Jan's Story: Love lost to the long goodbye of Alzheimer's [Paperback]

Barry Petersen (Author), Katie Couric (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2010

Imagine hearing these words: "She has Alzheimer's." Now imagine that "she" is vibrant, active, loving, healthy...and just 55. Acclaimed CBS News reporter Barry Petersen, writes about hearing the unimaginable: what it meant, what it still means, what he did--and didn't do--and how this beautiful love story needs to be read by the thousands of families who have already heard that same devastating diagnosis...EARLY ONSET ALZHEIMER'S. Jan's Story is a full, rich story of two people--and thousands like them--for whom "forever" suddenly and terrifyingly has an expiration date. Barry Petersen is a long-time, award-winning TV journalist who has covered wars, the devastating Asian tsunami, the historic confrontation at Tiananmen Square, the unspeakable deaths in Rwanda, and so much more...but was not even slightly prepared for what happened to his darling wife, Jan.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Multiple Emmy-Award-winner Barry Petersen has covered wars, genocide, interviewed dozens of stars, and several Bosnian War Crimes Tribunal suspects. Barry earned one of his Emmys for reporting the Siege of Sarajevo for CBS Sunday Morning. He shared both Peabody and DuPont Awards for being a part of the CBS News Radio coverage of the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989, and an Edward R. Murrow award for, of all things, sports writing for a story on baseball coming to Beijing. One report he could have never prepared himself for, however, is when his wife, Jan, was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer's at the age of 55.

Barry works for CBS News and makes his home in Denver, Colorado, where he wrote Jan's Story.

His website: http://www.barrypetersen.com/index.htm

Product Details

• Paperback: 206 pages
• Publisher: Behler Publications (June 15, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933016442
• ISBN-13: 978-1933016443
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #203,455 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #88 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Diseases & Physical Ailments > Alzheimer's Disease

More About the Author

Barry Petersen has been called one of the most experienced correspondents reporting for CBS News, where his official biography says he has:

"...reported on everything from wars and natural disasters to Paris fashions, Welsh choirs and the return of American Jazz to Shanghai, China. His stories have been datelined from virtually every continent in a career that spans more than three decades.

"He has interviewed the famous and the infamous, including Hollywood stars Jimmy Stewart, Bill Cosby, Pierce Brosnan and Sir Anthony Hopkins, leaders of the Bosnian war who were later tried as war criminals, and the President of the South Seas nation of Kiribati, who showed up for the interview barefooted."

But an award-winning career of covering wars and natural disasters from Asia to Africa to the Middle East, as well as living overseas in Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow and London, could not ease the personal tragedy of watching his wife, Jan, begin fading away because of Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease. She was diagnosed in 2005 at age 55.

"Jan's Story" tells how Barry was forced into changes he never imagined. His life soon came down to one gut-wrenching question: Do I stop living because I have lost Jan, or do I somehow go on?

The answer became "Jan's Story" - a look into the lonely world of care giving and the physical and mental toll it takes, and in the end an affirmation of survival.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars You Need to Read This Book! June 19, 2010

By Lewis H. Strauss

Format:Paperback

This book blew me away - tears one minute, laughter the next (really!) but mostly honest all the way through. It really is the inside look into how Alzheimer's wrecks lives, but it also has a pretty unexpected ending because the author talks about going on and finding a new love. Some people may not like that, but he talks about how that actually helps in taking care of his wife, Jan, who has the disease. If you know someone with Alzheimer's, or have a friend who is a caregiver, you need to read this book.

Be careful...once you start, it is impossible to put down.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Should have been titled Barry's story November 27, 2010

By sb-lynn TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

In briefest summary, this book was written by a man who's beloved wife Jan came down with Early Onset Alzheimers when she was 55 years old. That man is Barry Peterson, who was an NBC reporter covering Asia. Because of his job he and his wife often traveled and had shuffled between various places to live. According to him they had an ideal marriage and if not for this horrible disease, he saw them staying together very much in love. Her coming down with this disease was devastating for him.

Mr. Peterson mainly talks about his own reaction to his wife coming down with Alzheimers, and about the terrible toll a disease takes on the caretaker. I was very much in sympathy with him, and I found myself often shaking my head in agreement because my father has Alzheimers and the responsibility of his care fell on me.

At the same time, when I picked up this book I did think it would be more about Jan. There are a few chapters that detail the various stages of Alzheimers and the author does describe Jan's decline, but this book is definitely more about him. Mr. Peterson clearly felt great guilt over putting Jan into an assisted living facility, and I can't help but feel that he spent too much time in this book trying to convince us, the readers, why he did that, and why it's okay that he would want to move on with his life.

I think most of us reading this book would shake our heads in agreement over the choices he made, and he didn't need to repeat his reasons why. I think he still has to convince himself and that's a shame - he seems like a very good man who did the best he could.

This is a horrible disease, and my heart goes out to anyone who loves or has to take care of someone who has it. To have Early Onset Alzheimers which ravages the frontal lobe of one's brain is especially devastating and tragic - both because it's quick moving and because the patients are so young. Someday hopefully science will come up with better medicines and even a possible cure for it so that both patient and caretaker don't have to suffer the indignities and despair that come with it.

edit - want to add that the book does not have any pictures, so you can get the Kindle edition without concern you'll miss anything.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars PLEASE Reserve Your Judgment January 23, 2011

By DoctorJoeE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This story completely blew me away. Only time will tell, but it's my early pick for the most important book of the year; maybe the decade.

That said, I'm certain there will be a profusion of outrage over it, and I can just see the reviews now: he's abandoned her -- he should be ashamed -- it's his story, not his wife's.

But it is nothing of the sort; and anyone waxing judgmental, without walking a mile in the man's shoes, is the one who should be ashamed. For the record he has not abandoned his wife (who no longer recognizes him or remembers his name), but he has found a way to move on with his own life -- to avoid allowing it to be consumed along with hers, while at the same time doing everything he can, financially and emotionally, to support her in her tragic and incredibly sad decline that he is powerless to halt.

Keep in mind that these people are still in their 50s -- Jan could linger on, continuing her relentless downhill course, for another 30 years, or more. Remember also that the incidence of Alzheimer's is increasing (no one knows why), and by 2040 there will be a 1:4 to 1:3 chance that you or someone you love will suffer from it. And there is no realistic prospect of a cure. And there is no evidence that there is anything -- anything -- you can do to prevent it.

I can't imagine how I would cope with a similar situation -- but what I really don't want to think about is how my wife and children would cope if it happened to me. If I'm afflicted, I'll be in la-la land, I won't care; but the financial and emotional and other effects on the people I love are things I cannot even bring myself to contemplate. There is no question, in my mind, that the real victims of Alzheimer's are the loved ones, much more than the patients.

So not only do we have no right to judge the author's decisions, we should applaud not only his courage in making them, but his willingness to write about them in the hope that others will be inspired to find ways to minimize the impact of this cruel disease, to the extent that they can.

Update, end of September 2011: The book is still my pick for the most important of the year -- and reviews have distributed pretty much as I predicted. Note that the vast majority of severely judgmental reviewers did not actually buy the book (at least not from Amazon), and probably have not read it. As for me, after re-reading the book last week I reiterate my utmost empathy for everyone, patients and loved ones alike, who are victimized by this cruel disease -- including Barry Peterson, who still strikes me as a very good man, doing the best he can with a tragic situation.