GREAT FALLS, Va. — When doctors told Carol Blackwell that her husband — her best friend and the love of her life — had Alzheimer’s disease, they assured her “a cure was just around the corner.”

Bob Blackwell was 64, recently retired from the CIA as an analyst on the former Soviet Union and Europe and still functioning normally. “He was brilliant then.”

That was five years ago.

“Here we are, and there’s no cure and no promise of a cure,” Carol says, sitting in her family room, eyes wet with tears.

She is Bob’s primary caregiver, and the last couple of months have been “tough,” she says. There are days when Bob doesn’t know she’s his wife. “I’ve been through a lot of grieving,” she says. “I know it’s too late for a cure for Bob, the disease has moved into too many parts of his brain, but I’m praying for my children and grandchildren. We have to find a cure.”

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