Cher Steiner

Written by her husband Arthur Schuna.

Cher Steiner lost her battle with dementia on August 28, 2020. She was born September 18, 1951 to Charles Steiner and Beulah Lorraine Hess Steiner.  She lost her mother to a brain tumor at age 8 (2/18/1960). Cher graduated from Poynette High School in 1969 and learned to be a dental assistant through MATC’s dental technician program.  She worked following graduation as a dental assistant but then took a job as a pharmacy technician at UW Hospital in Madison.   I met Cher when I was a pharmacy resident at UW Hospital in Madison.  One of the responsibilities of a resident was to do shifts preparing intravenous medication.   Cher filled unit dose carts in an adjacent room.  Often the workload in the IV prep area didn’t allow time for meal breaks.  Cher would pop her head in the room I was working and ask me if she could bring me anything from the cafeteria when she went on break.  She’d often bring me mint chocolate brownies even though I didn’t request them because she knew I liked them.  Soon we began dating and by the end of my residency in 1975 we moved into a house we rented and became a couple.  Cher was a fantastic cook and we would prepare meals together.  We also did a lot of bicycling together in those early days.

We bought a house near the UW Arboretum in 1982 and married the following summer. Cher continued to work as a dental assistant with the Max Pohle Dental Clinic’s Dental Residency training program at Methodist and Meriter hospitals.  The clinic served indigent patients and those with disabilities which made dental care challenging.

We had a lot of fun together.  Once, her and I went shopping for a vacuum cleaner.  We made the mistake of stopping at a pet store during this search and ended up buying a peached-face lovebird and not a vacuum cleaner.  We needed the vacuum even more after purchasing the bird due to falling seed and we eventually bought one.  A few years later, after feeling comfortable with handling birds, Cher had her eye on a Goffin’s cockatoo at the pet store.  I bought it for her as a Christmas present.  I put the bird in a closet and closed the bedroom door to keep our Doberman out of the room.  When Cher came home from work she opened the bedroom door to get something and the Doberman followed.  He ratted on me as he went right to that closet and started nosing the door.  Cher said, “I don’t know what’s in here but we need to do something or this dog will tear the door down”.  She got her present early.  He continues to be part of her family and is at least 40 years old.

We never had children but we usually had 2 dogs at all times and they were are family.  The menagerie included Bogie (Doberman), Asta (Giant Schnauzer), Sasha and Sophia (Bouvier des Flandres); Mordecai Manfred, Milo and Phoebe (Bullmastiffs).  Milo and Phoebe were there during the time of Cher’s illness. Milo died of brain cancer in January but we still have Phoebe who is 10 years old.

Cher always had an interest in the Arts and she bought a loom and began weaving.  Before long, she enrolled in the University of Wisconsin in their Textile Design degree program.  She did 3 years of their 4-year BS degree program while working full time as a dental assistant.  The UW didn’t offer a Master of Fine Arts in Textile Design and she knew it would be impossible for me to change jobs at that point as I was in the process of developing a Pharmacy Residency in Ambulatory Care practice at the VA Hospital.  She dropped out of school but continued with her weaving.

After about 20 years in dental assisting, Cher was looking for a career change.  I bought her a necklace and one day she was looking at the box and found a business card for the art gallery where I had purchased it.  On a whim, she gave them a call and asked if they might have a job opening.  As it turns out, they did, and she began working at Gary’s Art and Frame in Middleton.  She became a framing consultant and was able to use her knowledge from her university courses such as color theory in assisting people find the best combination of mat, frame and painting for their art piece.  She also had first look at every piece of art coming into the store and with her employee discount, we accumulated many fine pieces of art for our home.

Travel was always fun for us.  One of our favorite places was the Bayfield-Madeline Island area.  We would rent a cabin and bring our dogs.  By then we always had 2 big dogs so getting everyone and everything else we needed for a vacation was sometimes a challenge.  We eventually bought a Subaru Outback which we sometimes called the dogmobile.

Another favorite vacation spot that we returned to 4 times was Vancouver Island in British Columbia.  We liked to stay in a remote former fishing village on the west coast of the island called Ucluelet.  To get there required almost a full day as you had to drive a winding road over a mountain pass to get there.  We always stayed at a bed and breakfast called Snug Harbor which was on a cliff overlooking the Harbor.  The Pacific Rim National Park is a rain forest just north of Ucluelet and offered lots of hiking trails.

