SO, WHO’S IN CHARGE?

Have you ever wondered, just who is in charge?

When we were young we simply deferred to our elders. They knew better and surely they had someone in control.

When we joined the ranks, aka: middle years, we simply learned the rules and followed them. We didn’t question the authority of who said we should, we neither had time nor did we want to put our heads that high and become a target to be shot down.

When we reached our senior years we politely and respectfully stepped down nodding to the generation behind, “Now it’s year turn; mind the store well!”

We fruitlessly believed as the elderly all we have to do is sit back and enjoy the emoluments of our labor, commitment and adherence to the rules. We can live on our retirement secure that the pension is adequate and the savings sufficient. We keep our doctors appointments and take the pills they prescribe. We know we are covered and cared for all we need do is bless our children and children’s children.

What’s wrong with the picture?

It ain’t necessarily so!

While we followed the rules and assumed everyone else did some sleight of hand maneuvering slipped in subtly undermining the balance that had existed since Roosevelt beat the depression and Eisenhower built the interstate freeway.

First it was the concept behind the euphemistical slogan “Morning in America.” The belief that the system could safely operate freely and unfettered became our SOP (standing order of procedure). This produced de-regulation, tax cuts to produce uniform increase of wealth, a forceful foreign policy which was both costly and wildly remunerative for that military industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about.

This all crept in stealthily absconding with the family wealth, the job and finally the default on our mortgage that cost us our home. So who is to blame?

Well shit happens you know!

Then again, “what about them changes?” Might they have produced some help in this plight after all?

There is no need for litany, everyone is to blame. Blaming has no great prospect of going anywhere but taking skin off our own behinds. The people in charge keep on gaming. They continue trusting the outcome because what they are doing seems to them to certainly be the right thing.

In banking the fox is in the henhouse. In Congress the lobbyists with the special interest bounty are lining the pocket of every member whose only reality is setting themselves up for re-election or lucrative positions after resigning. What’s left is what they can get away with under guise of serving the common good. Health Care, Health Insurance, Medical Profession, Pharmaceutical industry all are paralyzed in impasse attempting to secure the profit position of each of them at the expense of those who they are supposed to serve.

This is but the tip of the proverbial iceberg. So much has happened that has been unnoticed but for the severity of the calamity we now face on too many different fronts. Congress is trying, the Administration is trying, Scalia at the Supreme Court says the cross is a sign of good will and peace for all of us. All sides are seeing the need and trying to bring all of us to a uniform solution. Is stalemate very far off?

Yet, I don’t see any head sticking up out of the crowd saying “We all have to give a little and do what’s right. We can’t afford the self interest solution that has driven us to the this crisis that has occurred!” Where are those voices? The republicans are militantly united around “No, let’s kill the uppity black whatever we do!” Then the democrats with this thin majority that could accomplish so much are overwhelmed by the splinter of self serving obfuscation. Will no one take charge?

I have posted an opinion I read recently that voices how I feel. I am like the guy in the movie “Network” years ago shouting from the newsroom window “I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!” The title of the article is: The N.O.P.E.: National Organization of Pissed Off Elders. This captures the temper of my concern.

We need this to be our Mantra. We do because I am for one sick and tired of THEM who are taking from us so much of the value on which we depended for these twilight years.

I am tired of seeing my retirement savings ripped by a third of their value in the crash that was produced by the idiocy of the last thirty years. We went from bubble to bubble like in a shell game each time reaping a better return from the falsely inflated values, until finally it burst as the players ran out of shells.

I am appalled when I see my health care deduction reaching the twenty thousand level the worst culprit being the cost Part D coverage, legislation passed to aid seniors. I was better off when I had private insurance that I gave up because my same company offered cost competitive coverage with out the do-nut hole co-pay. Within two years they removed that proviso when I could no longer choose my private coverage that I opted out to have the part D coverage.

I am deeply troubled by Wall Street continuing as if nothing happened, GM announcing today, no thank you we no longer need government aid. There is no give with Health Care, Health Insurance, Health Cost. No one is really looking at the economy of care in lieu of maintaining the premiums paid for the industrialization of the entire Health Care Industry.

If things are not bad enough now, when my AD puts me in the nursing home, which it will, if I don’t croak right away then my wife’s retirement savings go to pay for it and leave her without that as she needs it.

This need not have happened. The article N.O.P.E sets out the following:

It pisses us off that the people in charge are squandering away the opportunities they had to make the world work, or at least be a better place. For example ...
• Thinking we get stupid as we get older
• Growth at any cost
• Short-sightedness
• Self-righteousness
• Special interests
• Contrived controversy
• Bullying, greed and intolerance
• Turning an economic mechanism like capitalism into an ideology
• "Us versus Them"ism

I want to believe we weren’t always this way. When I grew up in the ‘50’s I believed we were all pretty much straight shooters, balanced, honest and fair.

PERSPECTIVE

With Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) it all looks different. Your viewpoint changes dramatically.

Although each of us ultimately faces death, the mode and manner finds greater definition. As Ford Motor Company so many years ago advertised “There is a Ford in Your Future” with AD you know you have a terminal disease in your future. This prompts you to live accordingly.

