Brain Fritz or Dementia

The Brain Fritz

To-Do Lists

Let’s say that I skipped last week’s blog because of the holidays. The truth, however, is that it went completely out of mind. I never thought of it until Tuesday night. I’ve heard that as long as you remember the thing you’ve forgotten within a reasonable length of time, you don’t have dementia or Alzheimer’s. I hope so. Still, it is wholeheartedly disconcerting when you realize that something you needed or wanted to do just vacated your brain until it felt like returning.

I can no longer survive without to-do lists. I usually remember to check the tasks and cross off completed ones. Groceries? Even if only three items, I require a list these days. The one problem with this approach is forgetting to add a task to the list, or as with the blog, thinking I don’t’ need to, but I think I can say that doesn’t happen frequently. Money being tight this year, I didn’t bother with my usual list of what I’d bought for whom. Big mistake—I’m still checking bags and corners for any item I may have forgotten to put in a stocking or under the tree.

Loss of Words

I hate it even more when I recognize that I’m forgetting something and it won’t come back to me. Typical for everyone: What did I come in here for? I especially hate writing or talking and being abruptly halted because a word I need or know would be perfect in the sentence won’t materialize. I remember its meaning, can look up synonyms in the dictionary and sometimes find the exact word I want when writing, though it certainly takes more time. Doesn’t work of course when speaking. I feel like an idiot when the word I require to make a request on the phone disappears on me and I stammer, rooting around for a comparable word.

Maybe, for those of us with family histories of brain-function loss, the brain fritz is scarier. Are we getting it? I think for next week I’ll do some research on symptoms of serious disease versus every-day-life business overloading our brains. I should probably add it to my list.

Books--Romance

Books I’ve Read

As I said two weeks ago, I read about thirty books while in Georgia, mainly as a stress valve. Many, I found at my mom’s. They were mostly older works, some writers I was unfamiliar with, some popular. I’ll write about them in categories.

Romance

I found six romances from Judith McNaught from the eighties. Tender Triumph—just what you’d expect from a romance title, isn’t it?—was set in the contemporary world, though the main character, typically, was a virgin who just hadn’t found the right guy. Had the usual bones of the romance—girl meets boy, conflicts ensue, are resolved, and they end up together. The ending was a bit anticlimactic after the buildup throughout the book. Nevertheless, a quick read that held my interest.

Double Standards, also written in the early eighties, was a bit dated but Judith McNaught has the writing skill to make it entertaining. This one was also set in the contemporary world. Once and Always—typical title for a period piece—was better than her contemporary novels. Her characters tend to have similar traits in each book, but in this one, the ending better fit the novel’s buildup. Almost Heaven (I read these in the chronological order Judith McNaught published them) showed better skill at building and resolving conflict. Another period piece, character traits still similar book to book, but the plots are very different. I have two more of hers I look forward to reading.

I’ve read Lavyrle Spencer before, though I can’t remember what. Vows is a historical romance, more realistic than Judith McNaught’s, which is more escapist reading, but both know how to bring the reader on a fun ride. Spencer gave an interesting look into the Midwest of the 1800’s and more realistic traits to characters and conflicts between characters you could imagine as being real people.

A Love of Her Own by Maggie Brendon was engaging despite a slow beginning. Christian romance, it avoided being overly preachy. A potentially important conflict between the main character and her parents (she fell in love with someone they wouldn’t have approved of) was thrown away in an ending that felt as though she suddenly felt that the book had become too long and she had to rush to finish it. Not that the rest of the plot was all that realistic, but the ending jolted.

The Familiar Life Dies

The Familiar Life Dies

 The death of a spouse goes deeper than the loss of a person. You also lose the life built on being a couple, in home and outside of it. Grief may be compounded by awkwardness in your social circles. Still attached couples wonder how long do they keep expressing condolences. Do you invite the friend in mourning to parties or nights out as a fifth wheel or chance a faux pas by introducing another single person to even the group?

