Carol Lacks held a fundraiser for Alzheimer’s at the Forest Park Carousel on Friday, August 17. Her mother, Rose, was diagnosed with dementia in 2003. Forum Newsgroup photo by Luis Gronda.
For Carol Lacks, last Friday night’s Alzheimer’s fundraiser at the Forest Park Carousel was much more personal for her. Lacks’ 93 year-old mother, Rose, has been battling Vascular Dementia for the past nine years after suffering a stroke.
Now she put together her first fundraiser to help people like Rose who are living with the incurable disease.
For most of the time since her mother’s diagnosis, Lacks was her mother’s caretaker until she was placed in a nursing home last year.
Every day activities like writing a check and conversing with others were a daily challenge.
During that time, she said that she felt a lot of anxiety from caring for her mother around the clock because it was something she never experienced before.
“I felt like I was always on call,” said Lacks, who lives in Kew Gardens and took care of her mother who lived in nearby Forest Hills.
She recalled always thinking something happened to Rose when she would hear sirens from an emergency vehicle passing by.
“If a fire truck went by I said ‘oh my god, she’s burning down the house,’” she said.
Lacks also said that her mother was originally misdiagnosed because she didn’t know where to find an appropriate care facility. At first, doctors told her that, while it could be dementia or a form of that disease, she was suffering from the after effects of a stroke. Rose was eventually diagnosed with dementia about a year and a half ago.
Soon after she learned of her mother’s dementia, she discovered the New York City chapter of The Alzheimer’s Association, a nonprofit organization that helps fund research for the disease.
When Lacks discovered the association, she was elated because she now had a place to go to ask questions and to meet other people who have someone close to them that also have that disease.
“You feel like you’re part of a family,” she said.
Motivated by the organization’s mission, Lacks also participated in last year’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s at Flushing-Meadows Corona Park. The Kew
Aidan Cavanaugh,2, of Glendale gets his face painted during the Alzheimer’s fundraiser at the Forest Park Carousel. Forum Newsgroup photo by Luis Gronda.
Gardens resident got a group of about 30 people together for the trek and raised $3,600 for the event. She added that the walk made her realize how many people care about and are affected by Alzheimer’s.
“Every time I would think about that I would start to cry because I was really touched that people are starting to care about it and it’s an important disease that needs to be looked at,” Lacks said.
As for the fundraiser at the Carousel, she said that she’s hoping to bring further awareness to the disease and to the association.
The main reason that the merry-go-round was chosen to host the event, Lacks said, was because it’s a place you go to create a memory about having fun in your life and Alzheimer’s is a disease that causes people to lose their memories.
At the event, you could pay $3 to only ride the carousel or pay $10, which included the ride and face painting for the kids. All money collected during the two hour fundraiser went to the NYC chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.
According to Kim Esp, a spokeswoman for the New York City chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, $1,778 was raised at the event.
By Luis Gronda