This viewpoint changes your approach to whatever is next. A greater impetus sets in to make events count. There is evidently less time and things needing to be done move up on the list. At the same time in my experience the urgency does not accompany this. What gets done is fine, what doesn’t fit in is OK too. This seems to arise from the sense that doors have closed and there is nothing that can be done about it. The gods have so directed so it is your task to adapt and accept that which has been directed.

Prioritization occurs. I was limited in activities that I enjoyed, such as biking, cross country skiing, traveling on my own, driving a car, handling much money. My disease simply made these undertakings not possible any longer.

Other activities I chose to let go to make more time to devote to those activities I enjoyed more.

I let woodworking go to my wife Diane’s pleasure. It was like giving up my motor cycle years ago because I had not broken anything yet. I quit wood working because I still had all my fingers.

I spent 25 years researching my family history. I am now boxing up my extensive genealogy files for any descendant who has the desire to build on what I produced.

I no longer play bridge which I was learning and thoroughly enjoying. I did not want to foist my slo-think on any other bridge player.

Playing golf at which I was no good at all has been curtailed. I can’t drive to get there; it is too cumbersome to haul my clubs around on a bus. My wife volunteers to drive but I was never any good anyway. There are simply better ways to spend my time.

This leaves me the time to read, write, listen to music, walk and swim, and go to the doctor too damn much. I also have time to go out to lunch with friends and take in some AD activities.

I have a lot of alone times. I don’t like to be in crowds or situations where there are too many distractions or unfamiliar undertakings. I get anxious when I am in situations calling for quick actions or response. I simply cannot keep up, get frustrated when I can’t and abhor being a burden to others.

I am blessed with the fact that I keep myself good company. My alone times are important to me, have always been part of me. This serves me very well now because of my inability to get around and keep up with anything that has urgent or distracting circumstance to it.

I like and enjoy being around people and have as much social contact as I want. At the same time I don’t have the social obligations that require more than I can give. Having AD can be just a wonderful reason for which I have to turn some event down and not sound the killjoy or spoil sport.

There are many limitations to having AD but there is also a certain freedom that ensues. I can no longer keep up, therefore I don’t have to, nor do I even have to try. There is really nothing left I have to do; nothing left I have to be. Performance requirements no longer exist. I have but to get from day to day with as little fuss and muss as possible. This is not too bad!

The anxiety quotient of AD is alive and well with most of us, certainly with me. I know what I must do to avoid an increase in anxiety. Stress is the first thing forbidden. I cannot handle nor do I desire to try. I go all to pieces. Distracting circumstances produce distress. Moving about and a lot of traveling I find disturbing. Travel was once my favorite thing. More than not I get upset if away from home too much or too long.

Routine has become my nesting place. I like simply being at home. As my dear old Uncle Babe said in his 90’s “I like to stay put!” For the first time in my life I like getting up in the morning and getting at it. “At it” is my routine: I start with coffee, read the papers, write a little then work on whatever project with which I am currently occupied. Then often it is out to lunch with a friend or working out downstairs, then a nap. Late afternoon and evenings I read and listen to music on satellite radio.

I enjoy this. Is it all too bad?

No more am I working hard at being what I am supposed to be; no longer do I serve anyone or any station I feel required to do. I am neither planning nor doing the many things I did to seeking fulfillment, satisfaction and happiness. With AD I have found it fruitless. I “Can’t Anymore” closed too many doors and made manifest doing so leads only to frustration without much chance of fruition.

I have finally learned letting it happen as it is going to anyway is the soundest way to find contentment. At this point with AD, in spite of that and all it entails I have more peace of mind and contentment than I have known at any time in the last 73 years.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT, CARING?

WHAT IS IT ABOUT CARING? I am continually astounded the caring that one experiences with this disease!

End of Life is an important issue, made more important because our course to it is known and can be planned for while going there. It is even more important when having Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) because it is such a slow agony losing our minds and watching our body waste away. Let me stay in Early Stage, I can handle this. The latter stages coming to me, about those I shudder.

How should we deal with our End of Life process? Yes AD is an End of Life event. Should we contritely accept and suffer it through waiting its outcome?

The alternative is taking things into our own hands. Do we have standing to say: “No, enough already, this makes no sense for me or for those loved ones around me! My mind and my body are going out the door and my consciousness but waivers in and out as I lie here.” Certainly, the thought has to be considered: “Why not get on with it to whatever is next. I am doing no good here but prolonging the heartache and draining the pocket book of those around me?”

That is the practical! Before deciding to be practical we have to examine the ethical consequence of doing that!

When I posed this question to my Rabbi she said: “Would you rob your loved ones the opportunity to care for you?” She packed a lot for thought into the simple question.

My process of thought leading to an answer was this: I have trusted life this far. As I have learned to step back and let life happen staying out of the way, not interfering, not intruding with my own view of what’s best, things have happened as they are supposed to.

For me this experience of past success in letting things happen as they unfold tells me to sit back and allow my disease to take its course.

