METRO DISTRICTS: DEBT & DEMOCRACY

After months of reporting, investigative reporter David Migoya explains how Colorado’s special districts have created an enormous amount of debt, then put the responsibility for payment onto homeowners who often don’t know they’ll be paying off developers through growing property taxes with no end in sight.

Thousands live in Colorado’s more than 1,800 metro districts, but few know the details of how new developments are creating debt, holding elections and burdening future homeowners.

• Colorado metro districts and developers create billions in debt, leaving homeowners with soaring tax bills
• There is little transparency for metro district fees that are supposed to benefit the community
• Bruce Rau is one of the most elected men in Colorado but doesn’t live in any of the metro districts he represents
• Metro district debt is decided long before residents move in, but some are trying to take back control

When the project launched, we asked for your questions about Colorado’s metro districts. Then, Migoya answered the most common ones we received to help our readers better understand this topic. Read more from this investigation here.

STATE OF MARIJUANA

In January 2019, Colorado marked its fifth anniversary of legalized recreational marijuana. Reporters David Migoya, Jon Murray and Anna Staver tracked how and where the tax money from marijuana sales was used in this three-part series.

• Part 1: “Where’s all that marijuana money?” Colorado’s pot dollars help schools, but maybe not as much as you think
• Part 2: Colorado communities pocket big bucks from legal marijuana, but threats loom for some
• Part 3: Almost half of Colorado’s marijuana money can go wherever lawmakers wish

Bills and a baby: Colorado Sen. Brittany Pettersen is breaking new ground

At the end of the 2019 legislative session, Sen. Brittany Pettersen realized she was pregnant. With a due date at the end of January, Petersen is set to be the first Colorado state senator to give birth in office and the first state lawmaker to do so during a legislative session.

“I think this goes in the bad planning column,” Pettersen joked.

But joking aside, her absence from the Senate chamber during the 2020 session — the inevitable result of increasing diversity at Colorado’s legislature — will have real policy implications. Here’s a look from reporter Anna Staver at what a baby in the statehouse will mean for Colorado in the coming session.

MOURNING THE LIVING

For months our health reporter Jessica Seaman spent time with the Sanchez family, who have multiple diagnoses of Alzheimer’s disease. She set out to discover what it’s like for an average family to grapple with this devastating disease. As part of this project, we hosted a panel event for our readers to hear from doctors about the complexities of this disease. Watch the recording of the event here.

• Part 1: Alzheimer’s disease creeps from one generation to the next in this Colorado family
• Part 2: As Alzheimer’s disease preys on a Colorado family, dad fights while mom accepts her fate
• Part 3: Greeley family wonders who’s next as they watch Alzheimer’s disease wind through generations

Shambhala, the Boulder-born Buddhist organization, suppressed allegations of abuse, ex-members say

For months our former intern Jackson Barnett investigated the Shambhala Buddhist organization. Through dozens of interviews and reviewing hundreds of documents, he found the Boulder-born mindfulness community for decades suppressed allegations of abuse — from child molestation to clerical abuse — through internal processes that often failed to deliver justice for victims.

That suppression came in the form of worshipful vows students said they were told to maintain to the very teachers they alleged abused them; in explicit and implicit commands not to report abuse; and through a cultish reverence that served to protect Shambhala’s king-like leaders, Barnett reported in July.

• RELATED: What is Shambhala? International The Tibetan Buddhist community has deep roots in Colorado

THE DENSIFICATION OF DENVER

More than a century ago, Denver’s leaders — inspired by the City Beautiful movement — built toward the ideal of a “city within a park.” But the last 20 years have seen immense change, as Denver’s population has exploded and developers cover more and more of the city’s remaining nature.

In this series, our environmental reporter Bruce Finley took a look at how development has cut back on green space in the Mile High City and what’s being done to restore parks to the metro area.

• Part 1: As development eats away at Denver’s green space, the “city within a park” is becoming a concrete metropolis
• Part 2: “We need more open spaces”: Denver residents feeling stifled by city’s building boom seek room to roam
• Part 3: “We are left with the dregs”: Heron Pond’s toxic brew spotlights obstacles in Denver’s push to regain green space

Investigator finds 43 Catholic priests in Colorado sexually abused at least 166 children

Throughout 2019, a third-party investigator reviewed sexual abuse allegations within Colorado’s Catholic Church. Criminal justice reporter Elise Schmelzer followed the investigation and its fallout. In October, the investigator released the report finding that 43 priests in Colorado had abused at least 166 children. Former Colorado U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer, blasted the dioceses for poor record-keeping, ineffective reporting systems and a culture that suppressed allegations and created a danger to children, Schmelzer reported in October.

• Who are the 40 priests named in the report?
• At least 11 priests accused of sexually abusing children in Colorado report are still alive. Where are they now?

Thirty months after fatal Firestone blast, Colorado’s widening web of underground pipelines still not fully mapped

In October, we published a story about how Colorado leaders failed to deliver on their pledged comprehensive public pipeline maps and better inspections to detect leaks like the one that caused the fatal Firestone blast 30 months earlier. Due to the difficulty of locating lines and a failure of government agencies to take charge, companies so far only have been asked to provide partial data on a subset of existing lines.

Federal government and industry officials contend pipelines are less risky and harmful than the alternatives of moving oil and gas in tanker trucks on public roads or by train, Finley reported in October. Yet pipelines still fail, sometimes causing catastrophic harm, and oil and gas companies are resisting stricter controls.

