“I was outside several times, and I never saw a package,” I replied.
After staring at his phone a few more minutes, he said, “It’s on the front porch.”
I walked to the front door and glanced through the door. Sure enough, there was a package sitting on the welcome mat. My dog was hot on my heels, because when I open the front door, it usually means “company” is there.
I unlocked the door and immediately, our security alarm emitted an ear-piercing racket. I slapped my hand over my ears and raced, as fast as possible on my arthritic knees, to the keypad to turn off the alarm. The dog sped past me for the safety of the bedroom, skidding to a stop under the bed. Harold was shouting, “What’s the code?” because immediately the phone began to ring, and we didn’t want emergency vehicles dispatched because I opened the front door.
After I shut off the alarm and dispatch had been assured there was no emergency, I decided I’d better take the dog outside. I went to the bathroom and sat on the jacuzzi steps to put on my sweatpants. The dog was so traumatized that she kept trying to climb on my lap.
Sounding the alarm can sometimes be a false alarm, but when it comes to our health, we often brush our fears aside and assume that everything is going to be all right. This is especially true when it comes to our cognitive health.
I’ve read numerous books about Alzheimer’s disease over the past twenty-five years. One that stands out in my memory is a book where the author said she did not realize her mother had dementia until she killed the cats.
Fortunately, for most of us the realization that something is terribly wrong isn’t so dramatic. It can be an accumulation of small moments in time, or it can be like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky.
On an ordinary day, Jim and I went to the car dealership where my son was buying a car. In the process of co-signing, the salesman asked Jim for his social security number. Jim had a blank look on his face, and finally said, “I don’t know what it is.” Ding, ding, ding, alarm bells clanged in my head. Jim always had a talent for remembering numbers, and his social security number had been his Army service number. When I realized Jim wasn’t joking, I supplied the number since I also knew it. Still, sometimes, I could forget my social security number so I brushed it off, figuring it was a false alarm.
“What’s your birth date?” was the next question.
After another deer-in-the-headlights look, Jim shrugged and casually said, “I guess I can’t remember what that is either.” I supplied the birth date, and could not ignore the heart-splitting alarm. Jim was forty-nine years old and up until this moment, I hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.
Shortly after the numbers crisis, we began a long and arduous investigation into why Jim was not thinking clearly. After various inconclusive physical tests, a psychological test determined that Jim had dementia of the Alzheimer’s type.
Although the first conclusive test for Jim was a psychological test, Alzheimer’s or related dementia is not a mental illness—it is a neurological, degenerative brain disorder. Later, his MRI showed brain shrinkage.
After a false alarm, we breathe a sigh of relief. When we know the alarm is real, it’s time to use all available resources to fight the best fight, and to live the best life.
Copyright © March 2023 by L.S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com
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