Alzheimer's Chronicles with Bella Doolittle
Read The Post-Star's ongoing series looking at early onset Alzheimer's disease with Bella Doolittle and her husband, Projects Editor Will Doolittle.
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February has always been a contender for worst month of the year, and my wife, Bella, and I have shared some doozies.
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One day, almost 30 years ago, my brother and I were painting the bedroom in the apartment in Saranac Lake where Bella and I lived with our two…
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When we met, Bella was working three jobs, caring for two kids and commuting between two North Country communities an hour apart.
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Turmeric and coconut oil, the email writers said, is the answer. A teaspoon of each per day and Bella will be kicking Alzheimer’s to the curb …
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Bella has been able to reinvent herself several times over the 30 or so years we have been together, while I have remained a guy who works at …
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Bella and I are taking part in a drug trial she qualified for by testing positive for younger onset Alzheimer’s disease.
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A large, quiet circle of Alzheimer’s caregivers exists probably in every community in this country.
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Bella and I have spent 17 days in Scotland and done everything right. We haven’t lost our tempers or each other.
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I saw the movie “My Dinner with Andre” around the time it came out, which was 1981, when I was 20.
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Bella spends a lot more time at home now — since she left work in December, after a diagnosis of younger onset Alzheimer’s disease — but she h…
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One of the great things about a good marriage is the feeling that you have a partner in the effort it takes to get through a day or a month, s…
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The best of our reporters, our editors, our writers, all of those journalists who serve our communities bring a brutal honesty to their craft.
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Age brings humility, but coping with the Alzheimer’s disease that afflicts my wife, Bella, is humbling me faster than my hair is falling out.
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We walk through life thinking it’s solid ground beneath our feet, but a couple of words spoken by a doctor — words like “Alzheimer’s disease” …
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Our two youngest kids, Tam and Zoe, graduated from college almost a year ago. Tam moved to Kingston with a couple of friends, and Zoe moved in…
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Alzheimer’s proceeds so slowly, parceling its progression out over years, that acceptance can catch up to grief and leave you in a happy place…
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It has been a summer of anxiety for Bella and me. She has been feeling anxious about many things — a symptom of her Alzheimer’s disease — and …
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Will Doolittle writes about the challenges his wife and he face of dealing with her younger onset Alzheimer's disease.
21 updates to this series since
As featured on
Over the years, my wife and I have had dinner with Will and Bella Doolittle a couple of times.
Brian Mann from North Country Public Radio came to Glens Falls a couple of weeks ago to inte…
GLENS FALLS — The Post-Star editor who has shared his family’s grief and pain about Alzheime…
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(1) comment
Dear Bella and Will,
I'm so glad I heard about you on NPR. My mother had Alzheimer’s, so I realized I might be at risk for it, and my doctor told me what test to get, and also an important book to read if I was at risk. So I got the test, and yes, I am at moderate risk, and will do everything I can to minimize my risk of developing symptoms. The book he told me about has changed my diet completely, because I was a meat-eater before, and animal products turn out to be one of the main thing that increase risk and symptoms. The book is called HOW NOT TO DIE, by Michael Greger MD. [It really should be called "HOW NOT TO DIE of ...". Exercise is the most important preventive thing. Diet is next. The chapter on Alzheimer's lists foods that increase the risk/symptoms; they are foods containing substances called gerontotoxins or Advanced glycation end products [AGEs]. So I've cut way back on these foods. In order of risk, they are:
Highest: meat, cheese, processed foods
chicken
bacon
hot dogs
turkey
steak
Fish not as bad though still worse than veg.
Worst cooking methods:
BBQ
broiling
roasting
oven-frying
Best/Lowest risk: grains, beans, breads, veg/fruit, milk
I also take brain health supplements If folks want more information on what these contain, I can add it in a separate post.
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