Hundreds of men say they were sexually abused during their time in the Boy Scouts. Now they want justice.

In a massive lawsuit involving nearly 700 men, former Boy Scouts are coming forward alleging they were sexually abused while in the program. The men plan to sue the organization and are demanding that the Boy Scouts be held accountable for hiding abusers from the criminal justice system and enabling them to keep preying on young men. Among the victims are 16 Colorado men. Reporter Sam Tabachnik talked with a few of them for this story.

While much attention has been paid to the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal, the Boy Scouts’ history of abuse committed by troop leaders and scoutmasters is now coming into focus.

SHROUDED JUSTICE

Our Shrouded Justice investigation technically published at the end of 2018, but in 2019 we had a major update. The Colorado Supreme Court was tasked with taking on the issue of secreted court cases like the thousands that we reported on when our investigation published in July 2018.

Ironically, the discussion and decision on how courts would handle Colorado’s suppressed cases occurred in secret without any members of the public present. Instead, any proposed rule would be published and public input invited, including public testimony before the full Supreme Court at a later date. We’re still waiting for a decision or proposed change.

Want to support more stories like these? The best way to support our local reporting is to .��

Good morning, Colorado!

As the year draws to an end, I want to thank you for subscribing to Checkup Denver. This little newsletter is not quite a year old, but you’ve let us into your inbox (almost) every two weeks and we couldn’t have done it without your support.

Health is a topic that touches everyone — whether it’s when we are seeking treatment or when a loved one becomes ill. And for our last newsletter of 2019, I’d like to take a look back at The Denver Post’s top health stories of the year.

Mourning The Living

The first stories I am sharing with you are from our “Mourning The Living” series, which launched in January. This project was one of my first assignments at The Denver Post and its publication coincided with the launch of Checkup Denver. We were able to tell these stories because the Sanchez family opened up their lives, allowing photographer Helen Richardson and me to follow them over a period of several months. For these reasons, this project is very special to me.

This series tells the story of how the Sanchez family struggles with the dual Alzheimer’s diagnoses of parents Tony and Josie. The pair, who are divorced, are both in the earlier stages of the disease but are taking different paths in accepting their fate. Alzheimer’s has preyed on the Sanchez family, making its way through multiple generations, and now, Tony and Josie’s children wonder if they are next.

Read more here.

“So many people hurt”

Earlier this year, more than 60 patients sued Porter Adventist Hospital in Denver over a breach in sterilization procedures, which the lawsuit alleges caused “hundreds of severe infections” in patients as far back as 2015 — and at least one death.��

Porter revealed its problems with cleaning surgical equipment in 2018, but a state investigation found the issues were far more serious than the hospital divulged.

“We acknowledge the concern of these patients and are aware of existing lawsuits stemming from a review by CDPHE of the pre-cleaning process of surgical instruments prior to sterilization which was identified in February 2018,” Centura said in a statement after the story published.

Among those suing Porter is Betty Wriston. Her husband, Thomas, fell in March 2017 and fractured his femur and hip, which required surgery at Porter. After the procedure, he developed an infection and died, according to the lawsuit.��

“What����ap really sad is there’s just been so many people hurt by this,” Wriston,78, said. “I’m not the only one.”

Read more here.

The Long Shadow 

Our next story comes from one of our photojournalists, RJ Sangosti. He spent months following families in the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood of Denver to show the affect of heavy pollution in the area.

Asthma rates in Elyria-Swansea and Globeville are greater than the state average — and have increased in recent years. Many of the people RJ shadowed — including the children — have asthma, and they are concerned that the expansion of Central 70 will make their conditions worse.

Read more here.

Again, thank you for supporting our newsletter and The Post.

Happy New Year!

Jessica

The Denver Post����ap Jessica Seaman moderated a panel with some of Colorado’s leading experts on Alzheimer’s disease on Thursday night at The Denver Post building in downtown Denver.

The discussion touched on what families can do after getting a diagnosis, the potential genetic risk and the toll it takes on loved ones. The panelists include Amelia Schafer, Dr. Jonathan Woodcock and Dr. Hillary Lum.

The panelists included:

• Amelia Schafer, executive director of the Alzheimer’s Association Colorado Chapter
• Dr. Jonathan Woodcock, clinical director of the Rocky Mountain Alzheimer’s Disease Center at CU Anschutz and clinical director of the Memory Disorders Clinic with UCHealth
• Dr. Hillary Lum, a geriatrician and palliative care physician at the Seniors Clinic at University of Colorado Hospital, University of Colorado School of Medicine, and the VA Eastern Colorado Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center

During my first week in the newsroom, an editor came to my desk with a list of potential story ideas, including a look at what happens to a family when two parents have Alzheimer’s.

It was July, and almost two weeks prior, Annabel Bowlen had revealed she had the same disease already afflicting her husband, Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen. In a way, the series is a follow-up to the initial story about her diagnosis.

I latched onto the idea fairly quickly after it was proposed, in part because it touches on a broader topic I’m interested in: caregivers and aging.

My interest in this topic is driven by my family’s experience. My grandmother had a brain aneurysm more than 20 years ago, robbing her of her short-term memory and altering her personality.

She does well despite the aneurysm, but requires constant care from family members — my grandfather was her primary caregiver until his death in 2017 — and in-home aides. Having seen how much work it takes to care for someone, I knew I wanted to write about similar issues, especially as the population is aging.

