Updating Cognition

It's been almost a month since I posted about my dementia diagnosis.  At that time, I was still a bit freaked out, but I'm much more mellow now, accepting that it is what it is and deciding how I'm going to go softly into that goodnight down the road.  I'm being proactive and have integrated a few new routines  into my life that seem to be making a difference.

One change has been making sure I am not just present, but that I am leaving the house at least once a day to interact with other people.  This past week, I had my visit with my therapist, lunch and a movie with a dear friend, and I asked another friend if she'd like to go to lunch, which she did, and we had a good time chatting.  I continue to walk the dogs twice a day, and many of the neighbors who know us by sight, but not name, make a point of greeting us.  One day a week I go grocery shopping either at Von's, if it's just groceries, or at WalMart if I need a variety of things not unique to a grocery store.  I am keeping lists so I don't have to remember, and then making sure I stick to the lists when I shop.

My memory game playing has improved and I'm up to Level 30 on Pyramid, which means it's time to find another left-brain activity to engage my brain.  I've done some reading about brain stimulation that says it's important to target both the left and right brain on a daily basis, trying to balance out the amount of stimulation between the two sides of the brain.  I'm using my writing for the right brain, including reading FB posts and responding in a sentence to those that interest me, rather than just clicking "like."  I've connected with many former students and have had "conversations" with them, which has brought back a lot of memories from the past. One piece of information intrigued me when I read about the benefit from coloring as a right brain activity because I've been coloring for the past several months just because it felt good to do that.  Glad to know I was getting some tangible reward for the hours spent.  I'm going to get a book of crossword puzzles to work on as that seems to target both the left and the right brain, and integration is good.

I also did some research online about brain activity and was captured by a Dr. who is at www.vitalitynow.org. He talks about the top 12 foods that fight brain aging and includes both hands-on activities and diet/exercise activities to help keep the brain active.  He sells a product, Youthful Brain, which I bought to add to other specific changes I'm making in my diet/exercise day plans, and I'm monitoring to see if there are any changes I can see/feel/measure.  He recommends N-back testing, which can be found online, and he gives it glowing reviews. He also stresses that there needs to be a balance of both right/left brain stimulation, and that it needs to progress as the brain starts to function better over time.

My goal is to do this one day at a time, not wasting time looking too far ahead and fearing the what if's.  If I keep reminding myself to think, and then actively think about things in my life, I have a better chance at keeping a healthy brain than if I just sit and stew about the what if's.

As an aside, I was interested in learning that both blueberries and apples are super good for a healthy brain.  I wonder if that's why I eat a blueberry muffin every day?  See?  I still have my sense of humor, so all is right with the world.

Risk and Reward

One day you're in; the next you're out. That's the way Project Runway scores the contestants. Doesn't matter what you did last because what's in front of us is what we're judging, and if it doesn't make it, the contest is over for you.  As a classroom teacher for 30 years, this was the hardest part of teaching, having to tell a student that work handed in for grading didn't cut it--or work over the course of a semester just wasn't up to the standard for passing the course. 

Teachers have feelings, and they usually try very hard to look for the best in each individual student's work, but sometimes, no matter how hard a person works or how much they want to earn an A it isn't going to happen this time.  Earning a grade of C means that a student has met the standard for passing a class, but far too often both the student and the parent thinks that working really hard and trying to be the best is good enough to earn an A, and that's not true. There is no way to sugar-coat a less than stellar grade, and we try with positive affirmations about next time, but some students simply will have to accept that their work is not stellar, it's average, and that's what a grade of C indicates.

I am suspicious of the news articles about a dozen students sharing valedictorian honors at graduation because that means that those students were rocketmen/women who blasted into outer space for 4 years and landed safely every time. Earning a 4.0 used to be a rare occurrence, but in today's inflated grade environment, it's much more common to have a group earn highest honors, even at the college level.  If everyone, however, is outstanding, then no one really is: they become average in a group of high achievers.

I learned as an adjunct college professor that students cheat. I knew that before, but especially became aware of it as electronics entered the educational environment. Before teachers were given permission to confiscate phones, students would send messages to other students both inside the same classsroom and to students sitting outside with the textbook (often a teacher's edition) so they can look up the correct response for a test or essay. Cheating used to be a risk; in today's classroom, it's a ritual. For every countermeasure the faculty employs, the students have a newer, better counter-measure to make sure that they can cheat with impugnity. The risk is not high as it's incredibly challenging to catch cheating, stop cheating, and deal with indignant parents whose child simply would never cheat regardless of the evidence to the contrary. My career in education formally ended a decade ago, when the electronics were first making their appearance in the classroom. I had issues at almost every class with students who were trying to succeed dishonestly because ... the excuses/reasons were endless. When the cheating was stopped in progress, the tears began to flow. What was expecially challenging at the college level was the stop at a counselor's office for a tear-filled counseling session that often ended with a heart-to-heart with the instruction that included an explanation of why it happened "this once," and why it would never happen again, and what kind of documentation is going to be needed to strengthen the accusations about the student's conduct if the instructor thinks the student should be suspended from college. One key piece to this problem in the general education environment is the backing from the parents. Believe me, if a teacher catches a student cheating and goes far enough to involve a counselor and the parents, the student was cheating--and it probably wasn't the first time. At the college level, a student who is caught cheating either has never been caught before or realized at an early age that the student has the upper hand when it comes to dealing with the teacher, then the counselor, and finally the administration. Yes, as you can probably realize, one of the reasons I retired before I had finished my teaching career is that I was burned out by issues such as students' cheating. As an adjunct professor teaching aboard a military base, one adult student actually called the MPs on me for "stealing" from her when I confiscated her cheat notes during a testing environment. That pretty much showed me that I was a dinosaur and it was time to move on. As they say, "One day you're in and the next you're out."