This still is difficult I watch the pain of my loved one particularly my wife Diane.

Why should my pain be foisted on her? It’s not fair. It is mine to deal with what I have; it doesn’t seem right that she be faced with the pain and difficulty that is mine.

This question can be posed in two ways. 1. What’s fair to her? 2. What’s fair for her? The “fairness to” is my question. The “fairness for” is hers.

It isn’t fair to her that I suffer without doing anything about it that I can. Terminating my life does not fully take into account the pain I leave her with. This is somewhat paradoxical in that I would do it in order to spare he the pain of my continuing in life so dependent on her.

If she were to decide it would be less painful for me to go by self termination as be saddled with me continuing so useless and costly, it would be easier to go ahead and do it. She is not as yet there.

The fairness for her is an altogether different question. It is really not mine to decide what is hers to decide. That is essentially what my Rabbi was saying.

What is hers to decide is said by some caretakers dealing with the same circumstance as follows:

In a wonderful book written by Rose Lamatt, a caretaker of a friend with whom she lived who died of AD says it quite nicely. This book is: Just a Word by Rose Lamatt reference to which can be found at her Authors Web Site

In it she relates her story of caring for her dear friend Carol who contracted AD. Rose cared for her at home and continued after she entered a nursing home where she progressed to her death, taking a very painful path getting there. At the end, after Carol’s death she tells of thanking God for what she was able to feel was the gift of caring for her. This struck my heart as though all of its harp chords had been strummed at the same time.

Rose Lamatt said it so beautifully. It was her gift from God to have had Carol to care for through her illness and death. Should Carol have denied Rose that gift?

My AD is my gift of my higher power to act appropriately with it and to do as much good as I can by reason of having it. I can go to my end with that thought and pray for the strength and love of my dear ones in having to deal with me.

Is it mine to deny that of them?

Another story is that of Bob DeMarco.

It is wonderfully told in the article that I have hypertext: Wall Streeter One Day: Alzheimer's Caregiver the Next.

Bob was an accomplished Wall Street Specialist at the height of a successful career. His mother age 87 was diagnosed with AD. He left his career in New York at age 53 to care for his mother aged 87 when she contracted AD. He has been her caretaker for six years. Bob maintains a Blog about his experience that is well worth the reading. You can find it at Alzheimer's Reading Room.

About his new life DeMarco said:

On some days our life is nothing short of horrific. On some days our life is nothing short of wonderful.

If I had to make the decision I made six years ago over tomorrow, I would make the same choice -- I chose to become an Alzheimer's caregiver. I never regret my decision -- not even for a minute…

It is impossible to describe what it is like living in the front row with Alzheimer’s. The disease is overwhelming for both the sufferer and the caregiver. Fortunately for me, I woke up one day and made what seemed like a simple decision at the time—we would start living our life as we always had. This meant developing new communications techniques and getting my mother back into the world. If she can do it, we do it. I remain amazed at what she can do in spite of the Alzheimer’s disease.

When this article first appeared I wrote the following comment on it:

What a beautiful story about a thoughtful, sensitive act of Love. I was overwhelmed in reading it. Bob how lucky you are to be able to love your mother in the compassionate commitment you have made to her.

It has become my firm belief that those of us having been dealt this horrid curse of being AD affected or afflicted we are given a true gift made available to us for the taking. You have found it, taken it and it a gift to your mother and back to you.

The love of the caretaker is unfathomable. The plight of the afflicted is ameliorated as the object of this love.

As an Alzheimer’s afflicted looked after by a wonderful wife, I am appalled by the intrusion and insult brought into our lives by this disease. In turn I am humbled by the gift that it can be in the expression of love and supported the affected and the afflicted give to one another.

These comments certainly impact my process of thought. They certainly fit with the view of Buddhism which more and more becomes my mentor for facing AD.

Each of us has our own karma with which we find our selves confronted by in this life. It is ours to deal with positively or negatively. It is something we cannot avoid. If we act beneficially with it, we move on to something else. If we do not, namely, fail to act or act unhelpfully, we must face it again in another event with which we are faced in this life or in another yet to come. It does not go away.

At age 73 I have accumulated this wisdom. My life continues to present me with directions and choices. To date it has not failed me in offering me the wherewithal to make the right choice in each event.

It is this about life that I need to continue to trust which does not suggest I take this into my own hands now.

EXTRAPOLATING EXPERIENCE

EXTRAPOLATING is defined as: to infer an unknown from a known dictionary.reference.com

Much of my life of late is involved with extrapolating experience into understanding of “What’s it all About!” My foundation for doing so is the platform I am on trying to make sense of living with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)

Buddhism has given me the best explanation for what is going on in and with my life. My Judeo-Christian background keeps me grounded in the sense that my life is purposeful and serves the greater scheme of things. Being alive, now, in the way each of us become in getting to now, suggests this is not just random! This suggests there is cause producing us as its effect.

Leaving the foregoing as answer I move next to the question: “If we are not random events that just happen to be, why does that life that is happening to us happen the way it does?”

