Chapter 8 #3
When you visit your neurologist, you mention that the anxiety is getting bad. Again, very common. He writes you a prescription for Xanax, take as needed. But, given your diagnosis, he tells you to be very careful. Just one, okay? Sure thing, Doc. You betcha.
Mission accomplished again. Reddit and three reliable medical sites tell you you’re all set.
You buy some over-the-counter anti-nausea medication.
See? Clever. All that and a nice bottle of Grey Goose should do the trick.
Maybe you’ll splurge and get Chopin instead, since it will be your last cocktail.
You keep the pills and a note from yourself in a Tupperware container that you hide in a blue suitcase on the top shelf of your closet.
Unlike Alice, you won’t wait till you forget the “Am I Still Me” questions.
You couldn’t blame Alice, though. She had grandchildren on the way. A happy marriage (book version).
You feel stronger, braver. This is the hand you’ve been dealt, and so you’ll try to navigate it with grace and good humor. Like a noble warrior.
Your daily journal, recommended by the doctor, tells you things are stable.
Yes, there are the dead zone moments when you just go blank, but they don’t last too long.
Fifteen minutes, maybe. You write about the fog, the mistakes.
One day, you put a loaf of bread in the linen closet.
Another, you poured yourself a glass of Pine-Sol instead of apple cider (same color, anyone could make that mistake!).
You smelled it before you swallowed it, so you were unharmed.
But the journal also tells you there are days when you’re fine, when you can make breakfast, shower, dress appropriately, do jobs around the house.
Days when you don’t make a single mistake.
You find coping mechanisms to make life as good as it can be.
You set your phone to remind you to take meds or do a task.
Every day, you go for a long walk because exercise is important.
You listen to songs you know well and sing along.
You make nutritious meals and eat them. You meditate.
You do creative things, like paint or rearrange the furniture (which backfires when you crash into the couch the next week because it didn’t used to be in that spot).
On the downside, you see that you’re becoming clumsy. You fell off the last stair because you didn’t quite see it. Put a glass on the counter and missed, the glass shattering on the floor. You fell off the treadmill, which, to be fair, has happened more than once, and long before your diagnosis.
You chat with fellow dementia patients online, sharing your coping methods and frustrations. You, the youngest, still not too far along in the disease, can see your cyberfriends deteriorating. They post in gibberish—zoom ha I Join jo o popp look!!#
Inevitably, there’s the message from a relative or friend.
So sorry to have to tell you that Thea passed away two weeks ago.
This group meant so much to her. You talk about the exhaustion, the urgency, the command to wring the last drop of joy out of the time you’ve been given.
It’s exhausting, all that wringing. Not everyone with a disease wants to be an inspiration, after all.
Not everyone thinks death is a horrible outcome.
The end is coming for all of you in your little online community.
Paul, with his kind encouragement. Gloria, the inspiration, who is biking from Maine to Florida to raise money for Alzheimer’s research.
Betsy, who’s hoping to make it to her daughter’s wedding.
Arnie, who’s unabashedly bitter and says the things you all really want to say.
Why me? I hate everyone these days. There goddamn better be a heaven with the shit luck we’ve drawn.
With the future denied to you, the past abruptly burns with fiery importance.
The smell of Thanksgiving dinner when you were a kid.
The majesty of a summertime thunderstorm.
Sledding in the cold, cold snow, the runners hissing along on the steep hill.
You think of family members and friends, of the long, hot days of summer vacation, when time stood still. Crushes and dances and college tours.
The Core Four. Those memories are a green valley where your brain wants to spend hours basking in the sunlight.
It’s been two years since you were diagnosed.
Things are not going to get better, but you’re still mostly competent.
The fog episodes clear, though they’ve been getting longer.
You think about what you’d like to experience before you shuffle off this mortal coil.
Then the invitation to your twenty-fifth high school reunion arrives, and you know.
You have to see them, the best friends you ever had.
One more sleepover, one more chance to be the person you once were. One more chance to forgive and let go.
And then . . . then you’ll be ready to go to your blue suitcase, get that bottle of vodka and slide into the afterlife while you still have some say in the matter.