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.