Christian, Jewish, Islamic, all three, say there is a soul to us that lives after our body and mind die. The Buddhists tell us we exist before and we exist after this life. Of these four the only difference I see is in the before part. I do not know of Islam in this respect, I do know Christianity follows a redemption theology in which reincarnation does not fit. To the Jewish there is room for reincarnation particularly in the mystical beliefs.

To the Buddhist, they do not dwell on the existence of god as much as the dwell on living life and dealing with ones Karma in life. Sogyal Rinpoche in “Glimpse after Glimpse” refers to Karma in the following way:

Whatever is happening to us now mirrors our past karma… We see the pain we are going through as the completion of the effects, the fruition, of a past karma… Tibetans say that suffering is “a broom that sweeps away all our negative karma.” We can even be grateful that as we sweep it away that negative karma is coming to an end. We know that “good fortune,” a fruit of good karma, may soon pass if we do not use it well, and that “misfortune,” the result of negative karma, may in fact be giving us a marvelous opportunity to evolve.

The chapter I was reading on insight: Embracing Change and Finding Freedom by Eric Swanson and Yongey Rinpoche Mingyur sets out in part:

“Working with the pain in this way, (any pain including that of depression)I gradually came to experience—not just intellectually but on an intuitive, ‘Yes, this is how it is’ sort of way—that I was not my pain. Whoever or whatever I was, was an observer of my thoughts and feelings and the physical sensations that often accompanied them. Of course I experienced grief or loneliness at times, felt some heaviness around my heart or in my stomach, wondered if I'd made a terrible mistake, and wished I could turn time backwards. But as I looked at what was passing through my mind and body, I realized that there was someone—or something—bigger than these experiences. That something was the ‘looker,’ a presence of mind that wasn’t disturbed by my thoughts, feelings, and sensations, but just observed them all without judging whether they were good or bad. “Then I started looking for the ‘looker,’ and I couldn't find her! It wasn't as if there was nothing there—there was still this sense of awareness—but I couldn't put a name to it. Even ‘awareness’ didn't seem to fit. It seemed too small a word. (Underlines and Italics added for emphasis)

The key phrase in the forgoing quote is I WAS NOT MY PAIN! The pain of the event was separate from whoever it is I really am. The looker, the observer, that entity seeing it, is not affected by the pain or the experience generated by the body mind and emotion responding to the stimuli producing the painful experience!

In my case, I am experiencing flu like symptoms that are probably medicinally provoked. This produces conflicting emotions within me. “Here we go again with this crap. Isn’t it enough I am so limited and confined by AD, I need this added on?” This feeling of anger is then countered by the feeling that it is all hypochondriacally manifested and I am a blithering neurotic. This engagement along with the physical pain of it all drags me down to the lowest depths.

So much so I begin thinking this is all I am. I do not see it as a temporary interlude that I must ride out and it will in a very short time be over. I don’t see it for what it is, namely, my body is not feeling as good as it usually does and is acting on that data.

I then limit my impression of my overall life to that which is impinging on me at the time. I cannot see its “before and after”, it is now and that now appears as my forever. I am sick, I am down, that is all I am.

This is also how we see our overall life, living it from birth to death. We conclude that what we see, what we engage, what we do in response, all of it, is who we are. Then when that “who we are” gets encapsulated into an overall horizon of personal experience we come to believe that is who we are and all there is to us.

To appreciate this, it is little different than having a limp in ones walk. The limp is there, it is real, but it is not all you are. You’re everything else who also has a limp. To the same extent I am not my feelings. I am not my physical body. I am not the data I have accumulated and assimilated into concepts of what is. These are all but tools that feed the greater essence of what I am or what I am about.

This realization in the throes of my depression over being sick again along with the insight produced by my reading this particular Buddhist tract was a truly intuitive realization of what it is really all about.

PRELUDE TO EXTRAPOLATNG EXPERIENCE

'
The last two or three days I have had a low level indisposition which my dictionary defines as a slight illness. This happens to me often.

It includes gastro-intestinal stuff, headache, lethargy, sleepiness, spaciness and a general sluggishness. It happens frequently prompting me at one point to see my primary physician. He went through all of the things it could be. Everything ruled out left only the possibility of a side affect associated with the use of Aricept. Having one other associate in AD who has a similar experience in both symptoms and frequency with the same diagnostic conclusion I decided there is nothing to do about it short of quitting Aricept.

My experience with Aricept is too good to see quitting it as an option. So, my only other option is to tough it out as I do with so many other things that have come my way the result of this vexing disease.

Being right at the tail end of this experience I am still feeling one of the symptoms that is the worst to handle. That is the depression which accompanies it, said better, permeates it!

Depression is a horrible negative emotion. Often it is difficult for me to know of its possession of me. As such it clouds my view of my reality terribly. The ghosts I fight as real are overwhelming.

As only too often happens one of the ghosts that appear is debating within myself “Are you really sick or do you just want to sit around on your butt?” This immediately follows into “What is the matter with you, can’t handle it?” It then proceeds to engagement internally over the issue of “Bad Mike” “Dishonest”.

