Worst disease

[Grandma Helen]

What do you think the worst disease to have would be? Why?

[Steven Robkoff]

I'd say cancer. Everyone's got a personal "preference". Both of my parents were very heavy smokers (4-5 packs a day). My mom died of cancer and my father...emphysema. I'll add smoking  as a deadly addiction/disease. 

[officerripley]

Alzheimers.

[Grandma Helen]

I think Alzheimers or Parkinsons are the worst.  Both have physical afflictions, with Parkinsons likely being worse, because Parkinsons has severe mobilit issues and then at the end hallucinations and complete dementia.  I lost a friend to Parkinsons and his last two ears were awful.  The last 10 months he was in a nursing home, because the hallucinations made him combative and dementia made him forget all of his family and friends.  In life he was a kind gentle man.  I saw folks with Alzheimers when I worked at an assisted living place in 2007.They had dementia people, mostly diabetics, but they were forgetful.  The Alzheimers patient was in her 70's and she used to go into other patients rooms at night and poop in the closets.  They weren't equipped to handle her.  It was so sad.

[MTwoman]

ALS...you're trapped in your body, but your mind is still active. Alzheimer's....what you don't know, you don't know.

[officerripley]

Unfortunately, all of the relatives I've had who had Alzheimers, were aware, at least at the beginning, that they were forgetting things. I remember 1 of my poor stepmothers holding her head in her hands and crying and saying, "Oh why can't I remember things?!" So, at least in the beginning stages sometimes, the Alzh. patients are unfortunately aware of what's happening to them; some parts of the brain are still active enough to realize there's a problem; therefore why some Alzh. patients become angry (scared).

[Steven Robkoff]

MTwoman's  got a great point. Years ago my ex and I were friendly with a couple and we used to double date with ...them and another couple. Richard got ALS. He had been a cop and an attorney. He had a corvette which he raced (when you're a cop you don't get tickets) and was a scuba diver. He was very outdoorsy. After he got ALS he was laid on his couch and didn't respond to anything. His wife used to sit and talk to him and swore he blinked his eyelids. This went on for many years and one one of the saddest things I've ever seen.  He "lived" many years like this. 

[PartTimeBrewer]

Locked-in syndrome where a person's mind is fully functional but the body completely paralyzed, would be the worst but since dementia is far more common, I fear it more.