In a letter addressed to “friends and fellow Americans,” Justice O’Connor, 88, wrote that she had received a diagnosis of early-stage dementia “some time ago” and that doctors believed it was most likely Alzheimer’s disease.It is sad to hear this. Heartfelt good wishes Justice O'Connor — forever the First Woman of the Supreme Court.
“Since many people have asked about my current status and activities, I want to be open about these changes, and while I am still able, share some personal thoughts,” Justice O’Connor wrote in the letter. “While the final chapter of my life with dementia may be trying, nothing has diminished my gratitude and deep appreciation for the countless blessings in my life.”
She said she would remain living in Phoenix, where she returned when she left the court in 2005. Her husband, John J. O’Connor III, died in 2009 after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease, and his diagnosis was a large factor in her decision to retire from the Supreme Court.
October 23, 2018
Sandra Day O'Connor reveals that she has dementia and that it has advanced to the point where she is withdrawing from public life.
The NYT reports.
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I wish her peace.
I thought she'd passed away years ago. Shrugs.
88 is pretty good. I'll take that, at least until I am 87.
O'Connor is only 3 years older than RBG. Something to think about.
What a thing to happen for the O'Connor kids though -- to lose both parents to Alzheimer's. I hope she has a peaceful end.
if dementia is enough for a retired justice to withdraw... wouldn't it be enough for a sitting one?
It started when she discovered the European template for her decisions.
To the intelligent and thoughtful, Alzheimers and dementia must be terrifying. You live your entire life doing your best to be contemplative and then nature throws a disease your way that destroys the very thing that makes you you.
I wish her strength in her struggle, and like the truly contemplative person I believe she is I respect her decision to get as many thought nuggets into the world as remaining time permits.
Getting old sucks. The alternative is suckier.
I wish Justice O'Connor all the best, whatever that may turn out to be.
Iv'e posted this before. I was in Phoenix on business about 10-15 years ago and bumped into her [she appeared mus taller than I expected] and her husband in a Trader Joes where I went to get some pretzel snacks. I said Hi Judge and she said hi back. Btw, that was the 1st time I had ever been in a Trader Joes and seem to remember it had a woeful selection of pretzels.
Wish her well. 88 years is a good run in this world! Reagan's first Justice on the Court.
In recent years, she had become an activist for a cause that I regarded with suspicion; the Brennan Center-sponsored Judicial Selection Task Force movement in many states. Basically, the various Judicial Selection Task Forces were trying to take state judges out of the electoral process and move them all into a framework where judges are nominated by commissions of learned lawyers to gubernatorial offices where they are more formally chosen (rubber-stamped?) and then confirmed and/or submitted for periodic retention elections.
I do wish Justice O'Connor well in her later life; while my father's death certificate reads "complications of Alzheimer's disease," we never regarded him (at 91) to be disabled by dementia. He broke a hip, and then later re-broke it, and declined after that by the amount of time he was confined to bed. There are more levels, and more kinds, of dementia than any of us can imagine. I hope and expect that Justice O'Connor's last years will be gentle ones for her.
Pete Domenici's doctor diagnosed him with incipient Alzheimer's, so Domenici resigned from the U.S. Senate since he felt he could not in good conscience continue to serve if he was losing his mind. His resignation caused a free for all among New Mexico Republicans to succeed him, which resulted in their losing it all. It was quite a debacle.
Then the the doctor said: Oops, I made a mistake and there is nothing wrong with the now former Senator Domenici's mind - which there wasn't, but too late. Sorry about that!
I wish her well. I honestly wish we would have had Reagan's first choice (apparently), Chief Justice Dallin H. Oaks of the Utah Supreme Court, but he got snatched up for other duties before Reagan could get to him. Oaks would have been better than O'Connor, purely as a judge and not speaking of the "Diversity über alles!" that goes into Supreme Court stuff nowadays.
I wish Justice O'Connor a peaceful and painless remaining time on this earth.
Michael K said...
88 is pretty good. I'll take that, at least until I am 87.
Seems more likely to happen by then, than less? I'm amazed by those who never get it, not even by 100. What's their secret?
Very sad. Dementia is an insidious disease/condition that sneaks up on you so slowly that it doesn't become apparent until it has progressed to a point that it cannot be ignored. At which point, much damage can be done.
We are dealing with this in two of our elder relatives. The slow erasing of their memories, personalities and abilities to deal with daily life is heartbreaking.
I wish her and her family the best in this difficult path.
Nancy Pelosi is obviously well on this path as well. Her inability to hold a thought together, bewilderment, confusion, trouble speaking. If she were my relative or friend, I would consider it a cruelty to let her continue in public. While I don't like Pelosi and everything she stands for....someone should care enough about her, to tell her ENOUGH! Retire.
Hat Tip.
An admirable woman and a good justice.
Yeah, it's sad but she's 88 so she has been blessed with a long life not like a woman I had known since we were both young and who ultimately died at age 66 of Alzheimer's.
"Sandra Day O’Connor, the primary girl to function a justice on the United States Supreme Court, revealed on Tuesday that she had dementia and had determined to withdraw from public life because the illness superior."
lightlynews.com takes NYT articles and changes some of the words in a no-speaky-da-Engrish kinda way. CZ.
"For an outdated ranching lady, you turned out fairly good."
++
"HSV1 could account for 50% or more of Alzheimer's disease cases," says Professor Itzhaki, who has spent over 25 years at the University of Manchester investigating a potential link.
HSV1 is better known as the cause of cold sores. Itzhaki has shown previously that cold sores occur more frequently in carriers of APOE-ε4 -- a gene variant that confers increased risk of Alzheimer's.
At least she got longer than Terry Pratchett.
