Fear: Am I Going to Get It?

 Am I going to get it?

I think just about everybody worries they are getting Alzheimer’s disease or they will get it.   When a parent is first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, children and siblings especially panic.  Is it in the genes?  Am I destined to get it?    Interesting enough, my husband has an identical twin brother with no sign of the disease.

When we can’t find our keys, we think we have it.  When we can’t remember someone’s name, we’re sure we are in the beginning stages.    We all have moments of forgetfulness.  Alzheimer’s is beyond “senior moments.”

Six years ago, things didn’t seem quite right with my husband.  He was  manifesting behaviors that just weren’t typical of him.  One day when I was leaving to go somewhere, he asked several times what time I would return.  In the past, he never asked a question twice.  Unlike me, he got it the first time.

A few weeks later, we were spending time with my siblings and their spouses at my sister’s cabin.  My sister and her husband were teaching us how to play a new card game, Hand and Foot.  My husband wasn’t catching on to the game at all.   Oh my goodness, I thought. I’m even catching on to this game.  Why on earth isn’t he getting it?  He’s one of the smartest people I know.  He always catches on to things.

On another occasion my husband was fixing omelets for dinner.  Omelets were his specialty.  He cracked eggs into the blender, then proceeded to add the green peppers and ham to be blended.  Needless to say, they were very interesting omelets.

With the encouragement of my husband’s siblings, we made an appointment with a neurologist.  Among other exercises, the neurologist asked him to draw a clock.  My husband, a civil engineer, drew a nice round circle.  Then, he placed the clock numbers outside of the circle.  They were not evenly spaced at all, which ordinarily would have driven him crazy. 

When the doctor asked him to draw hands to signify 11:10 on the clock, he was unable to do it.  The inability to draw a clock and place the hands in the correct places is typical of people who are struggling with Alzheimer’s Disease.

When the love of my life was diagnosed with this terrible disease, I was heartbroken. 

I'm sad for everyone who has it.  I'm sad for anyone who is going to get it.  I wonder if I will.  You wonder if you will.   But life is too beautiful and short to waste time worrying about whether we will or won’t.  Knowledge is different than worry.  It's power.

For more information on the signs of Alzheimer’s go to www.alz.org  At the top of the page, click Alzheimer’s and Dementia.  Then click on Know the 10 Signs.

Good News:

The good news is that many doctors believe there are four basic things we can do throughout our lives to either delay or prevent Alzheimer’s.   My husband’s neurologist at the University of Utah agrees.   We will talk about these in my next blogpost.  I will also suggest books you can read on the subject.

See you then!