I just didn’t know what exactly to write about, so when the editor tossed out the idea of an Alzheimer’s story it stuck.

I’m also familiar with the disease as my great-grandfather had either Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia before his death. At the time, doctors weren’t sure which he had, but his sister was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, leaving my family to believe he also had the disease.

Once I decided to pursue the story, I needed to find a family to profile. I scoured social media, searching Facebook groups, Twitter and other forums for someone who may have posted about having two parents with Alzheimer’s.

I had no luck.

So next I asked the local chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association if they knew of someone who fit the category. They put me in touch with Cindee Gierhart, a daughter of Tony and Josie Sanchez.

It was August when I first met the family. From the beginning, they were open about the struggles they face with the disease — from their concern about affording a nursing home to their worries about Alzheimer’s continuing to slip from one generation to the next.

Indeed, the only time Tony’s current wife, Teddy, declined a request from us was when we asked to see the gun that is still kept in the house.

She declined to show us because there was a chance Tony would be able to figure out where the gun was based on the photos, which would defeat the family’s purpose in hiding the .22-caliber pistol.

I worked with Helen H. Richardson, a staff photographer, on the series, and over a period of several months, we visited and checked in by phone with the family (our trips to Greeley were stalled for a month-and-a-half after I fell and broke my foot).

Where Tony and Josie are in the progression of Alzheimer’s is one of the most difficult — and interesting — aspects of reporting this series.

They are in the early-to-mid stages, meaning the signs of the disease are not always immediately clear.��This presented an opportunity to include the voices of those with Alzheimer’s in the series. But how does a reporter show the effects of the disease in a story when they aren’t always visible?

One day in October, Helen and I spent about 12 hours with the family, beginning at 5 a.m., which is around the time Teddy and Tony start their day.

That day we saw two symptoms previously described by Teddy: Tony had an anxiety attack and left early from his granddaughter’s volleyball game later in the evening.

There was also an incident at the marijuana dispensary last year, in which Tony allegedly threatened the workers. He said it was the first time he’s forgotten something at such a level.

That story was recounted to me by the family. Tony remembers going to the dispensary, but not what he said. Because he didn’t remember part of the incident, I requested the police report to help fill in some of the gaps of the story.

I included these three anecdotes in the series because they show readers what it’s like living with Alzheimer’s.

Finally, I could not have undertaken this series if my editors hadn’t given me the time it requires to report and write such stories.��It can take weeks, sometimes months, to really get to know your subjects and tell these kinds of stories in a thoughtful, in-depth way.

From her spot snuggled beside her daughters on the pull-out couch, she can hear her grandmother. She’s angry.

Who are you? What are you doing, her grandmother demands to know, in my house?

Nelson springs out of bed, confused. Grandma, she says, it����ap me.

What do you mean?

I’m going to stay with you, Nelson says.

Her grandmother’s behavior began changing before this night. There were times when she would forget where she was driving. She was once in a car crash.��It’s why Nelson and her daughters were there to help.

And now, on this night in the late 1990s, her grandmother doesn’t recognize Nelson. The family doesn’t know yet, but she has Alzheimer’s disease.

Her grandmother is neither the first nor the last in this Colorado family to suffer from the degenerative brain disorder.��Five family members across at least two generations of the family have had Alzheimer’s disease.��And a sixth family member, Nelson’s great-grandmother, was diagnosed with what was called “forgetfulness” before her death in 1976.

Alzheimer’s eats away at memories and thinking skills, robbing a person of who they are as they eventually lose the ability to speak, swallow or move on their own. The disease has mystified doctors and scientists who have yet to find a specific cause or a cure.

Now both of Nelson’s parents are living with the disease, leaving her and her four siblings wondering: Am I next?

Double diagnoses

Nelson’s father was the first of her parents to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Her mother’s diagnosis followed a year later in 2016. Then her grandmother, after living more than a decade with the disease, died in 2017.

Nelson’s parents, Tony and Josie Sanchez, each are in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

Tony, 73, still drives. Josie, 75, lives in a nursing home, in part because of other health problems and the need for dialysis several times a week.

It����ap fairly rare to have two parents with Alzheimer’s disease at the same time, doctors and advocates say.��But in recent years, high-profile couples, including Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen and his wife, Annabel, have made headlines for their dual diagnoses.

“Obviously, a family that has two parents with Alzheimer’s disease is facing this kind of problem in a double way,” Huntington Potter, director of the Rocky Mountain Alzheimer’s Disease Center, says of the emotional and financial toll that the disorder has on families. “It����ap bad enough having one parent.”

Both of Nelson’s parents watched one of their own parents succumb to Alzheimer’s.

Tony feels closer to his father, knowing they had the same disease. And while her mother may have forgotten loved ones in her final years, Josie says, her death was peaceful.

“She just laid down and died,” she says. “It wasn’t tragic. It wasn’t awful.”

Now they worry about what their own diagnoses mean for their five children.

Tony believes he knows which of their children will get Alzheimer’s. It will be Nelson, he says, because she’s the most like him.

“I do not want my children to have to get this at all,” Josie says.

Known (and unknown) genetic links

There is still much doctors and researchers don’t know about Alzheimer’s.

Scientists have been unable to pinpoint an exact cause of the disease. However, they have determined that lifestyle factors and genetics play a role.

Age is one of the biggest risk factors. Those who reach the age of 85 have about a 50 percent chance of having Alzheimer’s, Potter says.

