AD to genetic factors.

Alzheimer’s Disease Gene Database: http://bit.ly/ar0hcH

This Internet database and forum, headed by Dr. Lars Bertram (MIND), gathers and analyzes all published studies and data relating to AD genetics, and provides weekly updates regarding ongoing attempts to identify novel AD genes.

The Baltimore Sun recently featured an article detailing how Spouses and loved ones who care for Dementia and Alzheimer’s family members sometimes have their health negatively impacted.

http://bit.ly/ckk88E

———%<————

For Marilyn Blum, the hardest part of dealing with her husband Steve’s dementia was getting him to give up the car keys. There were the arguments, the denial and that day four years ago when he grabbed the keys, stormed off and started the ignition. He was lost for hours.

In the initial days of her husband’s diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s, her triglyceride level rose, her blood pressure jumped and stress took hold. “The early stage was horrible; it was very rough on both of us,” said Marilyn Blum, 61, of Owings Mills.

The emotional toll of caring for a partner with dementia can be overwhelming — and wreak havoc on a caregiver’s own health. New research from Johns Hopkins and Utah State suggests that stress may put a caregiver at risk for developing dementia as well. Spouses who cared for a partner with dementia had a sixfold increase in the risk of developing the disease, researchers found in a 12-year study.

“In addition to all the physical demands of taking care of an ill person, there are the psychological demands and stresses,” said Johns Hopkins University psychiatry professor Dr. Peter Rabins, an authority on dementia and one of the study’s authors. “This is a loved one, they sometimes don’t know who you are, they accuse you of stealing things, that’s stressful.”

…

Read the full article at: http://bit.ly/ckk88E

More donations have come in! Thank you very much to the following folks who are giving a little of themselves to help make a big difference in someone else’s.

• Matt K.
• The Erkkila Chickens (a.k.a. PEE)
• Stacey P.

I know it’s tough out there economically and not everyone has the ability to help financially support a charity or the people who are working to raise funds for that charity. The Pepsi Corporation is helping to spread that good money around to worthwhile charities and ideas throughout the nation/world. One of those just happens to be the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund!

Currently the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund is in the running for $250,000.00 USD to help research and development for causes and cures for Alzheimer’s!!!

Simply visit:

http://www.refresheverything.com/curealzheimers

And vote for this cause! IT costs you nothing and it’s going to change the lives of so many. Tell your friends, family and even people you may not like to just take a few minutes out of their day and vote.

Beard is in full effect now! It’s very odd having to shampoo my face as well as what’s left of the hair on my head. I’ve got roughly one more month of growth before the fun cutting begins so this should be interesting. Anyone interested in doing an over/under contest on how long the hair will be at the end of the fundraiser?

Its been a few days now since I finally started the fund-a-stache site and the contributions and support from my friends and family have been overwhelming.

Thank you to:

Bill, Julie, Roxanne, Tracy & James, Jennifer W, Jenny K., Tara, and Kevin

for your support of my cause and for the Alzheimer’s Foundation itself. It’s the kindness and generosity of people such as yourself that make a difference in this world and my life. So this beard’s for you!

Last week I traveled back to Florida during the week to check in on dad and to run him around to various doctor’s appointments. While we were there I managed to get him to visit his older sister Virgle in the sister community to his Assisted Living Facility (ALF). Until this point my dad really didn’t want to visit his sister because he found it “too depressing.” Why you might ask? Virgle is in a special ALF designated for fully enveloped Alzheimer’s and dementia care patients. He was having a hard time visiting her because she doesn’t remember him at all. During our time there, my aunt really didn’t know who we were but she did enjoy the fact that we had come to visit. Typically she lived with my Uncle but due to certain circumstances he was moved to a different facility because he is not a victim of Alzheimer’s. I’ll get in to that story and reasoning in a different post…

Even though Virgle couldn’t remember recent events or even my dad, when dad started to reminisce about their old house that they had grown up in, she remembered it right away. They began talking about Mulberry street and all the things that happened to them as kids growing up in Holly Hills. Alzheimer’s patients usually remember events and memories from the distant path more than the recent ones because those have had more time to fix themselves into the person’s memory. It’s like muscle memory if you’re familiar with that. Because the memory has been around for so long it’s stronger than a newer one.

Other than being thinner than when I moved him in to the ALF, my dad was doing much better. He only had one episode during the time I was there and that was on the day we did the most. The stress to his system triggered the event. Considering the ones he has had before, this one was significantly more manageable. Of all the things that I managed to accomplish last week I think the best one was connecting my father and his sister.

A special thanks to Mr. Bobby Jones for kicking off the donations early this morning.

Bobby was shortly followed up by Bob Nicholson!

