New Page in O'Connors' Love Story: Sandra Day O'Connor's Alzheimer's patient husband finds new love

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: USA Today

A New Page in O'Connors' Love Story
By Joan Biskupic, USA Today
Posted: 2007-11-13

(Nov. 13) -- Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's husband, who suffers from Alzheimer's, has found a new romance, and his happiness is a relief to his wife, an Arizona TV report reveals. The report, which quoted the couple's oldest son, Scott O'Connor, focused on Alzheimer's patients who forget their spouses and fall in love with someone else. Experts say the scenario is somewhat common.

Offering a glimpse into the private life of a woman who has remained on the public stage since her Supreme Court retirement in 2006 to care for her husband, the report spotlighted John O'Connor, 77. He and the woman, referred to only as "Kay," live at a Phoenix facility for people with Alzheimer's.

"Mom was thrilled that Dad was relaxed and happy and comfortable living here and wasn't complaining," Scott, 50, told KPNX-Channel 12 in Phoenix in a story that aired Thursday. The station is owned by Gannett, as is USA TODAY.

Though Sandra Day O'Connor, 77, did not appear in the television report, it gave a rare look at the life of the nation's first female justice. The family's willingness to highlight an aspect of a heart-wrenching illness recalled O'Connor's decision in 1994 to go public with her feelings about breast cancer. In a speech to the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, she spoke about discovering the cancer in 1988 and undergoing a mastectomy....

Read more: http://news.aol.com/story/_a/a-new-page-in-oconnors-love-story/20071113082409990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

[babylonsister]

1. I can't even imagine, but I can imagine wanting my husband to find

happiness wherever he can with that disease. So sad...

[YDogg]

3. agreed

[Virginia Dare]

2. Very tragic..

but I can understand her being relieved somewhat at his apparent happiness. It's a horrible disease for families to have to face.

[DemBones DemBones]

4. She's brave to handle it so well. I suppose you reach

a point where you know your spouse is not who he was and doesn't know you anymore, so it's as if she's a widow now.

And it's always good when someone you love is happy in a nursing home, if they have to be in one.

[emilyg]

6. My Dad had to be. He was more happy than not.

[Hestia]

5. See the movie "Away From Her" with Julie Christie -

great story about an AD patient who falls in love with another man at the facility.

[momster]

7. Sweetest Story of The Year

I admire her for her unselfish take on this. She still loves him and wants him to be happy and if that means he's holding hands with another woman at the care facility, so be it. That's true love, to willfully forget one's self so that there can be happiness for the one you love.

[AnneD]

8. Well said..

ITA. Having worked with these patients and family, Sandra has made a thoughtful and loving decision. I hope she finds her slice of happiness too.

[JerseygirlCT]

13. I agree. It's a horrible thing to watch happen to a loved one, and

if this is keeping him happy, then I'm glad she's able to look at it this way. Very sweet, indeed. I hope I would be the same way.

[superconnected]

9. I like that she's going public with these issues.

It's does help make the public more informed. I wouldn't have known that was common with Alzheimer patients.

She really is a wonderful person to think of her husbands happiness first.

[Baby Snooks]

10. A double tragedy

She not only lost the husband she wanted to take care of and be with in his final days to someone else, we lost a Supreme Court justice who might have stood her ground in defense of the Constitution. Certainly we could have done without her replacement. That must bear on her as well.

[reichstag911]

11. Not so fast, please,...

...with the plaudits for poor Sandy. "(W)e lost a Supreme Court justice who might have stood her ground in defense of the Constitution?" She had her chance to defend the Constitution in Bush v. Gore, and passed. Fuck her and the AD-afflicted horse's ass (Reagan) she rode in on. While her replacement is almost certainly worse than she, it does not augur well for us Americans that we are praising the lesser of these authoritarian right-wing evils.

[aquart]

12. Yah. I HOPE she's suffering.

It's a prelude to burning in hell.

[noonwitch]

14. My step great-grandma had an affair in the nursing home

She was a trip. My great-grandpa died about a decade before she did. When my grandma and her sister could no longer take care of her, they put her in a nursing home. The staff kept finding her clothes in one of the male patient's rooms, and his in hers. They finally caught them in the act.

My grandparents acted all shocked about it, but the rest of us thought it was very funny.

[TheDebbieDee]

15. When I was an Army Reservist on the weekends,

I drilled with a couple of other Reservists whose Moday - Friday jobs were in Nursing Homes.

I remember many the story about how promiscuous these senior citizens are. But when you think about it, if you've lived a full life and are healthy enough to still be able to enjoy $ex, you should have $ex as often as is humanly possible for you!

[Spinzonner]

16. When your body slowly takes away your past and your life

people should be able to enjoy and even indulge those instincts that remain

[arikara]

17. That happened with my Dad

He was put into a nursing home because my stepmom couldn't handle him at home anymore with his dementia. The doctor put him on some meds which put a bee in his bonnet, and he struck up a relationship with another woman in the nursing home. My daughter and I actually felt that if it made them happy it wasn't hurting anything, but we never said that to my stepmother because she was totally devastated by the affair. They finally moved the woman into another ward after Dad and she were caught together, but then they kept looking for each other all the time which was rather sad.

Dad's urges finally disappeared when they changed his meds and with the progression of the illness he's long forgotten about it.

[Benhurst]

18. Which all goes to show that even traitors have their good points.

Alzheimer's is a horrible disease.

But her personal suffering does nothing to mitigate the horror she has inflicted upon this nation and the world at large through her treason.

[AZ Criminal JD]

20. Her good points far surpass yours

I am a law student currently taking a course from Justice O'Connor at Arizona State Law School. Your attacks say much more about you than you could ever say about her.

[Benhurst]

21. Yeah, her TREASON was just a slight glitch in her brilliant career.

Maybe you ought to read the Constitution before continuing on with your "studies". Your remarks do not reflect well on Arizona State or its law school.

It's too bad her husband has Alzheimer's; but that has nothing to do with her throwing a presidential election and the resultant shredding of the Constitution and Bill of Rights by the nasty little stooge she put into the White House, to say nothing of the thousands who have died as a consequence.

[samsingh]

23. i believe she was quoted as saying that she did not want to

resign under a democratic President. it would seem to be her reason for siding with a treasonous band of republicans. her decision to destroy the Constitution has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths around the world - mostly of the poor so many people don't care or count them.

[1932]

19. I wonder what the Christian Coalition thinks of this.

[Fierce]

22. Good God,

WHY is this a news story? Who gives one rat shit?