“It is the disease of the aged,” he says.

Alzheimer’s is a diagnosis with no cure. It����ap likely there won’t be one for decades, as even treatments designed merely to slow the progression of the disease largely have failed clinical trials.��At best, a new treatment to slow the disease will be brought to market in about five years, Potter says.

An absolute cure for Alzheimer’s, he says, is “too optimistic.”

It����ap also unclear how Alzheimer’s passes from one family member to another and how likely family members are to develop symptoms.

“We don’t fully understand why,” says Alison Quinn, a clinical pharmacy specialist with Kaiser Permanente Colorado. “There’s a potential genetic risk, genetic link. We don’t know about all of the different genes at play.”

One known genetic risk factor is a variation of the apolipoprotein E, or APOE, gene. The APOE protein, which carries cholesterol, is found in cells throughout the brain and in blood.

The gene comes in different forms, including ApoE4, which is known to increase the risk for Alzheimer’s.

A person who has two copies of the gene, one from each parent, has a twelvefold increase in the risk of developing the disease, Potter says.

Yet while it is a risk factor, having a copy of the ApoE4 gene does not mean a person will develop Alzheimer’s. Likewise, a person can get the disease without having the gene.

Doctors often don’t perform genetic tests for Alzheimer’s because “we just don’t find that it’s very predictive,” says Dr. Jonathan Woodcock, clinical director of the Rocky Mountain Alzheimer’s Disease Center at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus.

A looming disease

In 2016, Josie gave her son, Jason, an over-the-counter 23andMe genetic testing kit as a birthday present.

When he got the kit, Jason decided to use it to also test for health risks. Among the test options: late-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

“I don’t know if I’d want to do that,” says his eldest sister, Michelle Raimer, 50.

The siblings don’t need something to tell them they have Alzheimer’s disease years before there’s even a hint of it appearing, she says.

“What different would we do with our lives?” Raimer asks.

Already, Alzheimer’s disease looms over the siblings.

Nelson, 48, says she believes three of the five siblings ultimately will be diagnosed with the disease. She has told her kids to not be surprised if, eventually, some of them start to get sick too.

Raimer catches herself forgetting a word or her train of thought, and it reminds her of her mom.

“But I do honestly think, you know, when you get older, you do lose capacity of memory … so I don’t know if it’s my own excuses I’m making or if I am having symptoms,” she says. “I don’t want to think about it, you know, at this time.”

Cindee Gierhart, the youngest, has started thinking about putting money away to help pay for long-term care. She is 45.

Jason, 46, knows the DNA test can’t predict or render an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, but he was curious.

So he took the test. The results show Jason has at least one variant of the ApoE4 gene, meaning he has a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

The results haven’t changed how he lives his life — so far. But knowing them, Jason says, gives him an opportunity to prepare while the family hopes doctors find a way to slow the disease’s progression.

“Just like I tell my dad, we’re always hoping for the best and preparing for the worst,” Jason says.

The shop in Garden City, he thought, was supposed to let him know when the strain he likes has been restocked. He didn’t receive a call.

“I’m going to shoot you, and then her, for making me upset,” Tony, 73, told two workers — as they later recounted to police.

Then, after buying some pot, he climbed into his old Volkswagen Beetle and drove the roughly 5 miles to his home in Greeley.

It was June 2018. Three years earlier, a doctor diagnosed him with Alzheimer’s disease. He has been fighting for his independence ever since, refusing to give in to the disease that is constantly gnawing away at his mind.

Alzheimer’s is a vein that stretches deep within the family. Tony has seen the changes it brought in his father and former mother-in-law.��Now the disease has both him and his ex-wife in its grasp — a fate he’s fighting, but she’s resigned to.

On that day in June, Tony didn’t give the dispensary trip another thought after buying marijuana and driving away.�� But then came the call from police, wanting to know if he had visited the pot shop.

Yes, Tony said, he was there.

Did he threaten any of the workers?

“No, I don’t remember doing that at all,” Tony told the officers.

He didn’t believe he said such a thing. Is there video footage, Tony asked, to show what happened? There is; it didn’t have sound.

But it����ap in the police report. It����ap why officers called his wife. And it����ap why there’s a court order preventing him from returning to the dispensary.

Alzheimer’s disease has made Tony forget before, but on that day seven months ago, he got his first glimpse of a future without his memories.

“The Sarge”

Tony used to be rowdy. Growing up in a poor section of Oakland, Calif., taught him not to start fights, but not to back down from them either. “Let����ap face it, you learned how to fight or you joined a gang,” he says.

His self-described bossy demeanor is why his children and wife call him a sergeant. He likes structure and to be in charge. When he sets out to do something, he goes on a mission.

He’s “the Sarge.”

As he’s grown older, and as Alzheimer’s erodes his memories, Tony has become more apprehensive. Mass shootings — in churches, in schools, in movie theaters — in particular have become ingrained in his mind.

He gets angry more than he should since the diagnosis four years ago. The anger, Tony says, comes from his irritation at forgetting.

“Sometimes I get so pissed off at myself, I take it out on Josie,” he says.

Not Josie. He means Teddy, his wife. He does that a lot, Tony says, mixing up the names of his wife and ex-wife.

Alzheimer’s disease, doctors say, doesn’t just create holes in a person’s memory. It can spawn delusions as a person tries to fill those gaps.��The disease can affect its victims’ organizational skills to the point they struggle to pay bills. It can change their mood and personality, making them anxious, fearful or angry as symptoms set in.

