Alzheimers and Dementa Part 2

Alzheimers and Dementia Part 2

Who's up for a big ol' plate of alzheimers?
Dang, I forgot where I was with the story. Sometimes that scares me, the forgetting of simple things. I know in my rational mind that it's not early onset Alzheimers but just having so much to keep up with. It's a quick zing of fear, just enough to get the adrenaline going.

On to the TIAs.... For those of you just joining our little story, TIAs are trans ischemic attacks or ministrokes. Small enough not to do much damage but large enough to give you pause. Dad had quite a few of them. Most times, they are undetectable or hardly detectable on a CT scan unless caught right away.

Life continued on anyway even with this new revelation. We thought we were kind of shell-shocked. No one in my immediate family (2 sets of grandparents included at this point) had experienced this type of thing. The doctor sent dad to a neurologist who confirmed his findings. We were given very little information to go on as far as what to expect. Mom and I surfed the net (and who doesn't these days??) for information. What we saw was frightening. It was also information that made us say, "this isn't going to happen to him for a long time" because it was geared toward the elderly (people in their very late 70s, 80s and 90s). We couldn't find alot of information that we thought pertained to dad because he was an early onset case. Dad was only in his late 40s. We handled his confusion as best we could. For example, when my sister was married, dad was going to walk her down the aisle. I was my sister's matron of honor. Dad was very afraid that he would forget his one line in the wedding, the part where the minister says, "who gives this bride". My dad was supposed to say, "her mother and I do". I had to stay next to him and whisper the words. He was miserable because he felt like he may ruin my sister's wedding. He pulled it off without a hitch but it just showed us how life was going to change for him and for us.

My memory has always been kind of spotty. My mind races from one thing to the next. I have never had the retention most people do or so I believe. Maybe everybody is this way, who knows? There are still more things that happened and I'm sure I'll be going back and forth in the story to tell them as they come to me. Let's skip ahead a few years to when he was 55 yrs old. Being a brick mason, as I've told you before, will make you quite strong but it will also take a toll from your body. Dad's knee, which was messed up originally in a high school football game when he was young, started to give him trouble. The only solution was a knee replacement.

Knee-ding Some Absolution.... Coberae


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