In the course of this terrible discourse inside of me I read a chapter in a book I am reading entitled Embracing Change and Finding Freedom by Eric Swanson and Yongey Rinpoche Mingyur. The Chapter I was reading was on Insight.

The part that I read talked of the dichotomy of being basic to the understanding of Buddhism The duality is in this: We, as being, individually and collectively supersede this world of time and space in which we find ourselves. We are before, after, over and above this life we know as now. This life we know as now exists alongside and as but part of the superseding whole. Now, here, that of which we have a present view is no more than a series of now happening over a sequence of time and observed by us during their sequence.

The object of Buddhist meditation is to get back in contact with that other existence that is ours and is accessible by us. To be able to evoke it we need to realize the impermanence of our material existence. Although seeming to us to be very real, and all there is, it is not either of these. It is virtual, it doesn’t last. That part of it that sits over and above it, our was and our yet to be, are our true reality. In this life we are so disposed to live within its material consequence that so occupies our every attention we become inured into believing that it is all there is.

The Chapter on insight that I read stuck a chord about my depressed view of things as I was feeling my misgivings. Doing so I realized: this is my body doing this to me. It is not the real me. The real me is but a looker on, observing this very discourse. It is destructive of me to consider this reality. Like everything else it is a consequence of being material in time and space. It is a consequence of occupying this frame, this existence we know as life.

As a consequence and not a fact I need to step back and realize why it is there and what its purpose might be. It is there because I am feeling sick. I am feeling sick because of my disease and the medication I am taking which I choose to continue taking.

Said simply “It comes with the territory.”

The consequence in my life, namely, that of having AD is to make the best of it and share that experience. This consequence is OK with me. Therefore in this my negative experience it is important that I realize its source, not get sucked into it, simply ride it out! It will soon be over.

And today, after yesterday as I was lower than the proverbial “Belly of a Snake” I am no longer that. The storm is over

As a sequel to this I am working on an essay I am entitling Extrapolating Experience. What I will examine there is the reason for and the value of having these experiences such as the one that I did, and why it is worth doing so.

THE OLDER PERSON WONDERS WHAT IT’S ALL WORTH!

In 1995 When New Passages by Gail Sheehy (June 5, 1995) was published I read it with great interest. It spoke of the experience of aging in the mid to late middle ages and following into the senior years.

There was a fair amount of dispute about it as to whether or not it rang true. Whether or not it was sufficiently researched it resonated with me as I read it, then at age 59. In fact it fit me like a glove.

In the middle years, on the rise I was every thing the book said. I reduced it all to this as I noted in my memoir:

A young person wonders what she/he will be.
A person in mid-life strives to be what he/she has become.
The older person wonders what it was all worth!

At age 73 now, well into my older years, I see my aphorism fits appropriately. As part of my older years my diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) has brought me the clarity of vision about “what it is worth,” Buddhism has given me the reason why, my Judeo Christian background guides me yet in how to finalize all of this.

When I read the book I was struck by what it describes as the common aspirations of the middle years. It talks about the commitment to who you have become. It talks of the time it takes to maintain and further that commitment. It describes how this is the defining piece of who you are. It delves in the success orientation that so many of us a acculturated to follow which manifests itself during this time.

It says this is all normal for that time in our lives. That was a relief to me because it bothered me that the success track was usurping every other life endeavor of mine. My family, my children, my community suffered because I was too busy.

This didn’t excuse me, it explained me.

When I hit the older (senior) years I realized they became the time for summing it all up! My summing it up was actually done by way of writing a memoir for my family. I entitled it “What’s it all Worth?” The writing of it synthesized the life I had been living into a context that made sense and had meaning. This was the first time I was able to understand what had seemed chaotic to me before. I finally understood where I had gotten and how I had gotten there in spite of every effort to do otherwise. It effectively summed it up!

This prepared me for Alzheimer’s Disease. When I finished the memoir I knew I was missing in one aspect of the life I had lived. I had not done as much as I could or should for my fellow man. I was too interested in becoming what I believed I was supposed to which included the success track I took. This needed my 100% effort at the time so it seemed to me. As a result I left undone the good I had hoped to do in my life and I felt a corresponding void for having not done so.

When I finished my memoir I acknowledged in it that I yet had things to do. I had also learned in writing my memoir things happened as they ought to and at the time they were supposed to. In spite of my best efforts to do this or that of my choosing the appropriate choice invariably presented itself at its time, in its way and all I had was but to do it. Believing this amounted to a plan existing for me in spite of me I judged the sense of things not done, the void, would correct itself and I so wrote.

When I was diagnosed with AD I wrote a sequel in the memoir. I wrote I had now discovered what there was yet for me to do. It was to accept this diagnosis, this disease, with grace and to make the best of having it by doing some good for those around me by reason of it.

My writing about it is one of my primary endeavors in this regard. I hope by sharing my experience and advocating for the needs of people with AD I might do some good. The involvement in this undertaking, namely, making the best of AD has given me more sense of worth and fulfillment than I have had from any other thing in my life.

