THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 7, 1995 TAG: 9504070512
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
By the time Tom Chapman died, the disease had robbed him of everything. His ability to chew. To swallow. To walk. To recognize his wife and his 14-year-old daughter.
By the time Tom died, relief was so intermingled with sorrow that his wife, Hazel, didn't know which emotion took precedence.
Tom Chapman, 54, the subject of a series of articles in The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star last summer about the effect of Alzheimer's disease on one family, died Wednesday night of complications resulting from the disease.
``He's at peace now, suffering no more,'' Hazel said through her tears Thursday.
It was almost exactly a year ago that Hazel put Tom into Sentara Nursing Center in Virginia Beach, unable to care for him any longer at home. He still recognized his wife then; he understood enough about what was happening to cry and hold onto her, asking over and over again, ``Is this what you want?''
By Christmas, Hazel said, he began his final decline. He forgot how to chew, and the nursing home staff started feeding him pureed food. Within a couple of months, he forgot how to swallow.
Hazel made the toughest decision of Tom's illness: not to give him a feeding tube.
``Even up to the very last minute I had to think if I'd done the right thing by letting him die,'' she said. ``But I had to think what kind of quality of life he'd have if I let him live another 20 years with a feeding tube. He didn't know Angie or me or anything that was going on around him.''
By the time he died, Hazel said, Tom weighed 130 pounds - down from 200 when he entered the nursing home.
Hazel has donated Tom's brain to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., where he was a patient. Researchers there, she said, should confirm that Tom did have Alzheimer's (only an autopsy can show for sure). They will also use his brain tissue for genetic testing, trying to understand what would cause someone as young as Tom to develop a disease that typically affects people who are much older.
``I wouldn't want anyone to have to die from Alzheimer's,'' she said. ``His mind was gone, his body was gone. He looked like a 70-year-old man.'' MEMO: Tom Chapman's funeral is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Sunday at London
Bridge Baptist Church in Virginia Beach. Donations may be made to the
Hampton Roads chapter of the Alzheimer's Association, Koger Center, No.
20, Suite 233, Norfolk, Va. 23502
ILLUSTRATION: STAFF FILE PHOTO
Tom Chapman, his daughter, Angie, and his wife, Hazel, are shown
during a visit to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda,
Md.
by CNB