Kathleen, have you heard songs like Come Back When You Grow Up, Girl? That’s
Bobby Vee. I could go into my Band Stand folder, and find you all sorts of
titles that I’ve managed to obtain, especially courtesy of Linda G, but that
was one of his biggest hits. Take Good Care of My Baby also comes to mind,
which I think Bobby Vee sang. Anyway, he was definitely a real heart throb
when I was growing up in the sixties. Devon.
From: ourplace-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ourplace-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On ;
Behalf Of Kathleen Polkabla
Sent: September-19-16 9:54 PM
To: ourplace@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ourplace] Re: Update On Bobby Vee and Family After Alzheimers
I have a friend whose wife has that disease. And he's really having a rough
time taking care of her and he's up in years as well. OK not being ignorant or
anything but who is Bobby V? I don't think I've ever heard of this person. I
thought that was Bobby Vinton. And I was told they're two different people so I
have no idea who this person is.
Kathleen Polkabla
On Sep 19, 2016, at 8:15 PM, Karen Delzer <catwacky@xxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:catwacky@xxxxxxxxxxx> > wrote:
It's so tragic. There are no words to express how sad it is for all who suffer
and care-give.
Karen
on 02:34 PM 9/19/2016, Linda Gehres said:
Given the huge Bobby Vee fan I am, I cried when reading this article.
Unfortunately, it confirmed what I had suspected. I'm so grateful to learn of
how he and his family are coping with this horrible disease.
Linda G.
Vee's family hangs on to the memories Dave DeLand ,
ddeland@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:ddeland@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
ST. JOSEPH 'His presence surrounds you, engulfs you, swirls around you as that
thousand-watt smile radiates from pictures and posters and gold records that
line the walls at Rockhouse Productions studio in downtown St. Joseph.
Bobby Vee is everywhere at Rockhouse ' always happy, always engaging, always
uplifting. That's the essence of his music, and of the man who made it during a
storied six-decade recording career.
He's right there .
And yet he's not.
It's the same feeling Vee's family and friends get when they travel to the
memory care unit in Rogers for a visit.
'You get that one second of, ' Oh, there he is. He's still in there ,' ' son
Tommy Velline said.
'It's brutal. You have to just take him where he's at,' said son Jeff Velline.
'It's a horrible, horrible thing to witness.
'Watching Dad get diagnosed at 67 just blew us away. That hit us like a hammer.
Robert Thomas Velline, 73, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2011.
It is in many ways the cruelest affliction 'one that robs victims of their
memories and their social and verbal skills, while forcing families to watch
loved ones wither and fade away before their eyes.
'I tell people it's a harsh disease 'I don't know any other way to describe
it,' said St. Cloud physician Rick Rysavy, Bobby's doctor and close friend.
'I think it's much harder for the caretakers than it is for the patient.
Vee's Alzheimer's disease progressed dramatically over the last six years.
His wife Karen died in 2015 after years of battling chronic lung disease.
Their caretakers 'sons Jeff, Tommy and Robby, daughter Jenny and their families
' have been through the wringer, just like all families affected by Alzheimer's.
'It was a tough road,' said Jeff Velline, 51. 'There's no sugarcoating it.
'Our dad is in memory care now, so (the burden) is not what it was a year and a
half ago,' said Tommy Velline, 49. 'But for those that are still (dealing with
home care), it's brutal. It's an every-day thing.
Tommy Velline and Bobby Vee share a hug during a recent visit at The Wellstead
of Rogers & Diamond Crest memory care facility. (Photo: Courtesy of Tommy
Velline)
The Vellines' immersion into the wrenching emotions associated with the disease
prompted them to help organize Rock for Alzheimer's, a musical fundraising event
Sept.'24 at Bad Habit Brewing in St. Joseph.
'What I would like to see this thing become is an event for the families of
Alzheimer's patients,' said Tommy Velline, whose family band (The Killer
Vees)
will be joined by Slip Twister, Collective Unconscious and Walter's Wheelhouse
from 1-8 p.m. Saturday.
