Alzheimer’s Hit Her and Her Mother; Now This Havertown Woman’s an Activist

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Nicole MacLean (left) and Sally Horrocks (right),
Image via the family.
Nicole MacLean (left) has participated in the annual Philadelphia Alzheimer's Walk in honor of her mother, Sally Horrocks (right).

Nicole MacLean said her mother, Sally Horrocks, would sometimes forget who her daughter was and would get angry, writes Rita Giordano for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

But there were good days, too, like when Nicole and Sally did the Philadelphia Walk to End Alzheimer’s together.

“I had her in a wheelchair and I pushed her through the walk, and she thought this gathering was all for her. I let her believe it because it made her happy,” recalled MacLean, 63, of Havertown. “People would come up to her, touch her, talk to her, and hold her hand. She just felt so incredibly special.”

Alzheimer’s took Sally Horrock’s life in July 2019, at age 81.

MacLean continued the walk in her mother’s honor, walking alone for the first time this year.

Then she started having memory lapses, one time driving to a town and not knowing where she was or even that she had driven there.

In August, MacLean herself was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s.

She’s devoting herself to lobbying for more Alzheimer’s research funding and support.

As her disease advances, she wants people to remember, “I’m still me. Still talk to me. Still hug me. Still hold my hand.”

Read more at The Philadelphia Inquirer about Nicole MacLean and her mother.

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