Archive for December, 2009

Hello

The reductionist have captured or interest, our minds, our heats, and our wallets! They have convinced us that in order to cure the brain of the symptoms of dementia we need to reduce the causes of the symptoms to the smallest amount of human tissue/fluid we can change by swallowing pills and/or shooting various chemicals into our blood stream. How small must we go to change the symptoms? Right now, we are tracking individual cells and their components. Some study individual proteins. Others are going even smaller, looking at our genes and DNAAnd assuming we do find the real causes of each of the many, many symptoms of dementia, how are we going to undo/alter/prevent them? How, how much and how expensive will this process be for those of us experiencing this or that symptom? What side effects of these treatments can we reasonably expect to experience?

Hands in the audience if you truly see light at the end of this tunnel. Stand up if you think we have the turned for the home stretch. Speak up if you believe that just because we say something, it must, or at least will someday be true - someday!?

As for the rest of us - there is still today to enjoy. There is still a purposeful and purpose filled life to live. There is still love to give and receive. There are still songs to be sung, people to meet, need things to enjoy.

Richard

“Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth.” - Mark Twain

I’ll Never Forget (I hope)…

the day I was married; births, marriages, and deaths of family members; past Christmases; vacations, speaking engagements and all the wonderful folks I have met; the Bicentennial (I was the Bicentennial chairperson for Monroe County, Indiana!), etc. Everyone has moments, hours, days that stick in their memories for a long, long time. A psychologist friends of mine calls these crystallized memories.

One of those reoccurring days for me is the day after Thanksgiving. This is the day for the past twenty or more years I put out our Christmas lawn decorations.For me this became a memorable day about eight years ago, the year I was told by a friend wearing a white coat, “Richard you have dementia, probably of the Alzheimer’s type, and certainly with Alzheimer’s features.”

Although I am pretty sure I get the order they occurred, and many of the details mixed up, they are memorial days for me because I can measure my deterorating level of competence in the daily activities of living (other than dressing myself, bathing myself, etc). Do I recall where I stored everything? No! several years ago I simply lost all our extension cords because I couldn’t remember from one year to the next where I Put them. We have been looking for years and haven’t yet found them. Yes we had to buy all new ones!

Can I figure out how to string the lights and hook up the extension chords in the right order? This year I asked my 11 year old Grand Son, Hayden to help me!

Do I have enough self discipline/focus/control of my attention that I can accomplish all the tasks by myself and in one day. This year my Son and Daughter-in-Law stepped in and “helped” me stay on task(s) and get the jobs done.

When I have completed the tasks and plugged everything in, does everything stay lit? This year I plugged the extension chords into the wrong plugs and within thirty minutes blew several fuses. I’m still rearranging plugs and trying to remember how I got it all to work last year.

I know these seem like trivial problems. I know these are problems my family stands ready, willing, and able to enable and support me. I know all this, yet I still feel bad - sorry for my self, I guess. I really hate this disease/process/condition/syndrome!

Hello,

My name is Richard and continue to confront the symptoms of a disability labeled by the medical community as Dementia, probably of the Alzheimer’s type. For those readers in England and West to the international date line— This November newsletter is arriving on the first day of December. For the rest of you I just squeezed in on the last day of November. Such has become my life since my trusted assistant of two years gave birth to her third child and remains at home with her wonderful child (Trinity Ann), while yours truly and his oldest grand daughter attempt to get the cyber-presses rolling and this newsletter out on time (sort of).

This month (still november) took me to Detroit, Ann Arbor, Kansas City, San Angelo, Springfield, and Carbondale. Not to mention turkey days, putting up lawn decorations, and my wedding anniversary. Yes, I travel too much. I just cant seem to stop running away from something(s). They are catching up, and a couple of new ones have passed me. They wait greet me every morning!

“The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place” G.B. Shaw.