When a 21-year-old Kim Woollen walked arm-in-arm with female friends, they made wishes on their dream guy.
When Woollen’s turn came, she said she wanted to meet a Southern gentleman who’s Christian – and a millionaire.
A week later, she met country star Glen Campbell.
“I wish I had added that he was not addicted to alcohol and drugs and not get Alzheimer’s,” said Kim Campbell, who was married to Glen for 34 years.
While Campbell rid himself of drink and drugs as well as cigarettes, he couldn’t shake Alzheimer’s.
Really, no one does.
Mixing humor with the harsh reality of dementia, Kim Campbell spoke to about 350 people on Wednesday afternoon at New Hope Presbyterian Church in Fort Myers. Arden Courts Memory Care Community and Hope Healthcare served as sponsors of the event.
Kim Campbell saw how forgetfulness and an eccentric personality turn into mild cognitive impairment, then Alzheimer’s in 2011. He died Aug. 8.
“Amazing, very open, very honest,” said Lynn Moll of Fort Myers. Moll tended her mother who had Alzheimer’s until she died three years ago. “We all feel that as caregivers.
“One of the frustrating things is that there’s no cookie cutter, that this happens in three months, this happens in six months. Different cells are damaged.”
Among the people Campbell met was Dan Summers, whose Lady Friend Alzheimer’s Support Fund focuses on caregivers.
With approximately one-fourth of this area’s population senior citizens, Dr. Fred Schaerf of the Neuropsychiatric Research Center of Southwest Florida calls the region ground zero for Alzheimer’s.
Arden Courts executive director Dotty St. Amand said the number of people locally who have Alzheimer's has doubled to 22,000 in her 21 years of service. She added it'll double again in 20 years if advances aren't made.
Campbell, who noted 40 percent of caregivers die before their Alzheimer’s-afflicted spouses, spoke with Summers and took a picture next to him and the 1968 Jaguar XKE he painted purple, the hue reflective of the disease, and asked how she could reach him.
“She’s a wonderful lady,” Summers said.
Still beloved in the music community, Glen Campbell is up for a Grammy for the autobiographical track “Arkansas Farmboy” from his album “Adios.” He also excelled as a writer — he worked with the Beach Boys — and actor while he also hosted a TV show.
He sold more than 45 million albums and 26 Top 10 hits. A documentary on his final tours was an award-winner.
Kim Campbell said living with the country music legend had moments of great tenderness and joy along with friction, fear and anguish.
“It’s lonely,” she said off stage. “The first thing I noticed how depressing it could be. But it also was mixed with sweet things.”
That included a moment when they were on Glen Campbell’s final tour, which lasted 425 days and included 151 shows.
While stopped at the gift shop, Glen Campbell saw the next day would be Mother’s Day. He told a band member, “I want to buy Kim something, look around. Pink, pink, Kim loves pink.”
When Kim Campbell walked in, she saw her husband at a cash register with a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.
“You have to embrace those things.”
Other moments: Campbell following his wife around the house, the pool and into the bathroom and showers. “He was like Peppy Le Pew,” she said. “Amorous, which was kind of fun.”
After receiving a Lifetime Grammy Award and speaking with the media, she asked him if he’d like to thank a few people. “Yeah,” he said, “Who are they?”
“I did every interview with him once he was diagnosed to support him,” Kim Campbell said. “I tried to think of something to spark his memory. It still was there. We just needed to access.”
However, Kim Campbell also dealt with the suspicion, paranoia and panic attacks her husband had as well as physical combativeness, an aversion to bathing and bathroom accidents. She also admitted she suffered a black eye once.
But the day she took him to an assisted-living facility, she cried, felt she was a failure and thought her husband would hate her.
He didn’t.
“You looked at what you can do, not focusing on what you can’t do,” Samira Beckwith, president and CEO of Hope Healthcare, told Campbell. “It’s quality of life, full of laughter as well as sadness.
Kim Campbell responded, “I would wake up every day and start counting my blessings.”
