The Shadow of Alzheimer’s

Last night The Professor, The Architect and I went out to dinner at a local Indian restaurant. The Architect happened to mention a show he heard on PBR regarding advances in Alzheimer’s research that showed promise. The research involved the use of vaccinations to help people develop antibodies against the amyloid plaques that Alzheimer’s victims form in their brains. I’d heard about this research before, but mostly what I’d heard regarded the problems with this approach. I mentioned this, and we spent some time discussing what we knew of the research.

I take particular interest in this subject because my family history puts me at higher than usual risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease. My maternal great-grandmother, my maternal grandmother and my mother all developed Alzheimer’s. As I understand it, I have a fifty/fifty chance of developing it myself.

I watched what the disease did to my grandmother and my mother. I watched two highly intelligent, independent people become reduced to utter dependence upon those we entrusted their care to. I watched the bewilderment, the confusion, the panic, the depression, the anorexia, and the total loss of quality of life as their lives deteriorated past the point where my presence was any comfort to them. Indeed neither even knew who I was when their disease became advanced. I’ve sworn that I will not allow that to happen to myself.

I warned The Professor when I realized we were becoming seriously involved with each other that this was a something that could happen to me. I also told him that, if it does happen, I would take measures to end my life before my brain dies and leaves my body behind to slowly degenerate. I made it clear that this was not a subject open to debate. Alzheimer’s is not, and never will be, reversible. Brain cells lost are identity lost. And I personally find the idea of my body living on without an identity living inside of it an obscene concept.

The Professor accepted my wishes regarding this easily enough. But I’m fifteen years older than he is, and both my mother and grandmother began showing unmistakable signs of Alzheimer’s around the age of 65. That, coupled with what he perceived as my apparent negativity during the discussion of Alzheimer’s research over dinner last night threw the Prof into a major depression last night.

With a houseguest it was impossible for him to talk to me about it before bed. After we retired, however, we spent over an hour and a half talking about it. He’s steadfast in his belief that a cure/preventative will be found in the next twenty years, before I reach 65. He’s read that taking zinc helps prevent the onset of symptoms, and wants me to start taking it now. He is dismayed by what he interprets as my pessimism regarding the success of Alzheimer’s research.

I’ll find a zinc supplement and take it. So long as I’m careful to keep my intake below toxic levels, it can’t hurt anything. As for the rest – how do I explain the realities of research to him? By way of example, Nixon declared war on cancer 25 years ago, calling for a cure within a decade. And yet cancer remains a specter that is perhaps more treatable in some cases, but still very much among us. Research comes with no guarantees, and will follow no man’s deadline. I certainly hope that researchers find answers, and soon. But right now all they are doing is following leads. There aren’t any answers yet, just promising lines of research to follow, and dedicated scientists to pursue those lines.

The mechanism of Alzheimer’s disease is poorly understood. And Alzheimer’s is insidious. If I do have it, then the very beginnings of it have already started in my brain.

The brain is a wonderful organ. It is capable of amazing feats of compensation. Age 65 is not when my grandmother and mother suddenly developed Alzheimer’s. It is when their brains could no longer fully compensate for the damage incurred, and clear behavioral signs finally manifested themselves. How do I explain to the Professor that I don’t have 20 years to wait for a cure to be developed, but that I need one in five years, ten years, if I’m to be able to continue to function on a high level?

This is a big game of “ifs”. There is a good chance that I haven’t even inherited the disease. My mother spent most of her adult life petrified that she’d develop the disease. Every time she misplaced her car keys or couldn’t remember somebody’s name she was convinced that she was showing the first signs. She allowed this fear to color the way she lived, and I will not let this happen to myself.

We all live until we die, and life comes with no guarantees. I intend to live life as fully as I can, while I can. I’m not counting on time I may not have, but neither am I counting on a disease I may not have. One day at a time is the only way to play the game of life. I am not “pessimistic”. I am simply living life one day at a time, without allowing fear or unfounded optimism talk me into making foolish decisions. I only hope that the Professor can understand this and adopt this way of thinking as well.