'Those people need a party, man.
It's a tangible way for the Vellines to strike back at the disease that ravaged
their dad. The family he's leaving behind is still coping with the fallout.
'You just can't believe this is your life,' Jeff Velline said. 'Well, this is
our life now. This is the deal.
'It's a death sentence,' Tommy Velline said. 'How do you comprehend that? It
takes time.
Start of the journey
Fargo native Bobby Vee was 15 when he burst into the national limelight on 'The
Day the Music Died' ' Feb. 3, 1959, when a plane crash claimed the lives of
Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) and left the
'Winter Dance Party'in Moorhead without a headline performer.
Vee fronted a band hastily assembled to fill in that night, launching a pop
career that included 38 Top 100 hits and seven gold records. But he never forgot
his roots.
'He was such a regular guy that you didn't really realize what a big star he
was,' said Rysavy, who met Vee when he moved his young family to St. Cloud from
Los Angeles in 1980. 'The guy's amazing.
They soon became fast friends. Rysavy has Vee's artwork ' he's also an
accomplished painter ' sprinkled around his St. Cloud home.
Bobby Vee's painting of the Cotswolds in England has a prominent place on the
mantle of his close friend, Dr. Rick Rysavy of St. Cloud. (Photo: Dave DeLand,
ddeland@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:ddeland@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> )
'It's been so hard,' Rysavy said, his voice cracking with emotion while
discussing his friend's disease.
'I'll cry. I usually don't cry very often.
It's the last disease most people would associate with a healthy, vibrant,
artistic and outgoing performer with no family history of Alzheimer's.
'It's the fact that it came out of the blue that gives us a little bit of hope,'
Jeff Velline said, 'that it's not coming right down the gene pool (at us).
"You just don't think it's going to happen to you.
Vee's family and friends were the first to see Alzheimer's coming.
Eventually, he did too.
'Bob is navigating this part of his journey with as much courage and class as we
could hope for,' Rysavy said, again fighting back tears.
Jeff Velline calls it grace. This is one of the things that'll stick with me
forever, and impressed me the most about the level of grace he rode through this
with,' he'said.
'Here he is, dealing with this thing ' degenerative, progressive, horrible '
but he was never the whining guy. He was always the least squeaky wheel on the
planet in the first place, and it kinda stayed that way ... .
'Until it just got to where he couldn't.
Warning signs
Family and friends began seeing signs seven or eight years ago ' subtly at
first, then not nearly so.
'Very occasionally, he started to forget a word here and there ' to songs he had
literally done thousands of times,' Rysavy said.
'We had the amazing ability to say, 'Ah, it's not that . He's tired,' '
said Tommy Velline, who along with Jeff and Robby toured extensively with their
dad. 'Because we had no history of it, you think it can't be that .
Bobby saw it, too. Initially, he didn't let on. The A-word went unspoken.
'We know he noticed it. He didn't say anything,' Jeff Velline said. 'He didn't
know what was happening. It was a really strange progression.
And then things got worse. Much worse.
Bobby Vee's son, Jeff Vee talks Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016, at the family business,
Rockhouse Productions in St. Joseph. His father, famous area rock star and
musician Bobby Vee, is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. (Photo: Kimm
Anderson, kanderson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:kanderson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> )
'Watching him lose his confidence was the hardest thing for me,' Tommy Velline
said. 'For a guy that was such a master at what he did to lose the ability to do
that and not know what was happening, that was really hard.
'We did a show the summer of 2010 in Lexington, Kentucky,' Jeff Velline said.
'Before that show, he was OUT OF IT .
'He got through the show, but it was the creepiest show we ever did. He was just
so lost throughout it.
The Vellines hurried home to Minnesota after that show, and Bobby went directly
to the University of Minnesota Medical Center for evaluation.
'They did all the scans and tests. We prayed for all other outcomes,' Jeff
Velline said. 'He clearly was struggling and frustrated.
