This just goes on and on, COVID19, Delta and now omicron

Michael Ellenbogen

I am sure many of you feel the same frustrations. I have wanted to travel with my wife because I don’t have a lot of time left and I am also being robed of that. When is this ever going to end? We have now canceled two trips and I will probably now need to cancel one for April. I just don’t want to take the risk. I at least decide to get the booster shot next week. Not that it will help as it is a moving target.

abc123

Dear Michael, I’m sorry you have had to cancel two trips! I also wonder if we will ever get back to normal. Hopefully you will be able to travel in April.

French

Oh yes, I am also frustrated. I am afraid that Tunisia will close its borders as Morocco has just done. I have started all the formalities. I fired the caregivers at the end of the year. If on December 26 we can't go to Tunisia, it's a disaster for me.

And I also understand your frustration not to be able to travel and enjoy life.

Iris L.

I was just getting comfortable with being in public after being "safer at home" for the past almost two years.  Now it begins again!  I have had my booster.  I wear a mask when around others, I wash my hands, I take supplements and I isolate.  How much longer?  There is a trip planned for Israel for next November 2022, but I am reluctant to make an overseas travel plan for even a year out.

Iris

Michael Ellenbogen

 Is Tunisia part of France? I was in Morocco and the French Rivera in the past.

Michael Ellenbogen

I hope you get to go to Israel as that was such a great trip.  

Ed1937

Michael, this stuff just sucks. I'm sorry everybody's way of life has changed so much. If there is anything good about this omicron variant is that, from what I'm hearing, it's not more severe (and maybe less severe) than the others. Hopefully as we get more information, that won't change.

French

Mickael, Tunisia was french but get its independence more than 60 years ago. 

As in Morocco or Algéria, they keep speaking well french and lot of Algérian, Moroccan or Tunisian live in France or have family in France. So we continue to share a lot.

Now, concerning going there, there is no advantage being French but being understood at the toll or when needing something.

Michael Ellenbogen

I do a lot of work in Africa and it was not till now that I even realized that Tunisia was part of it. I kept thinking it was part of France.  So that is where you take your husband. That must take a long time to get there.

Jo C.

French; I know nothing about Tunisia; how stable are the politics there being part of Africa and lying between Libya and Algeria?  What is the water supply like; is it "safe" to drink from the tap without concern and I wonder what their medical services are  - do they have sufficient numbers of physicians including specialties including even dementia specialists such as Neurology and a good hospital that is fairly local where your husband is, and easy to access?

So hope they do not close their borders so that you can complete your plans that are set into place.  If COVID is an issue, are the care aides and staff vaccinated for COVID at your husband's care center?  Here in our country; many of the care staff are vaccinated in care facilities, but it is still lan issue as not all of them are which is a problem as you can imagine.

If there is a concern, is it possible that you could you request that your husband's care aides be only those who are fully vaccinated?  This virus seems to be something that we will continue to see in our lives.  Just a few years ago, none of this was an issue and we all breathed freely without concern; how fast things can change!

Sometimes it seems as though we are all in a bad movie; but alas, it is all too true.  We are certainly learning to be very flexible whether we like it or not.

J.

Iris L.

Even the vaccinated are getting Covid infections.

Michael, I have been to Israel twice.  I would love to return, but to be in reality, it is more than Covud that keeps me from such a long trip.  I don't feel up to all the preparation even though there isn't that much.  I just don't feel up to anything much now.  Just the thought of beginning a new year in a few weeks wears me out.

Iris

Mint

Michael I do share your frustration and I don’t even like to travel.  Just would like to feel free to hug someone again.

Michael Ellenbogen

I am so glad you had the opportunity to go there. I sometimes think that going to the wall has helped me to delay my diseases along with other things. That was the first time I prayed in my life.

Stuck in the middle

WHO recommends all of us over 60 postpone our travel.  Good idea for people of any age, with borders closing.  You might want to see some other country, but you might not want to spend the winter there.

Lane Simonian

This is starting to look better by the day.  Most of the infections so far have been in the mild to moderate category.   A more infectious virus that is less deadly would be welcomed.

At this point, it appears that the current vaccines are not particularly effective against this variant, but that might not be a major problem if most the infections are not severe.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/04/covid-news-what-we-know-about-us-omicron-cases.html

French

Tunisia is at a 2.5 hours by plane. Quite easy for french to go there as lot of Tunisian are in France, there are a lot of regular flights. We don’t need visa.

