Emma Heming Willis.Photo:Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock
Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock
Bruce Willis’s wifeEmma Heming Willis is celebrating some of the people who have helped make her family’s FTD journey a little easier since his diagnosis.
Heming Willis, who shared the news of her husband’sfrontotemporal dementia diagnosisin February, has been highlighting the disease on her YouTube channel in herMake Time to Connectseries forWorld FTD AwarenessWeek (Sept. 24- Oct.8).
Emma Heming and Bruce Willis.Emma Heming/Instagram
Emma Heming/Instagram
On the Oct. 1 episode of Make Time to Connect, titled “Celebrate,” she interviews the founders of the podcast"Remember Me,“Maria Kent Beers and Rachael Martinez, both of whom are the moms of young children and who were each caregivers for a parent with FTD.
Heming Willis, 45, says she discovered the podcast in the confusing days after they learned of Bruce’s condition. “I didn’t know where to go, what to look up, I’m looking things up and it’s freaking me out,” she says in the episode. Heming Willis, who recently launchedMake Time Wellness, a brand that focuses on brain health, says “there wasn’t a lot” of information on FTD “but you guys popped up. I started listening and I felt like, ‘Oh my gosh I’m so grateful to hear other people’s stories.' "
The podcast, which Martinez and Kent Beers began in August 2020, gives caregivers and family members a space to share stories about loved ones with FTD.
Emma Heming says the “Remember Me” podcast has been a support to her.Courtesy Remember Me
Courtesy Remember Me
Martinez, whose father died of FTD in November 2020, says the goal of their podcast is “to bridge the gap between the medical and science community and people. We want to make this journey as comfortable and as full of connection as possible.”
For Heming Willis, who said in arecent interviewthat it’s “hard to know” if Bruce, 68, is aware of his own condition, it’s done just that.
Bruce Willis and Emma Heming Willis in 2019.Jamie McCarthy/Getty
Jamie McCarthy/Getty
“There’s nothing that levels the playing field like FTD. And I have made some of the greatest connections with other care partners, people like you who just get it – there doesn’t have to be so much explanation,” says Heming Willis. “You guys have been so helpful to me. I want to say thank you. I’m surprised I’m not crying because that’s where I go to when I think of people who have been that lifeline for me.”
source: people.com
