Warning Signs of Alzheimer’s with Joe Tafoya
Seattle’s Joe Tafoya talks about the warning signs of Alzheimer’s.
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*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Welcome back to the program. We are excited to have former Seattle Seahawks Joe Tafoya here with us and he has a personal story to share about his mom, who has early onset Alzheimer’s. And Joe, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Suzanne. This is a beautiful office. We’re right underneath Century Link Field. I feel right at home. Yeah, I bet you do. I bet you do. You know, I am so glad that you’re coming forward to share your story with your mom because obviously you know mom is in a very important figure in your life and then all of a sudden you started seeing some changes. Could you share a little bit about, you know what all evolved with that? Yeah, thank you. It was very obvious in 2007 that something had changed about my mom, and we weren’t quite sure what it was, but she started forgetting things and experiencing dizzy spells at work and a little bit of confusion, and her boss made it a few comments and raise the stress level for her at work. She was working at an attendance office in a high school in Brentwood, California, and you have to know a lot of names and remember a lot of details, since she started slipping a little bit. So they brought someone else in for her and told her to take a little bit of time off. So the added stress there. And during her time off, she and her dog were taking a walk and they got attacked by another dog and my dog bit her hand, and so she had to do a little bit of surgery and they put her under and when she came back out from surgery, this was 2008, she was not the same. She was very different, experiencing very large parts of her memory were missing. She couldn’t remember specific details, she couldn’t remember often where she was going. Her directional was awful. And how did you, as a family, you know, deal with that all of a sudden? You know, mom’s kind of the glue that holds everybody together. I’m sure that there’s a lot of dialogue and concern and well, my mom, my father, first of all, he was a working professionally, worked his entire life. He’s still working today. He’s been thirty-seven years at the same company, Wow, and did a lot of traveling. So mom spent all of her time with my brother, my sister and myself and she went from school to school wherever we were and she found a way to work there and she took us to all of our practices, you know, just the typiculty. Very influential in your athletic career, very much so. I wouldn’t have made it to more than half of the practices had it not been for her. Yeah, and you know, the the children in and around my community got to know her because she was always involved in schools. She became sort of a team mom and a kind of a public figure, so to speak. But in 2009, we, she had to stop working completely and then she was at home and she had essentially retired. She’d been retired and there was nothing we can do to sort of figure out what was going on with her. We couldn’t. We went to the doctor. The doctor didn’t know what was happening. We went to a couple of specialists and saw see specially young. Yeah, how old was she at this point? She was fifty-three, fifty-four, my goodness, very young. Yeah, and she shouldn’t have been experiencing the things that she was experiencing, and so she kind of went into a funk. She went sort of downhill pretty fast. Wasn’t working, didn’t really have anything else going on. Sure, depression sets in and makes it worse. So eventually, 2010 now we get a early diagnosis of early onset dementia, Alzheimer’s and depression. So I was hit with the trifecta and she, she I’m not really sure if she understood what was going on at the time. Possibly that was a blessing. Yeah, very confusing and we as a family, we’re somewhat separate. She and my father are divorced now and so my sister lives in the same town as both of them, my brother lives in another city and I live all the way up here in the Pacific Northwest. So our family dynamics are a little bit off and everyone’s kind of living their own life, doing their own thing. I, of course, was playing football and raising a brand-new family of my own and didn’t get a chance to see firsthand what was happening. Right and I think too, when we talk about, you know, having to accept things, you know it’s did. The whole thing of denial sets in. It’s like it’s not as bad as everybody’s talking about, and I’m sure for you being up here and heard being down there, that it was like it wasn’t real to you. I mean it’s there’s got too have been some sort of an adjustment on your part, being separated from her like we just did. We didn’t know what was going on, and so we didn’t really have answers until two thousand and ten and when we finally got the diagnosis, it starts to set in and and yeah, denial. That was my first reaction. Was no way right. There’s got to be you know. So of course we start doing our research and getting involved in the community, figuring out what is this thing we’re dealing with, and it turns out that there’s a very strong community of advocates and people that have either gone through it or are going through it as caregivers. Wow, and just sort of plugging myself in with some of these people very loosely, but my sister and my mom were kind of managing each other in the situation. And also my grandmother still alive, and so she’s still in the picture. She’s now eighty-seven, eighty-eight, and she’s got dementia Alzheimer. So now we’ve got two in the family that we’re dealing with and last year, I decided that it was enough. was enough. I had heard too