I have posted two articles in the Archive. It is these two articles that prompt my writing the foregoing.

They are:

1. I Feel it Coming Together
2. When you Suspect Alzheimer’s these Tips can Help You Get the Right Diagnosis

The first of the articles speaks of the Cycle of Life that all of us go through. That speaks for itself and identifies my experience referred to in the foregoing essay.

The second article relates to my experience with Alzheimer’s. I have advocated on this Blog and elsewhere, extensively, how valued early diagnosis is.

In my case it meant finding reason for the deficiencies I knew I was having. By dealing positively with AD in its early stage you are given the prospect of staying there longer. In my particular case it amounted to a gift. It was gift wrapped with the curse of this disease. Having it has given me the opportunity to perform something that yet needed to be done in my life.

The point of this essay is this. We are all in our personal cycles of life. Things happen, things change; patterns are followed. If AD is in the pattern given you it is to your advantage to know it as early when you are cognitively able to make the best use of it.

Using Google Search Promotes Memory and a Healthy Brain

This is another great article from Alzheimer's Reading Room. Get on your computer guys and start generating new brain cells and new pathways to deal with our impediment. It gives me validation for what I do to read something like this article.

Worried About Alzheimer's? Using Google Search Promotes Memory and a Healthy Brain
Posted: 13 Oct 2009 07:58 AM PDT

Searching the Internet may help middle-aged and older adults keep their memories sharp.

This should be of great interest to the millions of baby boomers and their children who are facing the possibility of Alzheimer's disease in their future.

A brain study conducted by Dr. Gary Small, a UCLA expert on aging, found that people who search the Internet use more of their brain while engaging in Internet searching.
This suggests that just searching on the Internet may train the brain -- that it may keep it active and healthy," said Small, whose research appears in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging scans to record brain activity while people were searching the Internet.

The researchers found that the visual cortex -- the part of the brain that controls reading and language -- was activated while doing the internet searches. Here is an important finding of the study -- there was much greater brain activity in the Internet savvy group. Those who actively use the Internet.

Small said it appears that people who are familiar with the Internet can engage in a much deeper level of brain activity.

Researchers found that the brains of the Web-savvy group reflected about twice as much activity compared to the brains of those who were not Web-savvy.

"A simple, everyday task like searching the Web appears to enhance brain circuitry in older adults," Small said, "demonstrating that our brains are sensitive and can continue to learn as we grow older."

Think this is wacky research? Dr. Small gives us a glimpse into the future based on his ongoing research:

According to Small, in the future, brain aging may be controlled similarly to high cholesterol or high blood pressure. Patients would receive a brain scan and perhaps a genetic test to predict their risk. Medications and other interventions could be prescribed, if necessary, to prevent or delay future neurodegeneration, allowing doctors to protect a healthy brain before extensive damage occurs. The brain scans may also prove helpful in tracking the effectiveness of treatments.

My suggestion to you if you are worried about Alzheimer's -- start using to Google to do sophisticated Internet searches. There is an upside to this activity, you might discover all kinds of useful information.

Still skeptical. Look at it this way -- it can't hurt, it might help, and it might make the difference in warding off Alzheimer's until we reach the point where there are some good treatments.

Think Snow!!!!

Cuz that's Happened in Minnesota!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I need an attitude modification.

This is it!

Please note I have changed the name of my Blog. I just discovered it is used elsewhere and it is unfair of me to use it here. The part that remains, viz. MY ALZHEIMER'S AFTERTHOUGHTS fits the topics and purpose of my blog more suitably

THE FOLLOWING POST WAS CARRIED BY BOB DEMARCO AND WAS TAKEN FROM ALZHEIMER'S READING ROOM A SITE I RECOMMEND TO YOU

Sunday, October 11, 2009
>This Alzheimer's Caregiver: Yo Uncle Sam Get Your Butt up to Vermont

My name is Bob DeMarco, I am This Alzheimer's Caregiver. My mother Dorothy, now 93 years old, is That Alzheimer's sufferer.

By Bob DeMarco
Alzheimer's Reading Room
Editor

Previously, I wrote -- Got Alzheimer's? Uncle Sammy says -- Tough Luck.

In that article I made a simple point. I believe this, that, and everyone taking care of an Alzheimer's sufferer full time should receive 24 bucks a day from their Uncle Sam. This amounts to $1 an hour for their service. This would cost our government $8.5 billion a year -- less than what it costs to fight terrorism in Iraq for one month.

Now some of you might think this is a nutty idea. Others might say, we can't afford it. There are always people who make conclusions without bothering to look at the evidence.

Welcome to Vermont. Vermont pays caregivers, and its not limited to Alzheimer's caregivers, $45 a day. They also pay an additional $175 for fuel and phone bills.

Here is the nutty logic being used in Vermont –

"We realized it is cheaper to keep people at home. We can save a lot of money, and it is what they want."** -- Teresa Wood, Vermont home-care project, Waterbury, Vermont

Sounds expensive doesn't it? Not really. Vermont has reduced its Medicaid nursing home population by about 20 percent.*** It actually saves Vermont Medicaid money. Imagine.

