Joan Gershman
Bio
Retired - Speech/language therapist, Special Education Asst, English teacher
Websites: www.thealzheimerspouse.com; talktimewithjoan.com
Whimsical essays, short stories -funny, serious, and thought-provoking
Weightloss Series
Stories (100/0)
Traveling the World Without Leaving My Basement
Last week I completed my 12th tour of different parts of Egypt. I have walked approximately 14 miles through the desert. I have toured Giza, including the Great Pyramid and the Great Sphinx. I have walked to the Bent Pyramid of Dahshur, and the Pyramid of Sakkara. I have walked through Luxor, Egypt, visiting the Karnak Temple, the Colossi of Memnon, the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, and have gone inside the Tomb of King Tut. I have walked the streets of Cairo, visiting the Al Moaz Street Bazaar and Tahrir Square. I have loved every minute of these tours, thanks to my tour guide - the entertaining, informative, highly educated Egyptian Egyptologist, archeologist, and Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker, Ramy Romany. It did not hurt that he allowed his sense of humor to occasionally intersperse his serious explanations. He REALLY hates camels. I am laughing as I write this, recalling how he kept his distance from one of the huge beasts while giving me facts about their legendary spitting, mean tempers, and foul odors.
By Joan Gershman2 years ago in Longevity
Help for Men Caring for Wives with Alzheimer's Disease- 6 Best Personal Hygiene and Intimate ClothingTips
No one expects to be thrust into a caregiving role, especially men. I’m not being sexist here. It’s just a fact of life that most caregiving duties fall to women. However, in the case of Alzheimer’s Disease, so many of you men are bewildered and confused when you suddenly find yourselves caregivers for your Alzheimer afflicted wives – the wives who not only handled most of the cooking, cleaning, appointment scheduling, and household organization but showed up perfectly well-groomed when the two of you stepped out for an evening of entertainment or socializing.
By Joan Gershman2 years ago in Lifehack
Every Girl Needs a Johnny Castle Once in Her Life
Johnny Castle – the brooding, bad-boy dancer, oozing molten sex appeal from every pore of his body, who stole Baby’s heart and opened her up to her own talents, possibilities, and sexual awakening in the cult classic 1987 movie, Dirty Dancing.
By Joan Gershman2 years ago in Humans
My Husband, The Dragon Slayer
This is another of the blogs I wrote for my Alzheimer website during the years I was caring for my husband. This incident occurred early (3 years) into his diagnosis, so he was still capable of some level of normal conversation and completing certain chores around the house. Alzheimer’s Disease is a terror that destroys everyone’s life into which it comes in contact, but we managed to find some humor in the midst of the devastation:
By Joan Gershman2 years ago in Humans
The Life that led me to Bariatric Surgery
Part 1 of My Weightloss Journey My maternal side of the family carries the female fat genes and I inherited every single one of them. My mother had 3 brothers and two sisters. Her mother, aunts, and grandmother were………..fat. Today they would be labeled morbidly obese. Her two sisters tended toward chubbiness but dieted themselves out of it most of their lives. Due to the luck of the gene draw, and the extremely unwise decision to smoke instead of eat, my mother was the only skinny woman in the family, barely tipping the scale at 100 lbs. at the age of 21.
By Joan Gershman2 years ago in Longevity
The Importance of Keeping Your Writing Safe
This story was prompted by another story I read by Cendrine Marrouat (https://vocal.media/authors/cendrine-marrouat ), titled The Danger of Only Blogging on Rented Land (https://vocal.media/journal/the-danger-of-only-blogging-on-rented-land). Her premise is that if you write on platforms such as Facebook, Vocal, Medium, and a host of others, those platforms could remove your content at any time without notice, or worse yet, completely shut down their own sites, taking your life’s work with them. Her advice is while continuing to write for other platforms, keep your work on your own blog. You’re in charge. You control the storage. Cendrine’s advice is sound, but I am taking it a step further with a tale of my own woe.
By Joan Gershman2 years ago in Journal
Caregiving for a Spouse With Alzheimer's Disease
This was written on March 18, 2013, 5 months before I was so emotionally, physically, and mentally drained of any vestige of the capability to care for myself or my loving husband another minute, that I made the heartbreaking decision to place him in a nursing home:
By Joan Gershman2 years ago in Families
Blonde Isn't Always the Answer
I am excited to report to you that I have something in common with Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jane Fonda, and Ali McGraw. No, I possess not a drop of royal blood. Of that I am certain because Ancestry.com confirms it. No, I am not a scream queen actress, an Oscar-winning actress, or a Love Story actress. What I have in common with these noteworthy women is………………I have allowed my hair to grow out to its natural silver color.
By Joan Gershman2 years ago in Blush
Customer Service Revisited
“May I help you?", came the friendly, easily intelligible voice over the phone. “Uh, um, yeah, I guess”, was my hesitant response, so surprised and unaccustomed was I to talking to a live customer service agent. Still unsure that this was not a highly sophisticated “bot”, I carefully explained that I had purchased a 16-bottle spice rack from their company, Kamenstein Spice Company, 6 months ago, that I was running out of my favorite spice, and I would like to order more. The nice lady explained that their company had set up a website, where I would need to go to register, then order whatever I wanted. “BUT”, she said, “Since we’re on the phone, I will do the registration for you and take your order.” “You will?”, I asked, incredulous that I was talking to a live human being who was being helpful, conversational, not reading from a prepared script, and speaking perfect English that I could understand. For the next 15 minutes, we chatted about the spices and cooking, while she registered me, took my order, and explained that replacement spices were FREE, with just a $4.95 shipping charge for the WHOLE order, not each individual bottle.
By Joan Gershman2 years ago in Journal
- Top Story - December 2021
I Earned an "A"Top Story - December 2021
“You are an excellent learner”, said the voice on the phone. “You did a fantastic job.” Was I accepting this lofty praise from an instructor from whom I was taking an in-person craft course? An online professor from whom I was taking a creative writing course? A teacher from whom I was taking a brush-up course on word processing? No. None of these. I was being complimented on my learning skills by……………..a Comcast Agent. As I was extricating myself from a pretzel-like position on the floor underneath my desk with 3 different cords in my hands, how could I not be proud of his gushing compliments?
By Joan Gershman2 years ago in Journal
Snack Like a Supermodel
I was scrolling through Facebook and came across one of those irresistible “clickbait” titles that I simply had to give in and “click”. It promised a list of “healthy fat” foods that models ate to stay skinny. Who wouldn’t be interested in such sage advice, especially a compulsive overeater such as me, who underwent gastric sleeve surgery and a strict behavior modification program to lose 100+ pounds? (Stay tuned for my upcoming series about my weight loss journey.) I should have known better, but I clicked.
By Joan Gershman2 years ago in Feast