One year ago this week Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. It has been a bumpy road but at the latest doctor visit he said she is 'holding her own'. What does that mean with this horrible disease? I do not see any BIG changes in the last year. She has problems getting some words out in a conversation. We just help her fill in the blanks as best we can. Losing things is another thing she has to deal with. If this was ALL that was going to happen I would feel excited but, we know this is the tip of the iceberg. We may have a small hole in the ship now but one day it will become a big gash and the ship will begin to list. She recently lost a pair of earrings and her hair brush. She would not let me help her look for them. I know it must be frustrating not to be able to remember something so simple as to where you put something 30 minutes earlier and it is frustrating to the family that she does not want us to help her. She dislikes going to the doctor and says she hates to take his 'test'. The one where you are asked the date, what season it is, where are you etc. On the way over she kept asking what the day and date was because she knew that would be one of the questions. When we sat down in the waiting room, she opened her purse and she had a 'cheat sheet' with the day and date written on it. She looked at it several times before we were called back. She did get the month and day correct but still could not remember the date once we were back in the exam room. This is such a cruel disease. I have recently joined an Alzheimer's study of healthy adults at Emory University in Atlanta. I had an MRI (my first) and then took a 3 hour memory test. It is computer generated--it would show an item that looked like snow flakes, the screen would go blank and then in a few seconds up to 2 minutes later you would see the original object and a new object. You would have to pick the new object. I got all of those right by remembering something about the shape. Was the center open, the edge had a feathery apperance, the center had a star shape--things like that. This seemed easy and I got them all correct. Then it gets a little harder. It was similar to the electronic 'Simon' game with out the sound and colors. Just random blue dots that appeared on the screen and you had to touch the one that was new each time. It would add one dot at a time--sounds easy right. But it is not, at one point I had a run of 9 correct before I missed one. Then on the next set I missed after only two dots. Talk about feeling like a dummy. If anyone has the opportunity to join in a study please do so. Anything we can do to help stop this horrible disease is worth spending a few hours as a participant.
I recently received a devotional book called Jesus Lives by Sarah Young. It is 359 pages of pure encouragement. I just 'flip & dip' in the book, there is no set way to 'read' this book. Recently, I read about brokeness. 'So stop trying to figure everything out. Instead, lean on Me, letting your head rest on My chest. While you rest, I will be watching over you and all that concerns you.' Thank you Lord for You will walk beside our family in the journey we face. I love you Mom.