Personal security, especially in the financially insecure and elderly, may be obliterated. My mom moved away from us kids—we call every day—has one relative nearby, and though he and his wife are wonderfully caring, they have their own busy life. My parents weren’t the group-joining kind and made one friendship in a neighboring couple who have also been very solicitous.

Still, most of the day is spent alone. Apparently it’s not sufficient motivation to move closer to us. While we were growing up, we rented three different houses. My dad, for whatever reason, refused to buy a house. My mother saved, bought a house in Massachusetts for their retirement, and told him he could come along or not—his choice. He went of course. They moved to a second house in Georgia to cut costs, mainly from fuel expenses. Even after ten years of living there, my dad hadn’t insured it.

The hard-earned, hard-won house has become my mom’s safe place. All her dreams of a good life are tied up in owning a pretty house. Selling it and returning to renting an apartment, even if it’s closer to her family, feels like failure rather than a new chapter in life she doesn’t want but might be forced to accept as her health deteriorates. As her loved ones, we have to ask ourselves if it’s kinder to leave her where she feels safe and, with fewer people to watch over her, where she will probably die earlier or to insist she move and chance her dying from miserable anxiety. Sometimes no good choice exists.

A Parent's Death

Personal Note

While in Georgia for almost three months, I wrote not one word. I read constantly between all the chores of cleaning up after a life has ended. I’m starting up my blog again and will post on Mondays.

A Parent’s Death

I’m a stress eater. From August through October, I lost ten pounds. Continuous adrenaline spikes will do that. They burden the digestive system and, gone on too long, cloud the mind. My father’s foot lifted to the curb and missed. He fell into the convenience store’s lot and avoided having his head crushed by inches. No doubt scared a few years off the parking customer’s life.  Took his in a few weeks. The broken hip would have healed. He came through surgery confused but okay. The kidney disease exacerbated by cancer was the actual cause of death.

Urgings to prepare for the inevitable—the cancer had been treatable for the short-term, incurable long-term—went unheeded. It is recommended that surviving spouses refrain from making life-altering decisions for at least a year after a loved one’s death. And maybe you can do that if you prepare ahead—have enough insurance to cover debt, have all possessions in both spouses’ names, and encourage each other to be as independent as possible. This in part means both know how to handle bills and where the important policies, certificates, and such have been stored.

I read twenty novels in two-and-a-half months, mostly escapist reading, as necessary for combatting stress as the hard exercise hauling out clutter from fifty-nine years of marriage, over forty, thirty-gallon bags worth; setting up stuff my mother never used for an estate sale in the garage, kitchen, living room, and bedroom, spending hours pricing and tagging each item; hauling out and unpacking boxes of unused stuff and packing must-keep items, which continually revolved back and forth as my mom changed her mind about the saleable stuff.

An ironic choice, the first book I read was Matthew Thomas’s We Are Not Ourselves, about a family dealing with Alzheimer’s. Character-driven, it had no plot per se other than the course of the disease but kept my scattered attention and emotions engaged. My mother suffers from dementia and shouldn’t be alone. I convinced her to sell her house and come live with me—sort of. Packing and sale preparations often stopped for days as she again and again changed her mind, afraid to live alone, confused by even basic chores such as calling in medication refills, but even more afraid of giving up her house.

Next week—what a house means to my mother.

Shark Story--End

Personal Note

My elderly dad, who is suffering from cancer, broke his hip Sunday morning. I have to go to Georgia to be with my mom, who isn’t well enough to be alone. I don’t know when I’ll return to posting the blog. My parents don’t have an internet connection. Prayers would be appreciated.

Guest Post—last installment by Diane Kane

THE ONE THAT DIDN’T GET AWAY

BY DIANE KANE

During the next thirty minutes, the shark jumped completely out of the water three times. This attracted a sizable audience of various boats, including the entire cheering crew of a Navy ship. In one heart stopping moment, a small boat nearly drove right across my line while they were admiring this awesome animal pivoting its entire body about 30 feet straight in the air. They were unaware that it was connected to our boat by a thin nylon line, until at the last minute they realized that was probably why eight screaming maniacs were yelling, jumping up and down and blowing the horn at them!