Thank you gentlemen for your support and contribution. :)

Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia, was “discovered” one hundred years ago in Bavaria by Dr. Alois Alzheimer. It is a progressive and fatal disease. Alzheimer’s destroys brain cells, causing problems with memory, thinking and behavior. The cause of the disease is not known.

There are more than 5 million documented patients according to best estimates, with some experts suggesting that may be only 20% of the total number actually affected. The number of new cases grows by more than 10% per year. 10% of people over 65 have the disease; almost half over 85 have it.

Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth leading cause of death and is the only one of the major diseases (heart disease, breast and prostate cancer and stroke) to be increasing in mortality. It is the most costly disease in terms of Medicare and Medicaid expense of any of the major diseases. Alzheimer’s is an epidemic, heading toward also being a major economic disaster for the health care industry.

The cause of Alzheimer’s disease has eluded investigators for over a hundred years. Partly this is because Alzheimer’s is a genetically complex disease, and there have not been the tools or skills available for a full-scale assault on the disease until the last five or six years. Another reason is because of the prevalence of so many competing theories. The field has been slow to coalesce around one or a small number of leading candidate theories. There has not been enough funding for research, and from the federal level, funding is decreasing as Alzheimer’s disease reaches epidemic proportions as the baby boomers enter the danger age zone —– over 65.

Its been over 30 days since I started growing out my beard. Minus cleaning up some areas it’s growing unabated. Here’s what I look like at dark o'clock in the morning on May 9th, 2010.

When I was was in the business of growing hair (ie: before my hair stopped growing abundantly on my head) I use to have thick, curly brown hair. My beard seems to have some type of memory of those times and is coming in curly, curly, curly!

I’m not really sure how to start this since it’s my first fund-a-stache so I figure I’ll just babble on a bit about why I’m doing this and why it’s important to me. A few years ago my sister and I started noticing that our father Robert was experiencing some memory issues. Nothing major mind you, just simple things like not remembering who turned on a light or where something specific was in his house or around town. To most this is just something that happens in life, because we all forget things. However this isn’t the case with my father. Thirty years in the military had made him a regimented man and he had a method for everything and everything had its place. Whether it was taking notes for specific things that needed to be done or just recollecting memories from when he was a child; my father was a smart as a whip. Over time the symptoms became increasingly apparent that he was having memory issues. His older sister was already diagnosed with severe Alzheimer’s and it was decided that dad should get checked out for the disease. Last fall the his doctors at the Veteran’s Affairs hospital in Lake City determined that my dad was indeed suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s with mild dementia. This past January my father, who lived alone, fell while trying to retrieve something off the top shelf in his closet and severely hurt himself. After an undetermined amount of time he was able crawl to a phone and call his neighbor for assistance. Seeing that he was hurt and bleeding she did the only thing anyone else would do — she took him to the hospital. While at the hospital they were able to get my father stabilized. He had taken a mean fall and at 78 years of age had torn skin, bruising over his hips, shoulders, back and arms. His back was hurt and he found it difficult to walk. During this several days in the hospital my father became frustrated due to being in the hospital and began acting out in an aggressive manner toward the hospital and its staff. My sister and I were informed that due to his previous diagnosis that with Alzheimer’s, patients who experience a trauma are suddenly projected past the initial stages into the mid-to-severe stages of Alzheimer’s and dementia. In my father’s case he was diagnosed with “Sun Downer’s.” This is a type of dementia where the patient become increasingly confused in the evenings or around “sunset.” My father found it hard to concentrate, couldn’t remember simple details and was extremely paranoid. The doctor’s determined that he was unable to live by himself any longer and that he may need to have specialized care. I took off work for a month and went to live with my father in Lake City where I kept a watchful eye on him, took him to various doctor’s appointments and most importantly tried to find an Assisted Living Facility (ALF) that he could stay at to address his particular needs. Luckily we found an ALF in Ormond Beach, Florida that both my sister, father and I agreed would be a good fit for him. In early March we packed up his stuff and moved him to his new home. Watching my father lose the one thing that made him stood out to me the most has made me acutely aware of how I take everyday thoughts and activities for granted made me decide to take part in the 2010 fund-a-stache charity drive. Since May is national Mustache month men grow out their mustaches in various shapes forms and sizes and generate contributions to their favorite charity. Unfortunately genetics has cursed me with the inability to grow a better mustache than a 13 year old boy so I’m modifying fund-a-stache for my own purposes! It’s now Fund-a-Beard! That’s right, back about a month ago when I decided to do this I just started letting my beard grow. I’m going to continue to let my beard grow until mid-June where I’ll shave it all off. During this time I’ll be posting photos of my beard, talking about my charity (The Cure Alzheimer’s Foundation), discussing my father, and providing information about and what’s being done to combat this horrible disease.