Doctors have prescribed Tony medicine, Depakote ER, to treat aggression related to Alzheimer’s.��He calls the drug his “don’t-get-mad pills.”

Tony has found that marijuana helps too. He has been smoking for decades, often taking his first hit by 10 a.m. after he walks Lucy, their black Lab mix, on a trail near his home. The pot relaxes him. It takes the edge off his anger. He’s less likely to snap at Teddy, Tony says.

Don’t you agree? he asks her.

“I don’t know, I guess,” Teddy says. “It mellows you out.”

Studies have shown that marijuana can reduce aggression and anxiety, but there are no signs that it can reduce Alzheimer’s disease itself, says Huntington Potter, director of the Rocky Mountain Alzheimer’s Disease Center.

Researchers have found that marijuana can curb the disease’s changes to the brain and improve memory in mice. But in humans, long-term use of marijuana can reduce blood flow to the brain, which can hurt short-term memory, he says.

Sitting on the couch in his living room on a sunny day in October, Tony says he knows he threatened the workers at the dispensary. It’s the first time Teddy has heard him accept responsibility.��He’s been denying it since police called. The incident makes him feel like a “dodo bird.”

Still, he doesn’t remember.

“I’m sure there’s going to be more stupid things I’ll do when I go up to somebody and say, ‘Can you help me? I don’t know who I am,’ ” Tony says.

It’s frustrating forgetting. He can feel his wife and children looking — waiting — for him to depend on them more as the disease progresses.

And slowly, he is.

He’s no longer the Sarge.

Like father, like son

Tony’s father mostly raised him and his brother. His parents divorced when he was in the third grade. His mother didn’t show up to the custody hearing. “I wish we could have been closer,” Tony says. “I don’t think I was really in love with my mom.”

Tony says he stole a car when he was 16.

While visiting family in Denver, he went to a used car lot. His cousin’s boyfriend pushed the car out into the alley and jumped into the driver’s seat. Tony was riding shotgun.

They went to pick up his cousin and other friends. They bought booze. Then they got busted in Golden.

When the police showed up, Tony and the others jumped out of the car and ran. His cousin hid under the car.

After officers caught them, Tony ended up in a juvenile detention center for two weeks. Officials told his father that he could come get Tony after about a week, but his father waited until the court hearing.

“That was probably the maddest I’ve seen him in my life,” Tony says.

Years ago, around 1999, Tony’s father came from California for a visit. It was Fourth of July weekend and they went to a parade.

That weekend, Tony’s father, who had already been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, kept forgetting him.

I’m your son, Tony would tell him.

Now, it’s Tony who is facing a future in which he might forget his children.

“It won’t hurt me not knowing who they are,” Tony says, crying. “It will hurt them.”

“Fighting” Alzheimer’s

It’s hard thinking about the future, and what’s going to happen as his memory wilts further.

Once symptoms appear, a person can live with Alzheimer’s for more than a decade before they die. There will be no cure in Tony’s lifetime.��He hopes for one for his children, but that’s not likely to happen. Scientists are struggling just to create treatments that will slow the progression of the disease, much less cure it.

“God, I can’t imagine a woman wiping my butt or putting a spoon in my mouth like I’m a little child, an infant,” Tony says.

Is this the future he has to look forward to?

“No, I can’t think of that,” Tony says. “That’s why I have to keep going to the gym and fighting it and fighting it and fighting it.”

Exercise, Tony has heard, helps dampen the progression of Alzheimer’s. So he tries to go to the gym five days a week to lift weights and walk on the treadmill. He takes his dog, Lucy, on walks four or five times a day.

At least twice a week, Tony hops in his car and drives a little more than 2 miles to Fairacres Manor, a local nursing home to visit Josie, his ex-wife and mother of five of his six children.

One day in August, Tony walks into the nursing home, carrying cookies for his visit.

“Do you feel any different because you have Alzheimer’s?” Josie asks.

“I’m starting to,” he replies.

Unlike Tony, Josie already has come to terms with having to depend on her children and caretakers at the nursing home. One of her daughters takes her to Mass on the weekends and helps with laundry. Josie is the one who decided to move into the nursing home.

Before the doctor’s verdict, she had envisioned a retirement filled with travel. She has been to Cuba and the Bahamas and wanted to go to more “wonderful places.”

But Josie’s health took a turn several years ago. She has nerve damage in her right foot. She needs dialysis three times a week. She had a stroke.

Maybe instead of traveling, Josie says, she is meant to learn how to live with her illnesses and pain. Her Catholic faith, she says, keeps her positive.

“That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” she says. “Why fight it? Go with the flow.”

Tony is more reluctant to give up his independence. His children have started worrying about his driving. What if he gets lost? What if he’s in an accident?

One of his daughters, Cindee Gierhart, 45, and her husband sometimes follow Tony as he drives to check on him. Tony doesn’t know.

The day is coming when he will have to hand over his keys, Tony says, but it’s not here yet. Doing so would mean he’d no longer be able to go to the gym or take the dog to the park.

He’s not ready to surrender to Alzheimer’s disease.

Accepting fate

There are times, Tony thinks, he won’t die of Alzheimer’s disease, that he won’t die at all. He doesn’t feel sick. He doesn’t feel differently than he was before. Too much is being made about him having Alzheimer’s.

But his family sees that Tony is changing.