'When I got home from that appointment, I smashed a teapot on our glass stove
and trashed it. Then I worked on pulling it together from that point.
The Vellines struggled through an awkward Christmas season, then unveiled the
diagnosis at a family meeting.
'We finally got the family together after the holidays 'it was early January of
2011,' Jeff Velline said. 'And we dropped the bomb.
Posters from past Joetown Rocks! events featuring Bobby Vee adorn a wall at
Rockhouse Productions in St. Joseph. The poster at right from July 3, 2011, is
the last time Bobby Vee was featured at the event. He was already suffering from
Alzheimer's disease. (Photo: Kimm Anderson,
kanderson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:kanderson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> )
A new reality
Ironically, Bobby Vee's initial response to his Alzheimer's diagnosis was
relief.
'When he got diagnosed, one of his first reactions to it was, 'Thank God '
now I know what's going on,' ' Jeff Velline said. 'That was an odd sort of
reaction.
Who would say, 'Thank God'?
'Everybody knows now. We can start dealing with this reality, instead of me by
myself just trying to flounder my way through this.
Still, the diagnosis changed everything. It's hard to know what to do.
Acceptance does not come easily.
'When he was first diagnosed, you do all the research and you're up all night
reading the internet and trying to find the magic bullet ' which doesn't exist,'
Tommy Velline said.
'It's unrelenting,' Rysavy said of the disease. 'The key is going to be to
figure out how to decrease this plaque formation that doesn't allow (nerve
cells)
to function properly.
Bobby and Karen Velline moved to their newly built retirement home in Tucson to
convalesce ' Bobby with Alzheimer's, Karen with the life-threatening lung
condition that dominated her final years.
'They were together 51 years,' Jeff Velline said. 'I saw some of the most tender
moments between them that I ever saw in that last handful of years.
And then, somehow it got worse.
No words
Bobby Vee ' singer, entertainer, husband, father, friend ' quickly lost his
ability to speak.
'Early on in his disease, he got this type of aphasia that affected his ability
to talk,' Jeff Velline said. 'He knew what he wanted to say, but he couldn't
spit it out.
'He just stopped talking. I would be kicking a wall, probably ' I'd just be so
frustrated. You can't just say something simple.
Karen Velline fought a daily battle to stay alive, and did so by the narrowest
of margins.
'Bob's declining. Karen is end-stage lung disease with multi-system failure,'
Rysavy said. 'She had a lung transplant, (and) two-plus years later she's on her
death bed.
The stress on their caretakers? Unimaginable. Unceasing. Unrelenting.
Bobby Vee's sons, Jeff Velline and Tommy Velline, hold gold records and posters
Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016, amid the plethora of memorabilia at the family business,
Rockhouse Productions in St. Joseph. Their dad, famous recording artist Bobby
Vee, is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. (Photo: Kimm Anderson,
kanderson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:kanderson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> )
'Believe me, I've howled at the moon many times ' especially in that first
year,' Jeff Velline said.
'That's what kills me more than anything, kind of questioning the Maker.
'Sorry, this is bad enough. Do you really have to put him through that? '
'I don't think either of us are cut from that 'poor me' cloth,' Tommy Velline
said. 'But you get to those points late in the day, where you're just sitting
there. It got to be a full-time job taking care of them.
'At the end of the day, when they're finally both in bed and you get that 10
minutes before you pass out, you just go, 'Gawd.'
Karen Velline spent her final days in palliative care at the U of M hospital
before her kidneys finally gave out. She died Aug. 3, 2015, sending her husband
into an even deeper spiral.
'It caused a major decline that he never rebounded from,' Jeff Velline said.
'Within two months of her passing, we were in this assisted (living) place.
'But there was nothing else we could do.
Fighting back
On Sept. 15, 2015, Bobby Vee moved to The Wellstead of Rogers & Diamondcrest, a
senior living community that specializes in Alzheimer's and dementia care.
'The kids have done a nice job of decorating his room,' Rysavy said.
