Holding Onto A Mother's Spirit

When I first met Charlie, he came across as a happy guy that was my age. I didn't meet him under a happy circumstance though. Earlier that day I was told I would be going to the home of a woman going through Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). CJD is a is a form of brain damage that leads to a rapid decrease of mental function and movement. I had never heard of it, I didn't know how it affected people. I sat with Charlie and our writer as he told us the story of how his mom, Stephanie Brown-Bryant, came to realize she had this disease and how it has changed their lives. In summary, Charlie and his sister Ashleigh started to notice that their mom wasn't sounding the same on the phone and eventually Charlie invited her up to stay with him in Providence RI. He noticed that she was forgetting things and wasn't able to walk so well. Even though Stephanie wasn't a fan of hospitals he eventually convinced her to go to the hospital. After several days of tests and long nights in the hospital, they found out it was CJD. About a month ago, Stephanie and her son arrived back in Naples to be around family and try to figure out what's next. In that month, she has lost mobility and most recently her speech. It's only a matter of time before Stephanie passes on and the family is surrounding her to make her remaining days as pleasant as possible.