Finding Joy in the Face of Alzheimer’s: Richard Lui Talks Family & Long-Distance Caregiving

The Alzheimer’s Association sat down to talk with Richard Lui, news anchor for NBC and MSNBC and long-distance caregiver for his father, who is living with Alzheimer’s. Every week, Richard travels coast-to-coast to be with his family.

Tell us about your father Steven’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis and how it came about.

It began with a diagnosis of dementia. The interesting part is my Dad never had a great memory – it was something we joked about. However, what started to happen was much more extreme.

Dad is one of 13 children in his family, and at Christmas, his youngest sister Fannie pulled me aside and said, “I’m concerned, Steve is forgetting our names.”  He agreed he should get tested. This was about five years ago, and it resulted in a diagnosis of early signs of dementia. It wasn’t until about a year and a half after that that he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

I’ve always traveled back to San Francisco from New York for family gatherings. During these visits, I was able to see moments in time — snapshots of my Dad, if you will — and I began to notice the differences in him. It was probably more nuanced for my mother, who lives with him, but I saw it, and now make the 5,000-mile round trip to see him once a week most months.

As a caregiver, how do you make this long-distance, long-term travel work with your schedule as an anchor and reporter? The practice of consistently going back and forth helps me gather the information I need in a short amount of time. I try to stay with my parents when I come back so I can observe the nuances and changes…how it’s difficult for Dad to brush his teeth or walk down the block to get a haircut. Sometimes it’s hard to put on a strong face, but I do what I can to help my Mom, who is Dad’s primary caregiver.

From a professional standpoint, I am so thankful my supervisor understands the situation I am going through. When we sat down to talk about changing my work schedule, I found out she was also a long-distance caregiver who traveled to take care of her mother. She knew I had to start thinking about options immediately. Like a good journalist would do, she brainstormed options, and six months later our strategy was in place. My boss has been absolutely supportive of my need to go back west, having four to five days off and working two and a half days a week. That is very uncommon for very practical reasons of the way journalism works but NBCUniversal has been nothing short of amazing.

What are the tough moments you’ve faced since your father’s diagnosis?

There have been many emotional moments. Most recently my father has lost the ability to shave, and I helped shave him for the first time. He laughed and smiled and thanked me as I cleared his whiskers. As a young man, my father was the one who taught me how to shave my chin. So this latest change was symbolic. And it was saddening. But it was my honor, too. I want to be the one who shaves him every day – but I can’t.

What moments of joy have you found since your father’s diagnosis?

I find moments of joy every time I go home! My Dad is a joyous person, which is much different from his personality before the diagnosis. He was a pastor and couldn’t support the family on his salary, so he became a social worker to have a steady income, but that didn’t pay much either and he wasn’t built emotionally for social work’s noble but trying tasks. He cared too much and was often stressed.

As a social worker, he was forward with people and told them what they had to be prepared for. In a way, he was equipping himself to be the happy embracive person he is today. And there’s the silver lining. He accepts his diagnosis for what it is.

For my own part, I’ve had to accept Dad’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis spiritually and emotionally. There was a time when I would describe being with him like watching my father die in front of me. Now I see him being born again in front of me. Life is a stack of pancakes, and Alzheimer’s takes the top pancakes little by little until you’re left with none. But through this process, my father has shown me another side. He hugs me and kisses me and tells me that he loves me over and over again. This is the person he always was who I’m only now getting to know.

To read the rest of Richard Lui’s story, go to http://blog.alz.org/finding-joy-in-the-face-of-alzheimers-richard-lui-talks-family-long-distance-caregiving/