'They've got one of his gold records. They've got his guitar, and pictures of
his car.
They've also got a little more spare time, prompting their involvement in the
Sept. 24 benefit.
'Now I'm feeling we need to do more of that,' Jeff Velline said, 'because this
horrible disease just kicked our ass all over the universe and back again.
The Vellines finally have an opportunity to promote Alzheimer's awareness and
generate funds for research. It's about all they can do at this point.
'You kind of come around to the cliche that you don't really know what you're
made of until you're put to the test,' Jeff Velline said. 'You find it deeper '
you're made of more than you realize.
Their dad remains the inspiration for those efforts, and for that resolve.
Their dad remains. It's always tough to leave after a visit to Rogers.
He's still there
There's still a presence in Bobby Vee, still a light on in there.
'Even now, he still recognizes faces,' Rysavy said. 'He just lights up when
people he knows come in. He's just the classiest guy. Still.
'You still get a laugh out of him,' Jeff Velline said. 'You still get a big hug.
And you just take it while you can get it.
Aphasia has robbed Bobby of virtually all his linguistic ability. But he has
three words left.
'The one thing he can still say,' Rysavy recounted, once again choking back
tears, 'is, 'I love you.'
'He literally struggles to put two words together,' Tommy Velline said, 'but he
can get those three out every time ' which is amazing.
'He couldn't say anything else all day. But when it came time to leave, he gave
everybody a big hug and said, 'I love you.'
That's what his family is hanging on to ' those little gems, those decades of
glittering memories, not the harsh realities of the present.
'With a disease like Alzheimer's, you can't let your memories be about that,'
Jeff Velline said. 'Your memories tend to be your most recent memory.
You
can't live there.
Instead, the Vellines are living for the memories that line the walls at
Rockhouse. It's all they have now.
'The biggest heartbreak is looking at those pictures and thinking of what the
grandkids aren't able to have, and arguably should have had for another
10 years at least,' Jeff Velline said as he looked at the smiling face on those
pictures and posters.
Bobby Vee is still there. And yet he's not.
'I guess when you're dealing with this reality,' Jeff Velline said, 'nothing
else matters much except people and relationships.
'And time. It's a heartbreaker.
Contact Times columnist Dave DeLand at 255-8771 or by email at
ddeland@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:ddeland@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> . Follow him on
Twitter @davedeland and on Facebook at
Dave DeLand SC Times.
Two Alzheimer's experts and three people whose families have been dramatically
affected by the disease constitute the panel for "Ask the Experts about
Alzheimer's," a live discussion starting at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21, at
www.sctimes.com <http://www.sctimes.com/> .
Experts Debbie Richman and'Katrice Sisson will be joined by Jeff Velline, Tommy
Velline and Eric Linn of Avon, who will share insights of their families'
Alzheimer's struggles. Richman is'vice president of education and outreach for
the Minnesota-North Dakota chapter of the Alzheimer's Association, and Sisson is
the local community engagement manager for the organization.
Readers can submit questions by email to discussion moderator Dave DeLand
at'ddeland@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:at'ddeland@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> , or by
going'to www.sctimes.com/chat <http://www.sctimes.com/chat> and clicking on
"Ask the Experts about Alzheimer's.
Four prominent area bands will be featured at "Rock for Alzheimer's,"
starting at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept.24, at Bad Habit Brewing in St. Joseph.
Slip Twister, Collective Unconscious, Walter's Wheelhouse and The Killer Vees
will perform from 1-8 p.m. at the event, which was devised to raise awareness
and funds for Alzheimer's care, support and research.
Donations will be accepted at the door, and proceeds from food and beverage
sales are being donated as well. Non-alcoholic beverages will be available, and
all ages are welcome.
For more information, contact Aaron Rieland at Bad Habit, 320-402-4442 or
aaronrieland@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:aaronrieland@xxxxxxxxx> .
Also on Sept. 24: The Walk to End Alzheimer's fundraiser begins at 9 a.m. at
Lake George.
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