Kathy, Dr. Ramirez, Ms. Fawver, and Dr. Murray
On January 10th, AAQI board member Kathy Kennedy-Dennis hand delivered a check to the Texas A & M Health Science Center for $40,894. The money will be used to fund research conducted by Dr. Ian V. J. Murray and Dr. Carmen Ramirez, as they explore the connection between Alzheimer’s and type 2 diabetes.
Along with Lab Manager Janelle Fawver, they hope to learn how type 2 diabetes increases the risk of Alzheimer’s and to uncouple such disease-causing mechanisms from one another.
Your quilts made this grant possible.
Kathy brought Priority: Alzheimer’s Quilts to show the scientists how the money they received was raised.
Everyone admires a quilt.
Kathy created a small quilt for Dr. Murray called God Speed. Each of the 54 narrow purple patches has the name of a person who has or had Alzheimer’s or a related dementia written on the wrong side of the fabric by family and friends. The quilt honors the 5.4 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s and is a tangible reminder of all the people who hope for a cure so desperately.
Dr Murray has the quilt proudly on display on his office wall. When people ask about the quilt he responds that it was made by Kathy Kennedy-Dennis and is from the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative. “But more importantly,” Dr. Murray says, “it is a reminder that the foundation of research in Alzheimer’s disease is made possible by the people with the disease, and the families and foundations rallying for a cure.”
Dr Ramirez adds a name to the next quilt.
Similar quilts will be created for the recipients of future AAQI-funded research. Please email Kathy (kdennis428@aol.com) if you have a name you would like added to the next quilt. If the name of your loved one is already on one of the 182 Name Quilts, please give someone else a chance.
Join me in wishing God Speed to the Texas A & M System research team through your comments below. May their work bring us closer to a cure!
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I should add, I wish you all much success in discovering the links needed to bring an end to the various forms of dementia. My father tried so hard to take care of mom, and did until about 5 years before her death, when he finally had to put her in an adult family home. While there, she suffered a stroke, which made things worse. She always seemed to know us, though.
When my grandfather had it, it was called hardening of the arteries.
What a wonderful surprise to see several of my family’s names on this special quilt! (I cried when I saw it, of course.) I remember an email conversation about this some months back, and I was encouraged to send in the names of those who have been afflicted, for the purpose of putting them on a quilt for the researchers.
Dementia runs in my mother’s side of the family–she is there, and her sister and brother, father, grandfather and two of her uncles. To those who are researchers, those first 7 names in the left hand column are/were indeed real and much-loved people. Sadly, the only one still alive is my aunt. (I guess when you consider I’m 67, that’s not too surprising!)
Thank you for doing this.
Being one of the original quilt makers for the first AAQI traveling exhibitions, I’m so delighted to hear of this additional grant! It just shows how one person can rally nearly $1,000,000 in contributions to a good cause that will have lasting effects on many generations to come. I can only hope my grandchildren will live in a world where Alzheimer’s and Diabetes are diseases of the past as both affected their paternal Great Grandmother.
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