 I had reeled him near the boat twice but Captain Bob was unable to get a clear shot with the harpoon. I could tell when the shark was getting close by the nasty little knot that had tangled in my line. It was after 30 minutes of continuous reeling when the elusive fish shot back out of the water for the second time, taking three quarters of my line from the reel again, when Captain Bob informed me, “It will be a miracle to land this fish.”  Well, I wasn’t quite sure I believed in modern miracles but my boat full of faithful followers kept me going. That and the thought, if I complained just a little, there were six guys that were dying to grab that pole away from me.

Therefore I pulled the rod tight into my already bruised hip and willed my sore arm to keep on reeling. After another 20 minutes, I spotted that nasty little knot in my line that told me the shark was near. Just then I saw it snap, I felt the line go limp and my heart sank to my feet. It was all for nothing, I thought.

But no! Just as the line had snapped, Captain Bob, with a shot that would have put Captain Quint to shame, had found his mark. As he tied the massive fish to the side of the boat, since it would not fit on board, a tear came to my eye and an ache to my arm that would last for the next couple weeks.

 Captain Bob turned to shake my hand and said with a sly smile, “Next time you go fishing with a bunch of guys, don’t act like such a girl.” Lollie said this was Captain talk for “Job well done!”

Captain Bob phoned everyone he knew on the ride in and we docked to a crowd of photographers and reporters. We could have sold the catch of the day for a dollar a pound at the dock, but after nearly an hour of getting to know him, we were not ready to part company with this 411 lb giant of the sea. So we loaded the infamous animal in the back of Dominic’s Toyota pickup truck, along with 900 lbs of ice, generously donated by admirers at the Newport Icehouse. Then we made our way up Interstate 495, much to the disbelief of passing cars. When this fish out of water landed next, miles away from its original home, he was greeted again by newspaper photographers. “MIRACLE CATCH,” the headlines read.

But this was not the end of his journey. In a desperate search for a taxidermist who would agree to stuff this enormous creature, a twist of fate lead us to Mr. John Bulduc of Wells, Maine. He was the only man we could find who was brave enough to attempt this feat (9 ½ feet to be exact). Every other taxidermist we talked to wanted to order a fiberglass replica and paint it to look like my shark. We wanted the real thing or nothing. Well, it was almost nothing. We had given up, when Dominic and his cousin Pete the butcher were getting ready to cut up Mako steaks. That was when I decided to give it one more shot and call information in Maine. The yellow page supervisor was just a little put out by my request to read me a list of taxidermists on the Maine coast. So in a moment of inspiration, I quickly asked if there were any taxidermists in Wells, Maine. I knew Wells was on the coast and it also happened to be my maiden name. I quickly wrote down the one number she gave me.

    

When I called Mr. Bulduc, his first answer was the same as all the other taxidermists we talked to, fiberglass replica. I proceeded to tell him the incredible story and he was hooked. “Big fish, small fish, it’s all the same procedure,” he said slowly. “I’ll do it!” I called Dominic and Pete just before they were about to make the first cut.

So we put the shark back in the truck and packed him with ice and he was on the road again, this time to the shores of Maine, where he was met again by local newspaper photographers. You see, Mr. Bulduc was just a little excited himself.  He failed to mention to me on the phone that he had never stuffed a fish over two feet long before. But he assured me again, “It’s all the same process.” He immediately extracted 200 lbs of shark meat, which we sold to various markets, as well as being the special of the day at The Barre Mill Restaurant.

Six months later, Mr. Bulduc called to say mission accomplished. The scars that covered his hands were inflicted by razor like teeth from when he had extracted the jaw. They would fade eventually but I got the feeling he wished they wouldn’t.  Now our shark was ready to ride again. This time no ice would be necessary.  Packed tightly in a hand crafted wooden crate made especially for him, my Mako came home to The Barre Mill Restaurant. Dominic had to make a 9 and half foot notch in the wall over the bar to accommodate him. There he hangs to this day in all his glory for everyone to see, the believers and non-believers alike.

As for me, I believe in miracles!