Now in defense of our Uncle Sam, "the federal government beginning in 2007, encouraged states to use less strict medical standards, and make Medicaid more widely available to those who could be cared for at home."****

As best as I can tell this is happening in four states.

After thinking about it, you might be wondering why wouldn't every state, after looking at Vermont, institute a similar program that would do so much good, and reduce Medicaid costs.

I am going to tell you why.

This would likely "piss off" a lot of people that are contributing to already in office politicians -- particularly State Governor's.

When a powerful self interest group gets mad, they usually decide they want to get their own guy or gal in office. So if you are a really smart politician, who doesn't really care what your constituency wants -- you don't rock the boat. Let freedom ring.

If you would like to read more about this very important issue, and find out what is really going on out there in America -- good, bad, and indifferent -- get this book.

I challenge all my brother and sisters blogs in the Alzheimer's -- Dementia -- Caregiving arena to take up this issue on their blogs.

I challenge anyone that really cares to email the title of this story, and the link to the story to the White House. Here is the link to the White House email form –

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Here are the links to include in the email to President Obama..
This Alzheimer's Caregiver: Yo Uncle Sam Get Your Butt up to Vermont

http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com/2009/10/this-alzheimers-caregiver-yo-uncle-sam.html

Barack Obama said, We are the One's We have been Waiting for.

Well what are we waiting for. If you don't do it -- then Who?

Bob

RIGHT NOW CARE IS INADEQUATE AND ECONOMICALLY CONFISCATORY

I read two comments on the boards today. They underscore this thought.

We work so hard on finding the cure. We need so much more to find ways for us as an afflicted group, affected families and community at large, to treat, support and handle AD patients with an Economy of Cost within the protective shelter of Quality of Care. Until there is a cure this disease “Keeps Marching On”, worsening with each person afflicted, escalating as more of us reach senior years.

RIGHT NOW CARE IS INADEQUATE AND ECONOMICALLY CONFISCATORY!

The first comment is as follows:

A new report has just been issued which is outstanding.

From the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in the UK:

There is no "miracle cure" just around the corner for dementia. And yet while the number of people suffering from the condition is increasing rapidly, there is a widespread lack of understanding about what people with dementia are capable of doing. This report concludes that we need to do more as a society to enable people to live well with dementia. Currently, they are not getting the support and respect that they need.

This report presents an ethical framework to help those who face dilemmas in connection with the everyday care of someone with dementia. The report forms the basis for a number of recommendations to policy makers in the following areas:

* Promoting autonomy and well-being through an ethical approach to dementia care,

* Including people with dementia in society,

* Making decisions about the care and treatment of people with dementia,

* Dealing with day-to-day ethical dilemmas in care,

* Recognizing the needs of caregivers.

See:

http://alzheimers.boomja.com/B...ues-quot-113474.html

There is a one-page summary of the report, a "guide" to the report that describes it in more detail (excellent), an Executive Summary (even more detail), and then the full, 210-page report.

The second comment:

If they discover the cure now, it will take 6 years to make it to market. It is in Clinical Trial phase I, II and III which needs completion and approval before it can be marketed.

A flu from pigs comes along threatening to kill 30,000 and three months later we accept shooting up our children and everyone with an almost untested vaccine that was invented last month.

Let's not accept it! Let's lobby congress to fast tract the cure for Alzheimer's to us.5.5 million of us need the cure right now. We would gladly trade NASA going to Mars for it. Oh there will be a risk but an acceptable one. I didn't give up looking for the cure to Alzheimer's. I work with people who have this disease and I write for them. Do not give up yelling for a cure! Not only to slow it down but reverse it. Be an Advocate. Be a Champion. Write Congress.

After reading both comments my thoughts are these

Do we spend money effort and time waiving testing controls intended to assure safe drugs? Or do we throw caution to the wind?

The reason to throw caution to the wind is simple: “Hell they got it how can you hurt them any more by testing them? They would be the best source of quality control. If they croak or get sick then we know that one doesn’t work. If a person recovers, hey, we might have something there. “

Will this assure finding a cure any more quickly?

Money spent to secure quality of care at economical cost is something that will benefit everyone. The community is the biggest secondary beneficiary of this. Currently crappy care is prohibitively costly. It doesn’t need to be this way. There are too many hungry hands out lining their profit pockets in the care, insurance, treatment and support industries. This can be changed if we are willing to do it.

If we do not, we all suffer except the few that make out like bandits under the current system.

Think about it! Who most directly is benefited by the search for a cure? Us or the for-profit industries benefiting from the funds we gather for finding the cure? If this cannot be readily answered, the problem is worse than I believed.

When I was first diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease...

For all who follow my Blog, I will be out of pocket until Sunday as my wife and I will be up playing in the woods on Minnesota's North Shore of Lake Superior

When I was first diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease...

I went to my room ... and shut the door...

But time healed my wound...

And now I can Soar...

--Lou Nevola

Lou is an avid reader of the Alzheimer's Reading Room.

