Families When Love Is Exhausted

The abandonment of an elderly Alzheimer's patient highlights the pressures on those who care the most

It was just another Saturday night at the Coeur d'Alene Greyhound Park in Post Falls, Idaho. The dogs had returned to their kennels. The boisterous stands had nearly emptied. Custodian Lou Tonani was making his usual rounds when he happened upon an old man in a wheelchair, a bag of diapers dangling by his side. He wore a brand-new sweatsuit, blue bedroom slippers and a baseball cap emblazoned with the words PROUD TO BE AMERICAN. Twin typewritten notes, carefully taped to opposite sides of the wheelchair, identified him as "John King," a retired farmer suffering from Alzheimer's disease and requiring round-the-clock...

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