Local Authors’ Book Signing to Benefit Friends of Strong’s Patient Care Initiatives

Vicky Ruppert and Ann Henderberg haven’t been best friends for a lifetime, but you certainly wouldn’t know it. Their book, “Singing in the Rain: Weathering the Storm of Dementia with Humor, Love, and Patience,” chronicles the last three years of their husbands’ battles with dementia, as they act as each other’s support system through countless e-mails and journal entries.

Ruppert, a retired microbiologist at the University’s Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, and Henderberg met in the 2007 while attending a support group for Alzheimer’s caregivers and made an immediate connection.

“It’s like we were soul sisters,” said Ruppert. “Ann is 14-years older than I, but we could finish each other’s sentences.”

The book recounts their roles as caregivers to their late husbands, both of whom suffered from dementia and passed away within a month of one another in 2012. Released in October of 2013, the book consists of Ruppert and Henderberg’s e-mails, journals, and day-to-day account of how the two were able to weather the storm of dementia.

“We joked about writing a book when we were taking care of our husbands in 2008, after we became really close friends,” Ruppert said. “We thought that some of this content would be really fun and maybe we could write a book, so we saved all our e-mails and that became the format of the book. We didn’t decide to do it until after our husbands passed in 2012.”

“We wrote this for other caregivers, so they know that the highs and lows of emotions that are experienced when caring for someone with dementia are perfectly normal, and it’s not something they have to go through alone. And there weren’t any other books written like that,” Ruppert said.

For Ruppert and Henderberg, whose husbands were both treated at the URMC, being able to give back is extremely gratifying. “We’re lucky to have URMC with all the great doctors and dementia studies that are happening,” Ruppert said. “People who live elsewhere don’t have what we do, and it makes us feel very good to be able to spread awareness for other caregivers and share our experiences at a place where it can make a difference.”

Aug. 1 Book Signing

Meet the authors during a book signing event at the Strong Memorial Hospital Gift Shop from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Friday, August 1. The book will be on sale for $15, and half of the proceeds from books sold during the event will go to benefit Friends of Strong’s patient care initiatives.

For more information on the book signing, please contact Friends of Strong at (585) 275-2420.

To learn more about “Singing in the Rain: Weathering the Storm of Dementia with Humor, Love, and Patience” visit the authors’ website, Surviving Dementia Caregiving.

Matt Ulakovic | 7/28/2014

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