Good evening, @rafaeln27 I have traveled a bit in Brazil, but not much to Sao Paulo beyond the city of Sao Paulo. My favorite (so far) has been Minas Gerais and some of the small villages of the Jequitinhonha Valley there. Even more than my visits to the Amazonas, Macapa, Fortaleza, Rio, and Foz do Iguacu. I was just in Belo recently for a wedding of a longtime friend and my wife's grandfather mined in Diamantina many decades ago. I'm also a lifelong afinianado of your national drink, cachaca! My kingdom for a bottle of Valle Verde! In some ways it is a small world!

While I have addressed many of the challenges my wife faced in various posts here, she preferred to maintain her battle as a private matter and to honor her I continue that, primarily speaking of my challenges as a caregiver or with individuals privately. If you want to know more please feel free to message me here on Connect. She was 49 when she was diagnosed with brain cancer and fought her war for over 14 years, the last 1 1/2 in home hospice care. I was always her primary caregiver. She, too, required caregiving help for all her daily needs. Her's was a complicated case as it was influenced by her being left-handed, having struggled through a coma, paralysis, and never regaining her pre-cancer mental capacities (as well as her physical ones). I have tried to write about my wife's war, but it is still too raw and intense for me to revisit those years in detail. Perhaps one day...

My mother-in-law was a different situation. She suffered from frontal temporal dementia. The family was in denial for much of her early stages and lost some very precious opportunities to interact on many important issues with her. Very quickly, within two years or so she became bed bound and lost all her abilities to communicate, take care of herself, etc. She was totally dependent on caregivers as well for the next 10 years and then passed after contracting pneumonia. She had been the owner of her own small business for many years, was very active, and fluent in two languages besides English. So far there has been no indication of this disease effecting any of her four daughters or one son. Thankfully!

Please keep in touch and ask me any questions you might have!

Obrigado,
Strength, courage, and peace!