many stories. I wasn’t sure who was telling the truth with couldn’t figure out what was going on. As with many families that are dealing with this situation, ours was no different. We, I was trying to get information from my sister, couldn’t really talk to my mom. She didn’t know who I was anymore, and I decided to make an unannounced trip home, and things were worse than I thought. Yeah, so I just snatched her up and brought her back with me. Wow, we are talking to former seahawks defensive Al Tavoya, also the Chief Marketing Officer of Lady Twelve here. So you guys, is probably see all of his great stuff and safe way and Albertson’s, and that’s, of course, not whole other topic that you’re is a brainchild of your lovely wife, Brandlen so, and I have several of your things in my closet, which is great. Thank you. We, as Twelves, I mean obviously, we look up to you guys and and and you know, you guys are like the pillar of strengthen the community and you kind of think of your Seahawk legends as infallible. And yet this probably brought you to your knees still does. I’ll share a quick story with you. I was in 2005. I was we were on our way to the Super Bowl and I was getting ready to go on to the field against NFC rival Carolina Panthers. Before I went onto the field, there was this incredible moment in the locker room where someone opened the double doors to the stadium and this noise rushed in and just filled me with so much energy, passion, and it was the fans. The fans didn’t know what they were doing, but they were basically charging all of us up. And then we went onto the field and there was a moment where the quarterback could not communicate with his offensive line because there was this huge and the Carolina Panthers, right, Carolina Panthers. That was before Cam Newton. Yeah, I because name was Jake Delhomme and he had to call time out, which made the crowd be even louder. Yeah, and we called another time out and there were a few penalties and we beat them handily, and I have to say that that made a huge impact on my life as a player. Fans don’t get to see what happens in the locker room before the game. They don’t get to see what happens in your practices, they don’t get to see what happens in your home and in your life. They only see this one image of you, which you said earlier infallible, and that’s not true at all. As we know, we think of you that way. But when something unknown and something of this nature comes around and influences your life, and now I’m speaking of Alzheimer’s Dementia, it humanizes you. You’re very human at that point and you’re vulnerable, and I found myself lost and not really knowing where to turn and not knowing who I can talk to about it, because, to a certain extent, I needed to put up this public personal as this person who’s done all these amazing things, public face. That’s who you on the inside. Immunity. I’m dying. I’m going to all of these events thinking about my mom and finally I brought her here into town and I opened up and I started talking about it, and it was maybe the second most influential time, that of the fans in my life, where I started getting this incredible feedback of good for you for talking about this. Hey, we’re going through the same thing. I was starting to get instant messages and a lot of communication. I’m so happy that you’re talking about this, Joe. This is a very relevant topic and I went head first into this whole thing and I haven’t looked back since. Yeah, well, you’ve been now, I think, in many ways, a leader. You know, you are definitely high profile amongst the twelves and most of US twelves certainly look up to you and all the things that you’ve done for the community, including breaking the record at Century Link Field. You are in charge of that, and so to have your voice and to be willing to be vulnerable and open like you are, you know, it helps all of us understand that there’s a process. I-I know that when we when we work with with families every day, you know, a lot of times, you know we do a program during the holidays, which of course you’re part of, and a lot of Twelves they’ll take tell me, well, I don’t even know what to do, I don’t know about going to those places, quote unquote. So there’s this element of almost a stigma because there’s this unknown part. It’s that people don’t know what to do and it’s important that we do start talking about it. I’m very happy that you aren’t talking about it and my experience with Answers for Elders when we did the Twelve Days of Goodness was so positive and reinforcing. When we went to the community, the elderly community that we went to, to see the joy on their faces just to have new people around to talk about and we get talk football. One lady gave me a really hard time because she was a Packers fan, and she hated the Seahawks. I loved it. This little ninety-year-old lady love it in a wheelchair. But I really appreciate what you’re doing and I’m happy to be part of it in any way possible. That’s awesome. So, Joe, how I mean how can we support you? Is as a fanbase. And you know what, what takeaways do you have of today? I think if we support each other, that that helps the most. I’m I get so much help from the community. Whenever I say that we’re doing going to do an event, we have fans that show up. I have friends, lifelong friends, that just want to be involved. If we can support each other and all be there for each other, as we always are as fans, as twelves, as Seahawk fans, as parents, daughters, sons. We are strong and we can continue to be stronger for each other. I love it. Thanks so much for handing the program Joe. My pleasure.
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Originally published April 01, 2017