Walk to End Alzheimer's marchers carry flowers representing how their lives are touched by the devastating disease: This is how it affects me personally.

Llevar una flor morada significa que perdiste a alguien por Alzheimer's. I carry a Purple Flower to honor my Paw Paw who passed earlier this year. I have also lost several of my patients to Alzheimer's and family to dementia The list is to long and I am praying that one day the list will stop growing.

The Yellow Flower, this is the flower thats for the caregivers that answers the same questions of "what's next" and "what is this" all day long. They are my hero! When I was a caregiver I got to go home at the end of the day. I got to leave the worry and the stress of making sure my patient didn't wander out of his house or decide that after 80 years of never cooking that he would make breakfast at 3:30 am and almost burn the house down. (True story of one of my patients). As a paid caregiver my time of stress and constant questions had an end. But for those of you who were like my Maw maw, in the thick of it everyday, those who don't get to clock out and leave the stress and worry behind. You are the HERO's. You deserve the golden yellow flowers. You are the ones that hold the Blue flowers up.

The Blue Flowers, this means you are living with Alzheimer's. My mother-in-law was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. As well as my grandmother-in-law who also has it now. Other members of my family had other forms of dementia.

There has been too many blue flowers in my families garden. That is why I am joining the fight! I am not going to take a back seat and let dementia win. Join me in this fight, help raise money for research for a cure, Help us find a White flower (represent the hope for a cure.) If you can't give financially that's okay, give up your time, join in on a walk, volunteer to sit with some one and give the caregivers a break, make a meal for them, send them encouragement and lift them up in prayers. In doing so you can carry an orange flower, meaning you support the Alzheimer's Association.