When she was first diagnosed, Kathy didn’t want to know about what would eventually happen to her personality, brain, or body. She did not want to read about frontotemporal dementia, and she never did. She didn’t realize she was losing precious parts of her character, and there was a comforting relief in that for her daughters. It became the family’s burden instead.

As she got sicker, mornings became a regular routine of washing Kathy’s hair, helping her get dressed, and seating her in front of the television to watch her favorite show, Dr. Oz, while eating a bowl of oatmeal.

For the first three years, Nicole occasionally caught glimpses of her mother’s familiar humorous nature. The disease had not yet destroyed her mom’s ability to laugh, though sometimes it felt like her laughter was on cue, or in reaction to other people’s laughing.

On a road trip two years after the diagnosis, Kathy told John that she was looking out for dead animals on the side of the road.

“Oh, hon, I didn’t realize you were so hungry,” John joked.

Everyone was surprised that Kathy laughed.

Another time, Nicole tried to get her mom to put on her pants by singing the hokey pokey. Her mom cracked a smile.

“I see her wake up, it’s almost like I can see the neuro-whatever-you-call-thems firing in her brain,” Nicole wrote in an essay. “She’s back and she’s with me. And, for a moment, I am with my old mom, the one with a sharp wit, who can clearly see that, frankly, I look ridiculous.”

Occasionally, Kathy still made jokes. Once, she wore a fake leopard skin coat and announced, “No animals were harmed in the making of this coat.” She went out to dinner and with her daughters, who ordered mussels. Kathy said, “I don’t like mussels unless they’re on dad.”

Kathy’s deterioration took longer for John to accept. At first, he continued going on vacations with her, as if life was normal. They went to Niagara Falls, and John made an appointment for Kathy at the spa, while he went golfing. Kathy went for a walk instead, stopping at an ice cream cart, where she started to eat without paying the vendor, who got so upset he called the police.

When officers arrived, Kathy told them, “Well, I don’t have $4. Are you going to arrest me for eating ice cream?”

The next day John tracked down the ice cream man to give him the $4. That was when he learned he could no longer leave her alone.

Another day, Nicole and her dad opened the door on Kathy and saw that in an attempt to wash her face, she had actually covered her arms and face with shaving cream. Nicole and John burst out laughing. They looked at each other for approval like, “Can we laugh about this or not?”

Humor has helped guide Nicole and her family through the challenges of dealing with her mother’s personality changes. In the beginning, John told Kathy, “We’ve laughed every day up to this point, so why don’t we just laugh our way through the rest of the way?”