Cognitive Dissonance

It's coming up on 3 months since I came home from the doctor with a diagnosis of early-onset dementia. He assured me that there is treatment, including a prescription of Aricept, and urged me to "do things" that stimulate my brain to think, to work, to remember. I was taken aback, but not really surprised that there was "something wrong" as my good friends had pointed out to me that I was having memory issues for quite a while (as long as 2 years, according to one friend). I, however, heard the word "dementia" and freaked out, remembering my mother's years of decline into total Alzheimers by the time of her death. It was not pretty seeing her fumbling around in a mental fog for the majority of her final decade, and I could only think, "Dear God, what am I going to do?"

Well, the first thing I did was take Aricept, which triggered the manic phase from hell!  I was so filled with energy and enthusiasm that I started decluttering my house to the nth degree.   I was a maniac on a mission.  I ended up taking the RAV filled with boxes to Angel View a couple of times a day for days on end. When my daughter showed up on my doorstep, wondering what the hell was going on, she got into the spirit of the thing and helped me with the kitchen. I had 18 boxes labeled "dishes" and "kitchen" from when I moved into this house 19 years ago, but they had sat on shelves in the garage unopened, so I just gave them away.  I have no idea what was in the boxes, but I hope whatever it was was put to good use by someone else.

Part of what brought my daughter to the desert was my delighted news that I had decided to sell my house and move. In my manic phase (I am bipolar and on meds for that, which apparently reacted to the Aricept), I decided that now was as good a time as any to just pack up and move. The thought didn't go any farther than that, into such mundane questions as to why? where? when? how? I was flying off the rooftops and taking on the whole world. When the children intervened and asked some interesting questions, such as where? when? how? why?, I couldn't respond because that kind of practical information was unavailable. What finally brought me out of my mental state, however, was a very sobering thought: what about my dogs?  They are my family, and they go where I go, but I hadn't factored in housing issues, such as big yard, fences, and transporting them from  here to wherever.  I had signed a sales contract, but was able to cancel it (thank God for the cooling off period required by law), so I stopped that process before it got serious.  I was half-way finished with the possessions purge, so continued with that -- and got a very welcomed visit from my daughter, who had come to see first-hand what the hell was going on with mom.

As a final finish to the purge project, I hired a contractor to come in and refinish and then repaint all of my kitchen cabinets. With all the space remaining after getting rid of 20 years' worth of stuff and the kitchen brightening with the off-white finish, I am once again happy with being in my house. I do have a big yard and a separate dog run out back, so I don't have to worry about what my poor dogs would do if all I could find to live in was an apartment in a senior community.

My body has adjusted to the combination of my bi-polar meds and the Aricept, so I'm not longer flying to the moon and back every hour.  I also realized that I was donating to every charity that contacted me, and shopping online for neat things I neither wanted nor needed. Mindy did some quiet sleuthing while she was here and realized what was going on, so she had a very frank discussion with me and told me to stop writing checks to charity and stay off online shopping sites.  I will admit that I have ordered a few things recently, but I'm keeping track of what I've ordered and how much it costs so I don't get surprised with a $500 bill due at the end of the month.

The final piece to the new me is dealing with the diagnosis and realizing that I am going to have to be proactive as the weeks, months, years pile up to be sure that I'm staying as mentally sharp as is possible for me to be.  The doctor suggested playing memory games on the computer, and even though I'm not much of a gamer, I found one called Pyramid that I like. Numbers have always been an issue for me, and this game requires me to quickly add cards to total 13 to advance up the pyramid and clear the board.  At first, it was challenging as I couldn't remember what combinations of numbers equaled 13, but slowly but surely it has implanted in my brain and I don't have to think about it with every play.  I haven't lost the ability to express myself in writing, which is both a blessing and a positive outlet for excess energy.  There are things that I cannot remember, especially if it happened yesterday, or last week, or God forbid last month.  Sometimes Yucheng will remind me and then I can call up a memory, but not one replete with details. He's had to show me a dozen times how to get a picture off my phone and onto Facebook, but he's very good with repeating the instructions so I can do the process myself (hopefully; it's still a work in progress). When I can't remember something we said/did last weekend when he was home, he simply tells me about it so I can remember.  Yucheng and my dogs keep me active, and being active and involved in life is going to make a big difference in how I proceed through this new phase of my life.

I will be in regular contact with my primary physician, a man I respect to tell me the truth about the positives and the negatives associated with my diagnosis. I'm no longer in total disbelief or despair as time has allowed the reality to set in and become do-able. I'm going on Facebook every day, reading and responding to various posts and writing my own posts if there's anything of note worth putting out there. I continue to go about my own little routine in the house, but I make sure I get out and about once each day, even if it's just to go to the post office to pick up my mail.  I'm not making any major changes, but simply challenging myself to be present in each moment. Sometimes, I sit down with my dinner and ask myself what I did today and see how much I can recall.  It's going to be the old saw from days gone by:  One day at a time, dear Lord, one day at a time.  I can do this and I will do this and it's going to be okay.