Hello there! 

Thanks for visiting my fundraising page. You probably didn't come here by accident. I am raising money to support Alzheimer's reasearch through the Alzheimer's Society of BC. 

I am raising money for Alzheimer's research because my Mom was diagnoised in 2015. Her and my Dad flew out to Vancouver from their home in Ontario for my birthday that Summer. On our ferry to Salt Spring she took me aside and told me. At first I thought it was a relief, that she hadn't been not listening to me for the past couple years, she just had early stages of Alzheimer's. Throughout that trip it sunk in and I started to see the disease come through. There were lots of tears. 

I decided to start to travel home more, every 2-3 months to see her, spend time with them, while I still could. We went on trips and tried not to think about that she was seeing things for the last time. 

Due to a birth defect the disease progressed rapidly and my Dad and I put my mom Wynne in long term care this past Winter. 

I have a small family but a substantial, close and supportive community, who I relied heavily on for these last few years. I relied on people to ask me questions, to get me talking and to tell me what to do. When the grief was overwhelming, people rescued my Dad and I from situations I couldn't see a way out of. 

In many ways the disease, which I knew very little about didn't just affect me and my family. It affected my friends and my chosen family. In ways no one could have prepared me for. Or prepared them for. 

In the beginning I felt helpless. I felt shame. Guilt. Lots of guilt. I was angry. I was sad. I wanted to do something that my Mom would be proud of. That resembled her in some way. 

My Mom was an athlete, a slow athlete, but an athlete none the less. She cross country skied, was a marathon canoeist, cyclist, runner and when she couldn't do any of these things anymore, walked. She walked 16km everyday until it became to dangerous for her to take the same trails she had been walking for a decade because she would get lost. 

This summer I am biking from my home in Vancouver to Tijuana, Mexico to in some small way mimic the journey that this disease has put my family and community on. This is also one way to shift my perspective and contribute positively to something that has affected my life in such a dramatic way. The ride will take 6 weeks and is approximately 100km a day. There are 10 people from my community joining me on this ride, for different legs of the trip, who are flying from across Canada and America to ride and show support. Although this in no means is the only way people have showed support or continue to!

I hope to raise awareness of this disease through her story. 

By making a donation on this page, you are helping to transform the lives of individuals and families living with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias. By supporting the work of the Alzheimer Society of B.C., you are ensuring there is a province-wide organization dedicated to providing services and programs to help families faced with dementia have the confidence and skills to maintain quality of life, to supporting the search for the cure.

Please make a donation if you can, to this page, no matter how small. 

Thanks for your time, 

Charlie (Rachael) Stableford