To the intelligent and thoughtful, Alzheimers and dementia must be terrifying. You live your entire life doing your best to be contemplative and then nature throws a disease your way that destroys the very thing that makes you you.
No treat for the stupid, either, I'll be bound, and certainly not for their loved ones and their caretakers. Genius and idiot poo smell much alike.
I do wish Justice O'Connor well in her later life; while my father's death certificate reads "complications of Alzheimer's disease," we never regarded him (at 91) to be disabled by dementia. He broke a hip, and then later re-broke it, and declined after that by the amount of time he was confined to bed.
That is almost exactly the trajectory my father experienced.
It's hard to know what to wish for when that happens. There is so much I wish Dad had been spared. On the other hand, his dignity, humor, grace, and courage through it all set an example none of us will ever forget.
If she really wrote that, then the decline isn't that terrible yet. It is an awful disease to witness in family members, though. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemies.
Thank you for your service. I wish you peace and tranquility.
My first wife is dying of Alzheimer's. I read an article last month to the effect that a neurologist believes that Alzheimer's is caused by a virus, and that it's contagious. He has put up $1,000,000 of his own money to fund a study. One fact that leapt out of the article was his claim that neurosurgeons die of Alzheimer's at a rate seven times that of the general population.
I had a conversation with my first wives late second husband; we were friendly, and there was never any animosity. He was a physician's assistant. I had a conversation with him after she went into a nursing home, and I suggested to him that he euthanize her. (I'm a practical sort, and her quality of life, even then, wasn't good) He declined, and cited medical ethics. I understood, but I suspect more euthanasia goes on with dementia patients than we're aware of, and it certainly isn't discussed.
Oh, my gosh. Good luck to her, so much.
I appreciate that she is withdrawing with as much grace as Reagan showed. I truly hope that if it happens to me, that I can follow their example.
I think that my partner's father was the opposite - he probably never knew he had dementia, and if he did, on occasion, he promptly forgot. Her mother had had a brain aneurysm a couple years earlier, and may not have realized that his mental facilities were slipping. When she finally woke up, she just thought that she had this really hot boyfriend (they had been married 50 years by then). My partner first noticed that something wasn't right with him. She got her eidactic memory from him, yet he was BSing to slide over memory lapses. She got the neurosurgeon who had worked with her mother to look at him, and he diagnosed probable Alzheimer's. She kept the diagnosis from him for better than a decade, fearing that he would take his life if he knew. She also did things like hiding his car keys, until he forgot about driving. I was always bothered by the morality of her making that decision for him. She did this for her mother, who now has gone over two decades since her aneurysm. As the ones who gets to pull the plug on each other, we have discussed this a lot. I think that I could face dementia with as much dignity as Reagan and O'Connor did. Not so sure about her though.
Seriously. If this were your Grandmother or Mother, would you let her continue on this way in public. On television in front of thousands of people. It is just wrong. Cruel. Give her a rest. She may have been a thoroughbred at one time. Now she really needs to be put out to pasture.
Consider, also, that Pelosi is in a position of great power and participating in making decisions that affect everyone. Aren't you frightened? I am.
Nancy Pelosi has either had a stroke, or is suffering from dementia or maybe all of the above.
As I'm slipping toward 60, I've noticed my memory for names has slipped. I keep a mental list of them -- Nicholas Cage, Nicole Kidmon, Reese Witherspoon, others -- and recite them.
Falling into dementia is terrifying to me, and I wish I had a bottle of phenobarbital to keep handy. The New York Times Sunday magazine had a front page article about a woman who used it, and it sounds like the ideal way to go. Two glasses of wine and you fall into a sleep, and that's it.
Beats shitting myself and attacking my caregivers because I don't know where I am.
Dementia is an insidious disease/condition that sneaks up on you so slowly that it doesn't become apparent until it has progressed to a point that it cannot be ignored. At which point, much damage can be done.
Rather like cataracts.
O'Connor's look always remind me of a frontierswoman.
Bill Peschel... Pick up on SUDOKU for brain calisthenics. Many free puzzles at crazydad.com.
Its easy to get into and is like jumping jacks for the brain.
She also nursed her husband through Alzheimer’s. At least, until he forgot her and fell in love with another patient at the home he was in. My recollection was she agreed to a divorce and her husband married the other lady. Now it has afflicted her.
It sure does seem that SC justices have higher than average lifespans.
Beats shitting myself and attacking my caregivers because I don't know where I am.
My father was a pharmacist, and a retired Lt. Colonel. He had several tablets of Marilyn Monroe, and firearms hidden around the house.
Unfortunately, he couldn't find either when the time came. He just stopped getting out of bed.
She lived a life of class and dignity. She truly had a judicial temperament. Future women who read up on the first female justice will be heartened by her biography...........I suppose Alzheimer's is kinder to the patient than to their relatives. Two parents with Alzheimer's, and you yourself are getting old. Every time you misplace the keys, you must feel something dark and foreboding. Such a ghastly disease.
This makes me feel sad.
This news just reminds me of my personal connections with the disease. Death squared.
First female Supreme Court Justice.
Nominated by a Democrat, no doubt.
;)
...Which is why octogenarians don't belong on the Supreme Court. Stop and smell the roses and let younger blood replace you. You're not going to live forever, and you're not irreplaceable.
I watched a great CSPAN interview with her about her life as a young girl on the ranch her parents owned. She and the book were fascinating. It is a shame her mind is becoming frail. What an amazing woman.
Even more evidence finds link between herpes virus and Alzheimer’s
https://www.ajc.com/news/health-med-fit-science/even-more-evidence-finds-link-between-herpes-virus-and-alzheimer/p7wqssS5A9C5Qvzhy7Yr4L/
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