Dementia has to be one of the most terrible diseases a person can face. Don’t get me wrong, things such as cancer and muscular dystrophy and heart disease are horrific in their own ways.
However, dementia strikes at the very core of a sufferer’s sense of self. Most other illnesses primarily affect our bodies.
Alzheimer’s and other similar afflictions, though, harm the body even as they impact the mind. It’s a reality that a family in Henry County, Georgia, is having to tackle head on.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 58-year-old Tim Osborne vanished from his home in Locust Grove on Feb. 6. Osborne suffers from late-stage dementia.
In fact, his disease was so severe that he’d actually ended up in home hospice care. On the day that he left, his wife was taking a bath when he simply slipped from his home.
“He doesn’t know that he lives here, so that’s what scares me,” Kelly stated. “I just wish that he would come home.”
Since his disappearance a couple of weeks ago, authorities have had only a few leads. FOX 5 Atlanta said that authorities found some of Osborne’s clothes in a reservoir near his home.
Police looked into the body of water after making the discovery. They said that they didn’t believe it contained his body.
Neighbor Joshua Kirk partook in the search, surveying the reservoir with a drone. “I don’t know the guy personally,” he explained.
“You know, my fiancée, … we’ve been together for a while, and she grew up with him. I fly I drones … and I figured it could help out.”
According to the Henry Daily Herald, Osborne’s child, Mike, discovered his father’s jacket in the nearby woods.
A resident named Marva Allen called Kelly Osborne on Feb. 15, saying that she thought she might’ve seen her husband close to a VA clinic. She had seen Osborne’s picture on a Facebook post and thought it looked similar to a confused man near the clinic who’d been wearing one shoe.
“I’m not sure this could have been him, but that face just stuck out,” Allen said. “That’s how bad it stuck out to me, because I don’t go out.
“So when I see a face, I remember that face.” For her part, Kelly Osborne has taken to social media, pleading for help with finding her husband.
“I’m lost, I’m devastated, and I just don’t know what to do anymore,” she wrote on Facebook. “My husband still has not been found.”
‘My life feels like it’s over. My husband still has not been discovered. It’s been 10 days since I have seen him.’
The Henry Daily Herald noted that there’s at least one piece of good news regarding Osborne: Weather has remained in the seventies, which greatly enhances Osborne’s chances of survival.