Cher began to have concerns about her memory around 2012.  Screening tests for Alzheimer’s disease were normal at that time.  She was reassured that there was no evidence at that time of a serious brain disease.  We continued to enjoy life but Cher’s memory problems slowly became worse.  I had worked for the VA for 41 years and I suspected something serious may be coming so I retired in 2016.  At the time, between my work schedule and hers, we only had one day a week when we both were off from work.  To spend more time together, I decided it was time to retire though Cher continued to work part-time.  Two months after I retired she was retested and found to have enough cognitive impairment to give her a diagnosis of dementia/Alzheimer’s.  Brain scans would show significant loss of function and she was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.  They gave her trials of the usual oral medications for these diseases.  I can’t say I detected any improvement.

A year later she was re-evaluated by the Memory Care clinic and the doctor assigned homework prior to the next visit. He suggested taking Cher on a vacation.  We took one last trip to Ucluelet on Vancouver Island.  She did well during the day when she was actively hiking, visiting museums and other touristy things but nights were rough.  She was worried we wouldn’t get back home and I would recite the plans for the rest of the trip and told her we had airplane tickets to get back to Madison after we saw everything.

I felt it was important to remain active so we signed up for exercise classes twice a week called Functional Fitness for people over 50.  We certainly qualified. I also tried to plan one day trip a week to a surrounding town where we explored small shops and ate at a local diner.  We also were frequent visitors at Madison thrift shops where Cher usually found some treasure.  I took her to theater events and concerts.  We took a few days and drove to Chicago for one last vacation and I had tickets for “Hamilton”.  She was still talking about that the following week so I know it had a big impression on her as she tended to forget most concerts or plays not long after being there.  We walked our dogs 3 times a day for the exercise and stimulation.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s are horrible diseases.  They rob people of their humanity.  You watch your loved one slowly lose abilities.  Cooking has been a hobby of ours.  As Cher lost the ability to follow a recipe, she could no longer cook anything on her own so I made her my sous chef.  She did a lot of chopping and prep work.  I’d give her a vegetable and tell her what to do with it.  Usually I’d chop a few pieces to let her know what we needed.  Eventually even that became a challenge but she was still in the kitchen with me and did clean up.  Her speech continued to deteriorate but it didn’t keep her from talking.  The only thing is, I couldn’t understand what she was saying.  The last phrase she could say that was still intelligible until almost the end was “I Love You”.  She was constantly rearranging things in the house and hid things from me.

I found touch to be an important communication tool.  She would pace the floors of our home constantly during the day.  Whenever we met in a hallway or in a room I’d give her a big hug and she’d give one back.  I think it gives reassurance in what must be a very confusing time that you as caregiver are still there for them.

Early in the course of this illness, Cher would frequently confess concerns about what would become of her.  I made a pledge that I would provide her the best care possible and would keep her at home if I could.  We had this discussion frequently at that time.  I was successful in keeping that promise up until the last 2 weeks when she was in the hospital for pneumonia and then the hospice.

She progressed to the point where her brain could no longer control the muscles necessary to effectively swallow.  She would cough frequently whenever she tried to eat or drink.  Eventually that led to aspiration of food and pneumonia.  She lost lots of weight as she couldn’t tolerate eating.   They successfully treated her pneumonia with antibiotics the week before her passing.  I took her home and she seemed okay over the weekend and then got severely ill the following Monday night.  I took her back to the ER where they admitted her.   The hospital staff discussed options and I decided to go with whatever we needed to keep her comfortable but no aggressive medical treatments that would only prolong her agony.  We had talked about this several times when she could still express her wishes and she always felt that if she reached a point where quality of life was poor and there was no chance of recovery she didn’t want aggressive treatment.  On October 10, 2019 she said to me “I don’t want to be me anymore”.  That was such a profound statement that I wrote it down and dated the quote on a phone memo that I’ve kept since then to remind me in decision making.

We’ve had a very rich and rewarding life together.  I’ll miss her dearly but I also am grateful that she won’t have to suffer anymore.