On or about: 01-26-08  13:32, Ardith Hinton did engage James Bradley
regarding, but not limited to: Senior Moments

 JB>  suggested that Alzheimer's disease was, "God's gift
 JB>  to the aged." I'll apologize now, as the performer

 AH> Okay... so it's satire.  First you get the 
 AH> audience's attention, then you hit the nail on the head.  
 AH> I've done it in class & at staff meetings.  :-))
 
You know me well. 

 
 JB>  He said, "One day, you're drawing, 'Oh, I've invented
 JB>  the banana.' They *fix* you, and you realize you can't
 JB>  walk, and all your friends are dead. Leave them alone!"

 AH> I think I hear what he's saying.  Nora had a great time
 AH> playing  catch with a friend in his nineties, recently diagnosed 
 AH> with Alzheimer's.  We'd known this person for many years... 
 AH> and what struck me was how he'd regained the joie de vivre 
 AH> & spontaneity of childhood.  About all we heard, from other 
 AH> members of the family, was that he couldn't do xxx or yyy 
 AH> any more.  But he didn't seem to realize what he couldn't 
 AH> do, and it took very little to make him happy.  If his 
 AH> affliction could be "cured" I wonder whose interests would 
 AH> be best served.  ;-)
 
It's a tough one to call, and one I likely can never make definitively. I
visited with two grandchildren of my Aunts' last night. The topic wasn't
exhausted, and the disease wasn't even mentioned, but we did reminisce.
They were both sporting new Great-Grandchildren to her, so more was said
about the future, than the past.

 
 JB>  they are not "well"?

 AH> I'm not sure you mentioned it here... or if you did, I don't
 AH> remember the details... but essentially I feel as you do.  
 AH> Their situation may be harder for others in various ways 
 AH> than for them... and as long as they seem reasonably 
 AH> content, the most appropriate action may be to go with the 
 AH> flow.  AFAIK neither of my parents had Alzheimer's.  They 
 AH> had a series of strokes or something which (as modern 
 AH> technology demonstrated) left empty spaces in their brains. 
 AH> I could see what was missing when they were called upon to 
 AH> use it.  They weren't always aware of it themselves.  In 
 AH> her last few years my mother often spent inordinate amounts 
 AH> of time memorizing the day's date, though, because she 
 AH> still had enough marbles left to realize she might be 
 AH> tested on such things.  And then there was Dallas's 
 AH> grandfather, frustrated because he could no longer make 
 AH> sense of brief items in the newspaper when he knew he was 
 AH> once able to do a lot more.

I think it was '04 that we visited both. My God Father was lucid for one
visit, but was rather away from us the second time. He did notice my kiss
on the cheek, and was conversing a bit over lunch, but not much. Again, I
want to see his exuberance, but I doubt I'm as remorseful about both of
their situations as others might be. Having next to no exposure to the
science behind the condition they are in, I can only ask the open ended
questions that - I'm sure - have been asked for ages.


 AH> Alzheimer's sounds quite scary to many people & I 
 AH> suspect the term is often overused.  But if people don't 
 AH> know what's missing that may be a blessing
 AH> ... and in my experience, being "normal" is not all it's 
 AH> cracked up to be.  :-)

I think the joke I was thinking about, was "Put that in your crack
pipe, and smoke it." But, that would just be *wrong!* ...In so many
ways. 

The one thing that did just tear me up, was a former couch surfer of Dads,
knocks on my door the other day, and asks, "Where's my glass pipes?
They said next door, you'd know where my glass pipes are." (That's
"tear" as in, "Rip me a new one" as opposed to
"ANY sympathetic emotion.") The same girl once bragged to me that
she was homeless, and schizophrenic. It's more people like her that have me
worried, than Alzheimer's patients.




... James

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20

--- Maximus 3.01