Therapy begins easily

I took Glenda to her first appointment for the Mind for all Seasons Enhance Protocol today at the Summit Memory Clinic on Signal Butte Road in Mesa. We earlier had her blood and urine collected for the laboratory panel at LabCorp in Queen Creek. 

Glenda on Light Therapy device.

Glenda on O2 saturation test machine.

I think it went very well. They did some more comprehensive cognitive testing (we get results with roadmap in a week or so), we've had the specimens all collected for the lab panel, she did very well, indeed, on the exercise machine with O2 monitoring -- Robeson Flynn, her memory coach, was impressed at how well she did on that test. She had a bit of anxiety with the chilling in the chair with the optic therapy headset, but once she understood that all she had to do was relax for 30 minutes and I put on some soft music for her (I sat in the room with her), she was fine. Afterwards she said it was good. We may take her earbuds next time so she can listen to a book during that 30 minutes.

How are you? Fine, thanks. That's the EZ answer.

Today I realized that 'fine' is a very subjective concept.

As Ms. G ages and has had various health challenges, family and friends often ask how she is doing. Often, my response is, "Fine." And most days she is fine, based on the current subjective definition of 'fine' in the objective situation we live in.

A fine day for G means that she woke up feeling good and relatively alert. After arising, she walked safely to the kitchen. Hungry, she ate from the breakfast prepared for her. On a fine day, she can (and will) shower and dress herself and take care of her dental hygiene. She can get her morning medicine from the daily dispenser with only needing help to remember what day of the week it is. She will want to listen to the audio version of her scriptures for at least 30 minutes on a fine day--she can't read them anymore due to failing vision. A fine day may find her spending most of an hour in our community gymnasium working on the stationary bicycle and the exercise machines, after safely walking the 100 yards from our front door to the community center. Later, on a fine day, she may enjoy the lunch prepared for her and then an audio book before a nap. She may call her sisters or one of our kids. On the occasional days that she is better than fine, she may unload the dishwasher or fold a basket of laundry. 

On a fine day, she doesn't ask what city we live in, or what year it is. Or how many children we have or if her father is still alive. She doesn't faint from orthostatic hypotension on a fine day, nor stumble and fall while walking. On a fine day she doesn't sleep for 18 hours, or get lost in our yard. 

Not all of our days count as 'fine.' But most do.

Aging memory is more troublesome than EZ.

I'm worried about my dear wife. This morning as I was earlier writing she came and sat beside me and we engaged in some light conversation. The nature of that conversation is what has me worried. She asked if I remembered when her mother, Lennie, had passed away -- no problem, I don't remember exact dates very well myself, but it was quick and easy to look up in family records so I got that information for her. Then, she asked if her mother was still working full-time just before her death. No. And Glenda should have known that. Her mother had been retired for many years and had traveled quite extensively prior to her death. Then the question that really gave me pause: Who was her mother married to when she died? Oh, my stars! Lennie was married to Gerald Eisenhauer at the time of her death; she had been married to Gerry for many years and Gerry was well known to Glenda. Glenda is fond of her step-father.

Glenda's memory has been troublesome of late but that has been mostly short-term forgetfulness. This scares me as it's the first time I've seen something so fundamental slip from her longer term memory. My two eldest siblings both slid into Alzheimer's-like memory deficits in their '80s as did my mother. I expect that will be my fate, as well, but Oh! how I hate to see Glenda moving that way so early in her life, and if we both go, who will care for her? Will I also be a burden on our children. How I hate the thought of being a burden rather than a blessing in my children's lives.

The "good old days."

Is it a flaw in human nature, or an evolutionary defense mechanism that we normally tend to remember the good and repress the bad? I'm feeling especially nostalgic for the optimisim of the late years of the last century. Business booming, the human race more aware of the need to preserve the environment. Asia modernizing, India awakening, the Eurozone, the end of Apartheid, travel and technology, peace and prosperity. What a wonderful world the 21st century was going to bring us! Sigh...