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Tangles and Plaques: A Mother and Daughter Face Alzheimer's
Culled from sixty blog posts spanning eight years, Tangles and Plaques is a candid account of a mother and daughter’s changing relationship as they face the progressive landscape of Alzheimer’s Disease together. As the twisted fibers (tangles) build up inside the nerve cells in her brain and the protein fragments (plaques) fill the spaces between those cells, Effie Johnson—like millions of others who suffer from Alzheimer’s—loses her memory, the stories that make up the fabric of her life.
Blending humor (“I Can’t Find My Panties”) with pathos (“Disappearing Stories”) and hope with despair, Cushman captures the personal within the universal in a story that reveals a complicated relationship between an often verbally abusive mother and a daughter hungry for her mother’s unconditional love. Part Polaroid, part cautionary tale, the reality woven throughout these records of long-distance caregiving is that the tangles and plaques aren’t only in our brains, but often in our relationships.
Blending humor (“I Can’t Find My Panties”) with pathos (“Disappearing Stories”) and hope with despair, Cushman captures the personal within the universal in a story that reveals a complicated relationship between an often verbally abusive mother and a daughter hungry for her mother’s unconditional love. Part Polaroid, part cautionary tale, the reality woven throughout these records of long-distance caregiving is that the tangles and plaques aren’t only in our brains, but often in our relationships.
- GenresNonfiction
218 pages, Paperback
Published January 31, 2017
1 person is currently reading
30 people want to read
About the author
Susan Cushman
16 books95 followersCushman's eighth book, "Pilgrim Interrupted," releases June 7 , 2022. Her seventh book, "John and Mary Margaret," was published June 8, 2021.
Susan's sixth book, a collection of linked short stories titled "Friends of the Library," was published by Koehler Books in August, 2019. Her third anthology, "The Pulpwood Queens Celebrate 20 Years!," was published in December, 2019.
Susan's first novel, "Cherry Bomb," released in July 2017. Her first book, "Tangles and Plaques: A Mother and Daughter Face Alzheimer's," was released in January 2017. She was also editor of "A Second Blooming: Becoming the Women We Are Meant to Be," (March 2017) and "Southern Writers on Writing," (University Press of Mississippi, May 2018.) Susan has essays published in over 10 journals and magazines and four anthologies.
Susan was co-director of the 2010 and 2013 Oxford Creative Nonfiction Conferences, and Director of the 2011 Memphis Creative Nonfiction Workshop. She lives in Memphis where she loves leading a writing workshop at a senior living facility and volunteering for Room in the Inn, which provides food and shelter for the homeless.
Susan's sixth book, a collection of linked short stories titled "Friends of the Library," was published by Koehler Books in August, 2019. Her third anthology, "The Pulpwood Queens Celebrate 20 Years!," was published in December, 2019.
Susan's first novel, "Cherry Bomb," released in July 2017. Her first book, "Tangles and Plaques: A Mother and Daughter Face Alzheimer's," was released in January 2017. She was also editor of "A Second Blooming: Becoming the Women We Are Meant to Be," (March 2017) and "Southern Writers on Writing," (University Press of Mississippi, May 2018.) Susan has essays published in over 10 journals and magazines and four anthologies.
Susan was co-director of the 2010 and 2013 Oxford Creative Nonfiction Conferences, and Director of the 2011 Memphis Creative Nonfiction Workshop. She lives in Memphis where she loves leading a writing workshop at a senior living facility and volunteering for Room in the Inn, which provides food and shelter for the homeless.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 8, 2017
I've read this author's blog for many years, but reading all of these posts together was a powerful, poignant experience. I am an Occupational Therapist Assistant in a Skilled Nursing Facility, and work with Alzheimer's population daily. This is an important read from a family member's persepctive, and I've recommended it as an addendum book for the local Occupational Therapist Assistant Program.
February 27, 2017
More than 5 million American may have Alzheimer’s diseases, an irreversible, progressive brain disorder that steals memories, thinking skills and the ability to live life on a daily basis, according to the National Institute on Aging. Symptoms often first appear when a person is in his or her mid-60s, leaving someone else – a loved one or professional care provider - to look after the patient as the disease, the most common cause of dementia among older adults, progresses.
There is no cure, and the time to death can be as little as a few years in older patients to as long as 10 or more years if the person is younger. The disease is personal, affecting each patient – and caregiver – differently.
