045 - Early Onset Dementia
Do you remember?
At the Christmas drinks party the conversation turns to Freediving. The waters here are too cold says the young man, and she feels pity for him, for his constrained thinking. It’s not so cold, she counters, if you have the right gear. He asks about the brand of wetsuit she wears and she struggles to find the answer. She knows her wetsuit, she knows the brand, she’s said it so many times in the past, why won’t the words come? Smiling awkwardly and apologizing for the lapse in memory she thinks to herself how ditzy she must sound. Is this it? Is this how it starts? Words moving out of reach in her mind, one by one?
What would it be like, to lose your mind? Is it a slow fading of familiar things? Does everything simply become confusing? What are the first things to go? What could she watch out for? How will it happen? When will it happen? It happening already?
Booze. Now that she’s not drinking because of that indisputable, direct causation link to dementia she’s realizing how ubiquitous it is. Celebrations, commiserations, get-togethers, leaving parties…they all center around booze. Swirling the yellow liquid in her glass she thinks about all the times she’d swallowed the poison in the past and how her new knowledge stops her. Her parents are still sharp in their nineties and they barely drank. So unlike her college years when drinking was a team sport and they’d buy extra pints at last call to chug before getting thrown out onto the street. How much damage had she done?
They say exercise is the best protection for the brain. Her alarm beeped her back into existence at 5am sharp this morning and she forced her legs over the side of the bed even as her mind hugged the pillow for just. One. More. Minute. She sleepdressed herself into leggings, sports bra and t-shirt and stumbled into the living room where she’d laid out the TV remote control the night before in anticipation of this moment. Flicking on the dance video she halfheartedly followed the smiling instructor. How much actual effort is needed to protect the brain? Was it heart rate zone 2 or zone 3?
Bridge kept her aunt sharp well into her eighties. The weekly Bridge night with the ladies. There are apps to learn the game nowadays, maybe she should learn? Would playing against the computer be the same as playing with friends? Maybe there’s a bridge club in the neighborhood.
