Andrea Is Running the Toughest Race of Her Life – A Race with Her Father’s Alzheimer’s Disease
It looked like an ordinary visit to her parents. Andrea Polcrová drives to her parents’ house every week. She doesn’t live in the same city as they do, and the drive takes about 30 minutes each way. Today was supposed to be another conversation about their everyday lives—but it wasn’t.
Andrea began to notice that her father was starting to lose his sense of time and space. Small inconsistencies became visible, and her mother noticed them as well.
“For example, my dad would tell me how he went to sort the trash—that’s his daily routine. But after a while he would tell me the same story again and again. Situations like that started happening more often. I realized this was no longer just normal aging,” says Andrea Polcrová.
Andrea’s father was eventually diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. At first, Andrea’s mother managed to care for him with occasional help from Andrea. But when her mother also began experiencing serious health problems, she asked Andrea to arrange a nursing home for them. And that’s when the second blow came.
No facility would accept them together—because one spouse has Alzheimer’s and the other does not. They have lived together for more than sixty years, and now, when they could support each other the most during the hardest stage of life, they are expected to live apart.
Today Andrea visits her parents several times a week, even though she works full time and has children and grandchildren. There is simply no other way. She continues to see how her father is declining:
“When the weather is worse and there’s no sunshine, I can see that my dad is doing even worse,” Andrea shares.
Andrea now accompanies her mother to medical examinations and helps both of her parents at the same time. She is beginning to feel the impact on her own life.
“I don’t sleep well. I’m not pretending—this is really a lot for me.”
Andrea is a passionate athlete. As a hobby runner, she runs marathons, cycles regularly, and in winter she loves skiing and ski mountaineering. You can meet her almost every weekend on the peaks of Czech mountains.
Andrea’s grandmother also had Alzheimer’s disease. Andrea is aware that there is about a fifty-percent chance the disease could appear again in another generation of a family where Alzheimer’s has already been diagnosed. As a preventive measure, Andrea chose molecular hydrogen from H2 Vibe.
“I’ve always been interested in science and chemistry. I even studied it in high school, and when I heard about hydrogen, I wanted to try its effects. As a prevention for a disease that is present in our family. I’m only at the beginning. I try to focus on recovery several times a week, also because I’m active in sports. I also watch videos from sources like Vmstretching.com, Pilateszive.cz, Fyziomluva.cz, Athleticlongevity.life, or physiotherapy fitness trainer Dominik Masný. But recently I feel that common measures are no longer enough. New help and support for my body are needed. I’m looking forward to hydrogen. I plan to inhale it, drink hydrogen water, and start using hydrogen supplements. I want to incorporate everything not only into my daily life but also into my racing life. Hydrogen should support me in training, in races, and especially after races—that’s when I feel the greatest fatigue,” Andrea concluded.
You can follow how hydrogen is helping Andrea here on the blog.