In “Tangles and Plaques: A Mother and Daughter Face Alzheimer’s,” Susan Cushman, a Jackson native who now calls Memphis home, shares blog entries spanning more than eight years as she deals with her mother’s progressive dementia and the feelings as an adult child becomes the parent figure.
Cushman shares what’s in her heart as she comes to grips with this incurable disease that’s stealing life from her mother, Effie Johnson, who lives in Jackson. The author realizes that as the mother forgets, the daughter must forgive. As memories die, Cushman learns that others live on, handed down to the next generation. Stories of growing up in Jackson; visiting her parents’ retail sports store, Bill Johnson’s Phidippides Sports; and eating Christmas fudge and divinity with her mom.
“Mom is second-generation Alzheimer’s,” Cushman wrote in her introduction. “Her mother died with the disease at age 86 – in the same nursing home where my mother lived.”
The collection is extremely personal, and each blog, starting with the first on Nov. 24, 2007, was written within a day or two of visiting her mom. Cushman writes about the simplest thing – misplaced glasses - to the hardest – end-of-life issues. Effie Watkins Johnson, 88, bedridden and speechless, died last year after eight years in a nursing home.
“I never had reservations about sharing these stories which began as blog posts, so they were ‘out there’ as they were happening,” Cushman said by email. “Writing them was therapeutic, of course, but the responses from people reading my blog became a greater impetus to continue writing and sharing the posts.”
The title not only refers to biological markers – amyloid protein plaques and tau proteins tangles seen in an Alzheimer patient’s brain, but also the tangles and scars of emotional and physical baggage. As the twisted fibers (tangles) build up inside the brain’s nerve cells and protein fragments (plaques) fill the spaces between those cells, Cushman’s mother is losing her memory, the very stories that make up the fabric of her life.
Cushman finds humor when possible, but turns to others – God, medical experts, friends and even her past – when the days are rough or cloudy. Her tone is more conversational than most accounts dealing with Alzheimer’s, and that’s what makes her writing so real – and raw. She doesn’t gloss over past problems she’s had with her mom or the hurtful things that a dementia person can unintentionally say or do. The author shares the strength she finds from forgiveness and letting go of the guilt of being a long-distance caregiver.
As the number of Alzheimer’s disease patients increases each year, so do the number of caregivers. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that one in three seniors dies with Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia, and that more that 15 million people are caring for those with dementia. Knowing that someone like Cushman has been where you may someday find yourself offers an extra dose of strength and dignity.
“Tangles and Plaques is not a ‘how to’ for caregivers of loved ones with Alzheimer’s,” Cushman said. “It’s not an academic work or a resource for caregivers.
“But,” she said, “the essays are full of real-life anecdotes, reflections, frustrations and things learned along the journey. I hope that readers who are caregivers will relate, will feel that they are not alone, and will even find places to laugh and to cry as they read our story.”
There is no cure, and the time to death can be as little as a few years in older patients to as long as 10 or more years if the person is younger. The disease is personal, affecting each patient – and caregiver – differently.
In “Tangles and Plaques: A Mother and Daughter Face Alzheimer’s,” Susan Cushman, a Jackson native who now calls Memphis home, shares blog entries spanning more than eight years as she deals with her mother’s progressive dementia and the feelings as an adult child becomes the parent figure.
Cushman shares what’s in her heart as she comes to grips with this incurable disease that’s stealing life from her mother, Effie Johnson, who lives in Jackson. The author realizes that as the mother forgets, the daughter must forgive. As memories die, Cushman learns that others live on, handed down to the next generation. Stories of growing up in Jackson; visiting her parents’ retail sports store, Bill Johnson’s Phidippides Sports; and eating Christmas fudge and divinity with her mom.
“Mom is second-generation Alzheimer’s,” Cushman wrote in her introduction. “Her mother died with the disease at age 86 – in the same nursing home where my mother lived.”
The collection is extremely personal, and each blog, starting with the first on Nov. 24, 2007, was written within a day or two of visiting her mom. Cushman writes about the simplest thing – misplaced glasses - to the hardest – end-of-life issues. Effie Watkins Johnson, 88, bedridden and speechless, died last year after eight years in a nursing home.
“I never had reservations about sharing these stories which began as blog posts, so they were ‘out there’ as they were happening,” Cushman said by email. “Writing them was therapeutic, of course, but the responses from people reading my blog became a greater impetus to continue writing and sharing the posts.”
