Peter Gook & Family - Vernon Honourees

2021 IG Wealth Management Walk for Alzheimer's

If you saw Peter Gook and Susan Martin running through the streets of Salmon Arm, you’d never guess Peter is living with Alzheimer’s disease. It’s a fact the self-reliant, ex-military man, who still loves his work life, travels the world with his wife and regularly runs 10k races, struggles to accept.

“I was absolutely shocked,” says Peter, who first accused his doctor of lying to him. “You have this idea of what someone with Alzheimer’s is like and when it happens to you it’s totally different.”

That idea that so many people have of what someone living with dementia is like – that a person is no longer capable of doing all the things they did before they developed the disease – is what motivated Peter and Susan to drive all the way to Vernon to access Alzheimer Society of B.C. resources, rather than connect with the Society’s resources in Salmon Arm. Peter is passionate about his work as a locksmith and didn’t want the stigma surrounding the disease to jeopardize his business by sharing his diagnosis with people in his own community. Peter and Susan are now ready to bring more visibility to dementia, to motivate people who may be struggling with their diagnosis to reach out for support and to know that they’re not alone in their community.

“We have such an opportunity to make people aware and have a positive impact,” Susan says. “People need to know. We need to know what we can do to slow it down or to one day stop it because it’s affecting so many people.”

Exercise, diet and social engagement are the tools Peter and Susan are using to try to slow down the progression of the disease and live as well as possible. As a military police officer, Peter used to run because he had to. Now he runs because he loves to. Long-distance running is a shared passion for Peter and Susan, who regularly travel for races and fondly look back on running with Dylan, their late terrier, who was named in honour of Bob Dylan. Continuing to run, Peter says, is his biggest accomplishment, and something he plans to do until the day he dies. Peter and Susan both love to stay fit, but more than that, they love the community and the characters they encounter on their runs.

“You meet all kinds of nice people and if they find out you have Alzheimer’s, they don’t care,” Peter says. “They’re just happy to see you out there.”

Peter and Susan also attend the Society’s Minds in Motion® program, as well as support groups for caregivers and people in the early stages of the disease. For Peter, attending the groups is important – but not easy when it comes to watching the progression of the disease and the death of other group members. Why some people go so quickly, he says, while others keep fighting through the disease is something he grapples with.

“Sometimes it’s still hard for me to realize that I have Alzheimer’s,” he says. “I would like it to go away, but it’s not going to. I have to live with it.”

“You are,” Susan adds.

Join Peter and his family this May for the Vernon IG Wealth Management Walk for Alzheimer's. Together, we make memories matter.