I don’t watch The Dr. Oz Show. I know who he is and could pick him out of a line up, but I know very little about him beyond the fact that he is an Oprah protégé celebrity. I do know that he’s come under scrutiny for some of his medical advice and that that has soured many people on him.
However, Dr. Mehmet Oz is a human and I just learned that his father died in February. And on his show yesterday, he revealed that his mother, Suna Oz, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Oz confessed that in addition to all the other emotions he has about his mom’s diagnosis, he feels terrifically guilty because he, “completely missed the signs.”
The host of The Dr. Oz Show, 59, says that he is “frustrated and mad” at himself for not recognizing that his 81-year-old mother’s health was failing.
“I’m feeling guilty because I completely missed the signs until fairly late in the process,” Oz tells PEOPLE.
Oz, whose father died in February, says that he and his two sisters noticed different irregularities in their mom’s actions — Oz saw that she was struggling to find her words, while his sister thought she was dressing oddly. But the siblings did not put the signs together.
“If the right word was, ‘You look beautiful today,’ she would use, ‘You look pretty prettier today.’ I missed those clues,” he says. “Alzheimer’s is like a snake in the grass. You don’t see it. You only see the effects of it suddenly. And if there’s a wind blowing the grass, you don’t even notice the grass moving strangely. It sneaks up on you.”
Oz says they started to realize that something was wrong because Suna, who was already stubborn, started becoming irrational.
“The stubbornness transitioned from just her being an opinionated person to, ‘Hey, that’s dangerous medically. I can’t let you do that,’” he says.
The family took Suna for testing, and doctors confirmed the Alzheimer’s diagnosis. She is now living in Turkey, her home country, under the care of Oz’s sister. He says it has been difficult to see Suna struggle with her memories.
Oz says the mom that has been there for him throughout his life is disappearing.
“These are not normal things from my mom. And that’s the most painful part of this whole process because I end up losing my mom twice,” he says. “The woman that I love whose bright eyes were there for every experience I’ve ever had as a child — those eyes are starting to dim. The light that that made her who she was is starting to go out.”
Oz’s guest for his discussion was Maria Shriver, whose father suffered from Alzheimer’s, and who is a huge advocate on Alzheimer’s awareness, especially in women. In the clips I saw, Maria seemed to assume the interviewer role, which allowed Oz to speak as a son rather than a host. Maria knew exactly what and how to ask the questions that made it informative but still personal and moving. Oz suggested that he had all the signs it was Alzheimer’s but that “wishful thinking” kept him from going there. I can’t fault him for this, it’s extremely hard to see the forest from the trees when it’s someone you love. Unfortunately, the most he or anyone could do, even had they known prior, is delay it. He also revealed that he has since learned he that he carries one of the genes for Alzheimer’s.
Marcia Gay Harden said something similar about watching her mother disappear after her mom’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. It sounds so sad. My heart goes out to the whole Oz family.
Photo credit: WENN Photos and Getty Images
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