Retired Brook Highland doctor pens book about husband’s Alzheimer’s journey

It was during her husband’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease that Dr. Renee Brown Harmon journaled as a creative outlet for her feelings and a place to pour out her emotions.

The couple were partners in life and partners in a thriving private practice — Double Oak Family Medicine — that they opened in Greystone in 1992.

In 2010, Harvey Harmon received a shattering dementia diagnosis at age 50.

“Looking back there were signs,” she said. “He told me two years prior that his memory wasn’t as good as it should be. I was thinking it was just middle age, and we all say that as we get older.”

It was this form of the disease that disrupted and permanently changed the lives of the couple. While on a family vacation in 2009, when their children were 14 and 17, Harvey was unable to follow simple instructions given to them by their guide.

His diagnosis would come nine months later, leaving Renee to manage both their family and their business. She survived by relying on friends, family and her faith. She continued working as a solo practitioner from 2010 until her retirement in December 2019. (She sold the practice to St. Vincent’s in 2016, and stayed on for three more years).

“When Harvey was forced to retire, I become a solo practitioner full time; that was a big adjustment for me personally,” she said. “I came to realize that practice and my patients were lifegiving to me, and it was really good to be in the world helping and doing good things instead of living in my despair.”

Harvey lived with the disease for eight years, which Harmon described as “pretty aggressive.” She said he was healthy and had done everything right. The first four years he was able to be at home alone, followed by two with the help of a caregiver and his last two in a memory care unit until he died in 2018.

Harmon had spoken a year earlier at a conference, and while she was organizing that talk, she said the structure of the book showed itself. She used that, along with her journals to write her new book: “Surfing the Waves of Alzheimer’s: Principles of Caregiving That Kept Me Upright.” It is both a memoir and guidebook in which she outlines tough decisions she faced as her husband’s medical partner, best friend and caregiver.

In the book, Harmon draws on her experience caring for her husband and nearly 30 years as a family practice doctor, and each chapter is based on a caregiving principle and offers guidance to help family members cope at each stage of this difficult journey. She offers a clear-eyed account of the disease and its progression while sharing best practices to help family caregivers maintain their emotional balance.

“This book could be any caregiver for someone who is ill, it offers support and help caregivers,” she said.

Harmon said she may do more writing, but would also like to do more speaking engagements.

The book is now available as a paperback and e-book and available through Amazon, e-book distributors and at bookstores.