Tunisia is quite stable. But yes it would be a big mess if there is another revolution. I think that if this firm has choosen Tunisia to establish it is because it is the safer.

Yes water is not drinkable and they put lot of bottles everywhere so that resident won’t drink from the tap.

When I was there I met a resident who lives there with his Alzheimer’s wife. She had an edema near her heart And he could see how it has been managed, in a private hospital the MC is associated to. He confirmed that it was perfect and perhaps better than here. Lot of North African doctors have French diploma.

About covid, no w, I really don’t know how it will evolve but Tunisia won’t close it borders  as Morocco did because It is a poor country. They still can ask for a compelling reason as it was the case this summer. But then we will have one. The risk is that we still can be positive the day before the flight and then we will have to postpone. I try to get a booster but for the moment our appointment is on December 20th (flight on 26th) and I am still searching for one before.

Michael Ellenbogen

This is something I wrote two weeks ago to someone. I just want tou to know more about Arfica. There are issues some are not aware off. 

I started out in the US with about 10 goals I had set for myself. While I was making progress in the US I also realized that in order to change this arena one had to get involved internationally.

 

So early one I had reached out to many all over the world to learn and to see what we could learn that would help others.

 

While I thought Dementia was a real major issue un the US I had no ide on how bad it was in other parts of the world. It was not even on their radar.  I was always one to go after the high hanging fruit but I quickly realized I could make some small changes that can have a huge impact in Africa. They were not even aware of dementia.  As far as priority goes this was not even known. For these folks in many places, food, water, clothing and bibles were more critical than anything else.

 

One day when speaking to some one over there I was informed of a lady who was kept in chains in the heat all day tied to the ground around her ankles.  That day I knew I could not sit back and do nothing. I use to think we had it so bad and in comparison to Africa were where really clueless on what it meant to have dementia.

 

Lucky for me I had already had great connections all around the globe. So I reach out to my friend Marc Wortman who at that time worked for ADI. I shared with him a picture from a newspaper or video and said he must do something about this. And he immediately did. That person was released after he reach out to educate those family and community leaders that this person had dementia and was not a witch. It was that simple just a little education could make such a Hugh impact. Much more then I could have ever imagined.

At time I had only about 3 connections on the continent. One of them turned out to be great woman known as KiKi for short. She was so passionate in wanting to help in ways she was not even aware off. At that time, I was connecting the few folks I had them to connect with each other by email so they can work as team to bring change.

About a year latter I had introduced Kiki to ADI because she was so determined to bring change. This person sold all of her gold and jewelry so she could become a ADI member for Africa. Now that is true dedication. More than I had.

Since that time, I had worked on building a huge network of people who could bring changes to their community. As of today, I have any were from 800 -1200 connections there. These folks are mostly leaders of all faiths, medical people, government, NGO’s and some business leaders. 

While I have found this very rewarding it has also been very sad because many of these folks have much higher needs. Dementia was very low on the list of issues. I had to be very carful of my askes to not create more burden to them. All I asked was to spread the word of dementia in the community by word of mouth and eventually they would have many others helping them. I was told them the western countries will work on finding the cure.

Because of the needs they had I also got others to sometimes donate menstrual products because the girls would not go to school, bibles and working on trying to get some food for a few.

I have spent many hours talking to these folks and sending emails to them. I have had zoom meetings on a single person phone, out in the open, with crowds sitting out in the open with no chairs. My words were being translated to their various language and dialects. And they would ask questions back while they were being translated.  

 

I found that these people overall had a real thirst for knowledge and wanted to bring change. I find it sad that no one tried to do this with these folks. Most never asked me for anything other than to pray for them. So much of this broke my heart but I could not walk away because I was bringing great changes and it is starting to take effect. 

My goal over the next few months is to turn over my long list to help build an army of people for this cause that will meet together on the African continent. I am also encouraging them to break down by regions that will meet more regularly. My goal is to let them share what they have learned and share it among themselves. I also believe this will create competitions among them.

 

While I hate that I had to hear all of the sorrow these folks have had to deal with, I also found this one of the most rewarding accomplishments.  This may be the second highest accomplishment on my list. To think that they did not know about dementia and women were kept in chains all day and many of the people were physically killed is just unimaginable to even think of, but it used to happen,  and it still does.