His son, Jason, stopped by one day in 2017 and raised the issue of Tony keeping a gun in the house.�� When he was younger, Tony used to take Jason hunting. They’d go out looking to shoot rabbits, deer, elk and pheasants.

Tony’s children, Jason later says, are growing concerned that there’s a gun in his home. They don’t know how quickly his Alzheimer’s will progress.

Surprising Jason, after that conversation in 2017, Tony got up from the couch and went to his bedroom, where he grabbed the .22-caliber pistol and, without a fight, handed it to his son.

But a week later, Tony changed his mind and wanted the gun back.��He needs it to protect his family, he says.

The gun is now back in the house, but hidden so only Teddy can find it.

There eventually will be another conversation about the gun, Jason says. “We know it’s going to be a fight with him because of his stubbornness and independence.”

There may come a time, Tony says, when he won’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t want to be the person who may hurt his wife or someone else, which is why he initially gave Jason the gun. Tony wonders, “When I change, how will I change?”

Tony is slowly beginning to accept the finality of Alzheimer’s. He says he’s made his peace with God.

“It’s probably one of the best ways to go,” he says.��“There’s no blood. There’s no pain.”

The pain, Tony says, is for the caregivers. He’s heard about the ones who become depressed while tending to loved ones with Alzheimer’s and doesn’t want that for Teddy.

But still, he has time.

“While I’m still here,” he says. “Let’s treat me like I’m the Sarge.”

Facing a crowd

Tony pulls out some marijuana while sitting on the couch.��The clock is nearing 6 p.m and he hasn’t had a puff all day. He plans to when he gets in the car with Teddy.

They’re going to his granddaughter’s volleyball game. It’s senior night for the team, so there will be a big crowd on this October night. Crowds make Tony anxious now; it’s another symptom of Alzheimer’s disease.

Once inside the high school’s gymnasium, Tony and Teddy take a seat on the bleachers beside Josie. They cheer as his granddaughter, Aubree, and her parents are called on the court with the rest of the seniors. Teddy snaps a photo.

Michelle Raimer, Aubree’s mom, knows her father doesn’t do well with crowds anymore. She knows that after about 30 minutes, Tony will make an excuse to leave. He will need to walk the dog or feed the cat.

And she’s right.

Before the first match ends, Tony and Teddy say goodbye.

Tony is going home to walk Lucy, again.

Updated 9:05 a.m. Jan. 28, 2019 This story has been updated to correct the hours of operation of the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America’s helpline.

The Denver Post����ap Jessica Seaman will moderate a panel featuring some of Colorado’s leading experts on Alzheimer’s.

The panel and discussion will touch on what families can do after getting a diagnosis, the potential genetic risk of the disease and the toll it takes on loved ones. Panelists will also take questions from the audience.

The panelists include:

• Amelia Schafer, executive director of the Alzheimer’s Association Colorado Chapter
• Dr. Jonathan Woodcock, clinical director of the Rocky Mountain Alzheimer’s Disease Center at CU Anschutz and clinical director of the Memory Disorders Clinic with UCHealth
• Dr. Hillary Lum, a geriatrician and palliative care physician at the Seniors Clinic at University of Colorado Hospital, University of Colorado School of Medicine, and the VA Eastern Colorado Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center

Details

• WHEN: 7 p.m. Feb. 7, 2019
• WHERE: Auditorium at The Denver Post, 101 W. Colfax Ave., Denver, CO 80202
• TICKETS: The event is free of charge, but registration is required. .��

By the time she has finished walking the dog, he’s on the couch in the dimly lit living room, pulling up his socks. The news flashes on the television.

Teddy Sanchez steps back into the warmth of the house just before 5:30 a.m., and until she leaves for work, it����ap a whirlwind of showering, packing lunch and checking on Tony.��

Has he had coffee? Did he take his medicine?

It����ap been four years since the Alzheimer’s diagnosis. And at age 73, Tony is slowly fading from the man Teddy married almost two decades ago.

Still able to drive, he can cling to his independence. But Tony has pulled back from visiting friends because he doesn’t always recall their names. He’s quiet, even at home.

Alzheimer’s has preyed on the Sanchez family, snaking its way through two, possibly three, generations. The disease, the past has taught them, will get worse with each passing year, chiseling away at memories and even the essence of who the person was. And all the while, the next generation wonders whether this will be their fate, too.

In the living room, Tony’s movements are slow.��Once dressed, his thin frame hunches over the center table as he sips coffee and nibbles on a breakfast of cookies: five Biscoffs and two Milanos.

The gentle rhythms of the morning are broken when, suddenly, Tony is at Teddy’s side in the kitchen, whispering in her ear.

His head is rushing from the anxiety again.

“Take it easy,” Teddy tells him.

“Deep breaths.”

The first diagnosis

Neither remembers why Tony became angry on Christmas Eve in 2014.

But that night he was slamming doors. He was talking fast. He was swearing. He told Teddy she needed to leave — and she couldn’t take the new car or anything else with her when she went.

In the end, it was Tony who walked out the door.

“I was standing there thinking, ‘What the hell?’ ” Teddy says.

When he returned that night, he was quiet. He apologized. He didn’t know why he was mad, he told her. He was really sorry, he said.

“And I said, ‘You know what, Tony?’ ” Teddy recalls. ” ‘This is not normal. Your behavior is not what it should be and this isn’t the first time you’ve done this.’ ”

The family had an inkling of what was causing the changes in Tony years before that night.