The title not only refers to biological markers – amyloid protein plaques and tau proteins tangles seen in an Alzheimer patient’s brain, but also the tangles and scars of emotional and physical baggage. As the twisted fibers (tangles) build up inside the brain’s nerve cells and protein fragments (plaques) fill the spaces between those cells, Cushman’s mother is losing her memory, the very stories that make up the fabric of her life.
Cushman finds humor when possible, but turns to others – God, medical experts, friends and even her past – when the days are rough or cloudy. Her tone is more conversational than most accounts dealing with Alzheimer’s, and that’s what makes her writing so real – and raw. She doesn’t gloss over past problems she’s had with her mom or the hurtful things that a dementia person can unintentionally say or do. The author shares the strength she finds from forgiveness and letting go of the guilt of being a long-distance caregiver.
As the number of Alzheimer’s disease patients increases each year, so do the number of caregivers. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that one in three seniors dies with Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia, and that more that 15 million people are caring for those with dementia. Knowing that someone like Cushman has been where you may someday find yourself offers an extra dose of strength and dignity.
“Tangles and Plaques is not a ‘how to’ for caregivers of loved ones with Alzheimer’s,” Cushman said. “It’s not an academic work or a resource for caregivers.
“But,” she said, “the essays are full of real-life anecdotes, reflections, frustrations and things learned along the journey. I hope that readers who are caregivers will relate, will feel that they are not alone, and will even find places to laugh and to cry as they read our story.”
August 2, 2017
do not know of a family who has not been touched by dementia or Alzheimer's. It is a devestating disease which changes the life course of the whole family and a wider circle of friends.
Some say that all we have to give is our story. Talented writer, Susan Cushman, shares her own heartbreaking and heartwarming story of her journey as an only daughter living some distance from her mother, Effie Johnson, who is diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Through Susan's eyes as she writes on her blog for eight and 1/2 years about her relationship with her mother, we now have in essay form in Tangles and Plaques a chronicle of a faithful caregiver and the struggle of both women, a mother and a daughter, to begin to be and stay in relationship. I keep several copies of Susan's book in my office to give to families struggling with this disease on a daily basis. Knowing that you are not alone in an attempt to care for a loved one or friend with Alzheimer's can make all the difference, especially when the relationship may have had difficulties to start with. This is a story of frustration, exhaustion, courage, faithfulness, honesty, love, forgiveness, and resurrection through many Good Fridays.
The Rev. Joanna Seibert M D
Some say that all we have to give is our story. Talented writer, Susan Cushman, shares her own heartbreaking and heartwarming story of her journey as an only daughter living some distance from her mother, Effie Johnson, who is diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Through Susan's eyes as she writes on her blog for eight and 1/2 years about her relationship with her mother, we now have in essay form in Tangles and Plaques a chronicle of a faithful caregiver and the struggle of both women, a mother and a daughter, to begin to be and stay in relationship. I keep several copies of Susan's book in my office to give to families struggling with this disease on a daily basis. Knowing that you are not alone in an attempt to care for a loved one or friend with Alzheimer's can make all the difference, especially when the relationship may have had difficulties to start with. This is a story of frustration, exhaustion, courage, faithfulness, honesty, love, forgiveness, and resurrection through many Good Fridays.
The Rev. Joanna Seibert M D
October 16, 2017
This book is a compilation of blog posts over a number of years as the author wrestled with her mother's descent into the world of Altzeimers. My parents did not have that disease, but many of the struggles of taking care of an elderly parent, especially for us baby boomers in the "sandwich generation", are similar. The book deals with the slow demise of a parent in a thoughtful way, with dignity for her mother and sometimes with the lightheartedness that comes in the midst of the struggles and hard times. Ms Cushman presents an honest account of how she dealt with her mother and her own struggles. I would highly recommend the book to any that see themselves in the role of caregiver for an aging relative.
August 25, 2021
I love this book, from the tangled-thread picture on the cover to the tear-streaked ending. Cushman has combined posts from her Pen and Palette blog to tell the story of the years she cared long-distance for her mother with Alzheimer’s disease. Cushman drove the 200 miles from Memphis, Tennessee to visit her mother in the nursing home in Jackson, Mississippi at least once a month, doing her best to take care of her needs from afar in-between. Would it have been easier to move her mother to Memphis? Yes, but Cushman wanted to keep her mom in the community where she had lived most of her life, where old friends could still visit, even if she didn’t know who they were. Readers witness her mother’s decline and Cushman’s frustration, as well as her love, in these beautifully written posts. Although my own story of my husband’s AD is different because the patient was my husband and I had particular challenges of my own, I could identify with much of what Cushman wrote.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews