Name someone who has not been touched by it. We all have, in one form or another. 

      I have watched as a lady who was once beautiful and engaging turned into a lonely soul who sat in a chair all day and had to have constant nursing care, well before her time. 

      I have seen a man who once was a good hockey player and then a professional football player, who then went into coaching, suddenly find his memory leaving him and ending up in a home where the days were empty, and the future was as empty. 

      There are 18,000 people in Saskatchewan who are suffering from dementia. In the next 30 years, more than 30,000 people will have the disease, which will account for 2.3 per cent of the population, and 65 per cent of the people in Saskatchewan with dementia will be women. 

      It is the cruelest and saddest of diseases because it is capable of affecting the mind before the body follows. Memories are obliterated as the disease works it way through the mind. Personalities can change dramatically, and do. People who were once kind and gentle can turn violent at the blink of an eye. 

      It is the cruelest and saddest of diseases because the effects of it reach out and engulf family and friends in the torture of having to watch this happen, knowing there is no cure, knowing that the worst is yet to come. Some affected by the disease can live for years unable to communicate, just sitting there, staring off into space, not knowing that that is their son or daughter sitting next to them. 

      Much awareness has been made of Alzheimer's Disease. Much research has gone into finding a cure. But, still, no cure, and innocent people who once lived joyous and fruitful lives remained locked in a vacuum of sheer despair and haunting loneliness. 

      January is Alzheimer's Awareness Month, a time when extra attention is paid to the disease and the endless search for a cure. It's a time to raise funds. 

      The 31^st annual Forget Me Not Walk will take Sunday, January 31^st at the Field House in Regina. It will go from 1 until 3 p.m. 

      All you have to do to participate in this worthwhile and badly needed event is show up, put on your running shoes, make a donation, and go for a walk. Every dollar collected from this fund-raiser moves researchers closer and closer to finding a cure for this hideous disease. And how important is that? You have likely seen, or surely heard of what this disease is capable of doing to people. 

      The folks at Exit Realty Fusion, Regina's fastest growing real estate company, care enough about Alzheimer's Disease that they will be spending the weekend fund-raising and raising awareness. At their open houses on Saturday, they will be handing out Forget Me Not flower seeds and taking donations. On Sunday, they'll be represented in the Forget Me Not Walk at the Field House. 

      They hope to see you there and they hope to see a cure found for Alzheimer's Disease.