Days later, Tony visited a doctor and was given a verbal test to examine his cognitive abilities.��Such exams ask patients the day of the week and to name as many animals as they can in a minute. There are math problems to solve, words to remember.

Tony’s score: 12 out of 30, placing him within the dementia range.

It’s easy to miss the traces of Alzheimer’s in Tony. He struggles with his short-term memory, but can regale visitors with stories of his childhood. He drives himself to the gym and to the park to walk the dog.

“It’s kind of hard because it’s a mental illness, and not a physical illness,” Tony says. “There are times now when I’m talking to friends, and all of the sudden, you forget what you want to say or what you were talking about.”

With each year that passes, Alzheimer’s will continue to pull away at Tony’s memory and thinking skills, and someday could even rob him of the ability to feed himself.

Roughly 5.7 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease — and the number is steadily growing as the U.S. population ages. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that almost 14 million people will have the condition by 2050.

Much is still unknown about Alzheimer’s, including what exactly causes the brain disorder.��Researchers say it’s a mixture of genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors that lead to the disease. Age is one of the biggest risk factors; the disease mostly affects people 65 and older. But, doctors note, it is not a normal part of growing older.

In Alzheimer’s disease, changes to the brain can begin at least a decade before symptoms appear.

The damage begins in the hippocampus, which creates memories, and spreads to other sections of the brain as neurons die. Brain tissue shrinks significantly by the disease’s final stages.

There is no cure, and treatments mostly focus on the symptoms. Some control the anger. Others soothe the anxiety.

A few treatments can slow symptoms, including memory loss, but inevitably the disease will catch up with Tony. It����ap possible he will reach a point where he no longer recognizes Teddy, his children and even, maybe, himself.

So what happens when another family member starts forgetting too?

Tony was first.

His ex-wife was next.

A familiar foe

Before Teddy, Tony was married to Josie. They met at a dance club in Oakland, Calif., in the 1960s. She was visiting; he grew up there.

They married in 1967 and have four daughters and one son. (Tony has another son from a previous relationship.)

In their first years of marriage, Tony and Josie lived in Oakland and were active in the civil rights movement. They knew members of the Black Panthers, they say, and once met Cesar Chavez.

“We lived in, I’d say, the poorest section of Oakland,” Tony says. “And Oakland’s a rough town. So we packed up and moved to Greeley.”

They divorced after more than 20 years in part, Josie says, because of Tony’s drinking. “I couldn’t take it anymore,” she says.

“We got divorced because after my last, youngest daughter went to college, we didn’t know each other,” Josie says.

Despite the divorce, Josie and Tony still see each other twice a week, sometimes more, for coffee. Josie, Tony says, is still his best friend.

“She’s the mother of my children,” he says.

“That����ap never going away,” she replies.

Tony married Teddy, now 59, more than 16 years ago when they lived in Wyoming.

She first saw him at a bar, but they didn’t actually meet that night. It was another chance meeting, also at a bar, that gave Teddy the opportunity to finally introduce herself.

When she spotted him, Tony was discussing books with a local councilwoman. Teddy made her move when the woman went to the bathroom. Noticing Tony’s book, she asked what he was reading.

Instead of answering, Tony pushed the book toward Teddy. It was a copy of “Rain of Gold,” a story by Victor Villasenor about his parents’ migration from Mexico to California.��Here, Tony said, take it and bring it back when you finish.

As she left, book in hand, Teddy thought, “God, this guy’s really weird.”  She threw the book in the trunk of her car, and didn’t open it for months.

A few more meetings, though, and Teddy fell for the man. He was smart, articulate and nurturing. They could talk for hours.

“He dressed sharp as hell,” Teddy recalls. “Oh, my God, this man is sharp as a tack.”

The changes in Tony came slowly. They came after he and Teddy moved to Greeley a few months into their marriage. After he quit drinking a quart or more of tequila a day. Years before the doctor’s diagnosis.

The disease arrived with silence and mood swings well before that fateful Christmas Eve in 2014. It further unveiled itself with confused looks, rambling conversations and forgotten names.

It wasn’t just Teddy who saw the changes.

Tony’s adult children also noticed Dad was growing impatient — more so than usual. He’s known to like a good debate, but to some of the children, it was heightened.

As the symptoms began to appear, the children sought confirmation from one another that “Yeah, we see it too.”

In some ways, Teddy knew it was coming. She had worried about it after meeting Tony’s father years before. He had Alzheimer’s disease. So had Tony’s aunt.

Alzheimer’s is a familiar foe. Over the years, there have been at least five family members who have been diagnosed with the disease. A sixth, who died during the 1970s, wasn’t diagnosed but had what doctors at the time called “forgetfulness.”

Still, the family was surprised when after Tony’s diagnosis another followed.

Missing the signs

Alzheimer’s disease, doctors say, often sneaks up on families. It����ap not that a person’s slip in memory or change in behavior goes unnoticed; rather, relatives are less likely to question them at first.

Her children remember the changes they saw in Josie, 75. She wasn’t following a diabetic diet or taking her medicine properly. She was behind on her bills.

Josie was no longer cleaning her home like she used to, either. Dishes were left out in the sink. Old food sat in the fridge. The floor hadn’t been vacuumed.

They saw the changes. But their focus was on Josie’s physical health, which began declining about four years ago.