Thanks lou.

WHAT A BREATH OF FRESH AIR!

Source
Alzheimer's Society

Alzheimer's Society Comment On Gordon Brown's 'Free Personal Home Care'

Older people with the 'highest needs' will be offered free personal home care, Gordon Brown announced.

In a speech at the Labour party conference, Mr Brown said that to provide security for pensioners 'for generations to come', health and social care services would be brought together under a new National Care Service in England.

'People with dementia are hit the hardest by the current care charging system and many are spending their life savings on what is often poor quality care. This dementia tax must end.

'It is good to see the Prime Minister highlighting the increasing numbers of people with dementia and the growing human and economic cost of this devastating condition.

'A commitment to free personal care for people with the most complex needs living in their own homes sounds like a promising development. We now need to hear the substance behind the sound bite. What is meant by 'highest needs' and what criteria will be used to judge this? As the country debates who pays for care, we must also take action on improving the very poor standards of care provided to many people with dementia.'

Neil Hunt
Chief Executive

DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH AND WAIT FOR THE DOCTOR OR THE SUPPORT PROFESSIONAL TO DO IT!!!

My wife Diane constantly advocates:

You have to assert yourself when it comes to medical care. Do not expect anyone else to do it. If you do you could wait forever!

An example of this is I had tough hip replacement revision last February. Now 7-8 months later I still have a bad limp. The Doc said pay it no mind it will probably resolve itself in time. None the less if you want to try some therapy I will prescribe it. I said no, Diane intervened, I started therapy a few weeks ago and “WOW” has it ever helped.

If the Doc says it that ain’t necessarily so!

What follows is the report of an article appearing in The Alzheimer’s Reading Room a site I recommend. Click on the hypertext of it or on any of the following sites in hypertext to go to them and review.

With AD as with those of us who have succumbed to getting older:

WE NEED TO LOOK OUT FOR OURSELVES

Benefits Check Up Searches 1,750 public and private benefits programs

I want to introduce you to a website for all seniors (older people) called Benefits Check Up. This service from the National Council on Aging has helped more than 2 million people find over $7.6 billion dollars worth of service.

The website streamlines the process of finding programs that can help you pay for prescription drugs, health care, meals, utility bills, and more. If you have never used the site, I suggest you go there and fill out the comprehensive service form. Once you fill out the form you will be taken to a list of services that are available to you or your loved one. This is an important service that could save you money and its free.

Benefits Check Up is the best site I have seen on the Internet for caregivers searching for help, ways to reduce prescription costs, and special services that are available nationally and locally. If you are a caregiver it is perfectly appropriate for you to fill out the form for another person.

You can also fill out forms for specific services. Please choose the appropriate link.

Comprehensive Check Up. Find programs that can help you pay for prescription drugs, health care, meals, utility bills, and other servcies.

Prescription Drug Assistance. Find programs that can help you reduce your prescription drug and health care costs.

Medicare Rx Extra Help. See if you’re eligible and apply for Extra Help paying for your Medicare prescription drug costs. If you are in the "doughnut hole" this service should be of particular interest. If you use the comprehensive form this help is included.

Senior Housing Locator. Find senior housing options, including assisted living, residential care, nursing & rehabilitation homes, CCRCs and independent living retirement communities.

The Doctor said I Was Faking!

A thread is running on one of the forums I follow to the effect:

I was recently accused of falsely taking 2 different memory tests, by a neurologist who saw me….I went back recently to retake the tests to see if there was a change in my short term memory because in the past 6 months I've had several instances of short term memory loss that I can't explain. So I felt retaking those tests would be a good way to see if there is a problem.

Sure enough, when my test scores were compared to my previous scores they were much lower but what happened next totally shocked my wife and I. The doctor was very rude and accused me of not taking the tests in an honest manner and said the only way my scores could be that low is if I had Alzheimer’s and I didn't look like a person who has it.

My reply on that thread was this:

I took a simulated driving test when my wife and doctor didn't think I should drive. I flunked it miserably.

I was then told by my Neurologist, "You have Alzheimer's." That shook me.

I took the neuro-psychometric after the diagnosis. That is all I needed. The findings validated the history. I wasn't having the memory problems initially that is typical of AD. This confused the issue, But my multi-tasking, executive functioning, and visual problems were on the underside of the chart. A level so low suggesting "Challenged".

The neuro-psychometric (P-N) is subjective in that the test results are interpreted by the person administering it. As validation of the first P-N I had it done a second time two and a half years later by a different neuro-psychologist. Findings were the same, I had digressed a little in the same functional areas, not badly.

The current portion of this thread speaks of one of the more severe misunderstandings we face with this disease. Unless we are standing in the corner drooling our diagnosis is subject to doubt. This defeats diagnosis, denies treatment and relegates us to more rapid progression of our disease.

The medical profession in its confused thinking is just no better than the rest of us.

This is where it is:

If we persist in denying the obvious it hurts us. Getting diagnosed and working with it is the only respite possible. Doing so, we can stay the progress and stay out of that corner longer.

It’s that simple!