Josie, who has diabetes, ended up with Stage 4 kidney failure, and doctors said she would need dialysis three times a week.

She also has neuropathy, a type of nerve damage that can cause numbness and pain, in her right foot. Her diabetes caused poor circulation, and she developed a wound so bad she landed in a hospital.

Josie, doctors also confirmed, at some point had a stroke and would continue to have mini-strokes. She now often uses a wheelchair.

“It was like the last round of a grueling boxing match and it seemed as though we were losing,” recalls Cindee Gierhart, 45, one of Josie’s and Tony’s daughters.

They had seen Alzheimer’s disease before, but kept missing it.

A second diagnosis

It’s not unheard of for two parents to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen and his wife, Annabel, have been diagnosed with the condition.

And former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has been diagnosed with . Her husband had Alzheimer’s before he died.

However, it����ap rare for parents or partners to have a diagnosis at the same time, says Amelia Schafer, executive director of the Colorado chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.

Whether a couple get the disease at the same time or one after another is “the luck of the draw,” says Dr. Jonathan Woodcock, clinical director of the Rocky Mountain Alzheimer’s Disease Center at CU Anschutz.��

In the summer of 2016, a year after Tony, a doctor diagnosed Josie with Alzheimer’s disease. By then, Josie’s physical ailments already had landed her in a nursing home.

I’m going to become like my mother, Josie thought after she heard the diagnosis. Her mother, who had Alzheimer’s, no longer recognized others. She was already living in a world of her own.

“So I would tell my kids all the time, ‘Look at Grandma and then look at me,’ ” Josie says.�� “‘I’m going to be that way sometime.’ ”

When Josie moved into her current nursing home later that year, she had a familiar neighbor: her mother.

They lived just two halls down from each other, until Josie’s mother died in 2017.

There they lived, together, with Alzheimer’s disease.

Uncertain future

On that morning in October, before Tony’s anxiety attack, Teddy sits beside him on the couch, holding a blue marker and a medium-sized whiteboard.

Under the day’s date — Oct. 16, 2018 — she writes a list:

• Morning Workout
• Visit Josie
• Peanut Butter Sandwich
• lunch Soup
• 330p Feed Lucy
• Dem Headquarters
• Flowers @ King Soopers
• tonight-review election Book

Teddy began making these lists almost a year ago, but now it’s become part of their daily routine.

It����ap a list to remind Tony of all he wants to do that day: get information on candidates and issues for the November election, visit his ex-wife, pick up flowers for the house.

“There’s so many issues,” Tony says of the election as Teddy finishes writing. “It����ap so confusing.”

And it����ap a list of what he needs to do, but can forget. Eat lunch. Feed the dog.

Tony’s already told Teddy he needs her.

Unlike Josie, who is already in a nursing home, his future is more uncertain.

Teddy, who works as an office manager at a homeless shelter for families, doesn’t know how much longer they have until Tony will need more care than she can provide. But she already knows they ������’t afford a nursing home and they don’t qualify for Medicaid.

“When that times come, I’m probably going to have to quit work and stay home,” Teddy says.

Nursing home care is expensive. When Josie moved into her first nursing home, it cost roughly $12,000 a month, in part because she needs dialysis.��

The move wiped out most of Josie’s retirement savings, including the funds from selling her home, within a few months. What����ap left goes toward the nursing home she’s at now, but she’s also on Medicaid to help cover those costs. Once the nursing home expenses are paid, Josie has only about $100 left a month.

Teddy, knowing what the future holds, is trying to save, but it����ap hard. The water heater needed to be replaced. The floor and car needed fixing.

Sometimes, Teddy thinks, she doesn’t want to do this anymore. She ������’t do this anymore.

“And then I think to myself, ‘How selfish are you Teddy?’ ” she says. “This isn’t about you. You married this man for better or worse and this is where the path is going.”

So she tries to draw Tony out. She makes sure to ask about his day.

Once they read a book together. Tony would read a page and she’d read the next. He lost interest before they finished. He fumbled over the words. He kept losing his place.

Fridays are date nights. In the spring and summer, they will grab dinner at Subway and go home to eat before heading downtown to listen to music. When the weather turns colder, they watch movies together.

But when they get back home, when it’s just the two of them, Tony goes back to watching TV or playing games on the computer. He becomes quiet again.

They used to talk for hours.

He’s no longer the man Teddy married.

Losing him

Days-old snow still clings to the grass when Teddy leaves the house and sets off on a path toward a street lit by lamps.

Lucy, the 3-year-old black Lab mix trotting at her side, will bark if someone approaches, but Teddy finds the lights comforting against the darkness of the morning sky.

These days she doesn’t know when she will start crying — or what will spur the tears. But they come often. Mostly when she’s alone, hidden from the husband she cares for.

“I’m sure it has something to do with him,” Teddy says.

She doesn’t want him to know the sadness she feels.

So it is here amid the street lamps, during a stop for the dog to relieve herself, that the tears fall once more. It is here, too far from the house for anyone to see, that Teddy recalls she’s losing him.

She cries because she grieves.

No one has died.

She’s mourning a living man.

Updated 8:55 a.m. Jan. 28, 2019 This story has been updated to correct the hours of operation of the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America’s helpline.

Denver Post health reporter Jessica Seaman sits down to talk about the reporting that went into her three-part series on Alzheimer’s disease: Mourning the Living. The series follows two Greeley parents in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease as they come to terms with their illness and ponder the possibility that their children might be next.