within.
âSo, whatâs next?â my wife asked, as if I knew.
I kept staring. We all deal differently with challenging times; not sure there is a correct way. Some exhale, some inhale, some just deflect and probe in more pragmatic ways. My wife is a goalie with her emotions. She can deflect, at least externally, the best slap shot drilled at her. Itâs a survival mechanism that she has passed down to some of our children. But all those emotional pucks, all that vulcanized rubber of denial, mount up and never decay. They just sit there, consuming space.
Mary Catherine was in the nets again this day.
In the back seat, there were some answers, but not the kind built on hope.
âThanks for your kind referral of Mr. OâBrien,â Clinical Neuropsychologist Gerald Elovitz of The Memory Center wrote just days ago to my personal physician, Dr. Conant. âI know from him that you spent much time discussing his cognitive changes, and the test results here show that they are real.â
Elovitz, who years earlier had diagnosed my late mother, Virginia Loretta (née Brown), with Alzheimerâs disease, went on to note, with reference to awaited test results of a brain SPECT scan, âI suspect an emerging frontotemporal dementia becoming more significant over the past 18 months and likely to progress ⦠If there is no frontotemporal dementia, I would then suspect an early-onset Alzheimerâs-type dementia.â
In a seven-page medical report, with terrifying cognitive test performance graphs, Elovitz described a person I would have never recognized, but yet had becomeâall results in analysis in the probable dementia range:
âMr. OâBrien is younger than 98 percent of the mean norm group age [for dementia], so his below average performance is very problematic ⦠[His] results fell within the range of cognitiveimpairment ⦠His seriously impaired score indicates a significant cognitive deficit in learning capacity for new information, and he needed cues on more than half of the test items to obtain the score ⦠General function levels fell in the very poor general function consistent with dementia. Mr. OâBrienâs very high agitation level merits concern ⦠The findings here reveal short-term memory function within the first-stage dementia range.â
Some denouement, I thought. What a freakinâ loser I am! I had always been an A-brain guy, a good provider, a decent husband, a caring father, and beyond that, a high-functioning, creative mind. For me, it was never about the money; it was all about succeeding in lifeâpaying the bills, taking care of family, and the process of intense thought, problem solving, and inspiration. The Jesuit logic, as my father used to say. Doctors, in follow-up medical reports, noted a âsuperior intelligence,â a nice shout out, I suppose, but perhaps I could have done more with it. Shame on me for that, all the more, shame now that the dots were not connecting, a disconnect at intervals of alarming proportion. My prized possession was heading to a state of atrophy.
Shit, this sucks!
The pretext was over; strategies and disguises for overcompensating in recent years exposed. But I was aversely at peace with it. Someone was finally listening. Maybe I wasnât alone, home alone. Mary Catherine, meanwhile, wobbly on her emotional skates, stood as firm as she could in the crease of the net, awaiting the next shot. Her head was in the game; protective mask down and no time for small talk.
Elovitz had observed in his report, âI went over these [dementia] possibilities with both the patient and his wife, and he told me frankly, âI am not surprised,â and seems relieved that we at least are addressing them head-on.â
Head-on is the only way Iâve known since I slid down the birth canal. The prone position. The oldest boy in a family of ten,I learned early on, for example, that if you
âSo, whatâs next?â my wife asked, as if I knew.
I kept staring. We all deal differently with challenging times; not sure there is a correct way. Some exhale, some inhale, some just deflect and probe in more pragmatic ways. My wife is a goalie with her emotions. She can deflect, at least externally, the best slap shot drilled at her. Itâs a survival mechanism that she has passed down to some of our children. But all those emotional pucks, all that vulcanized rubber of denial, mount up and never decay. They just sit there, consuming space.
Mary Catherine was in the nets again this day.
In the back seat, there were some answers, but not the kind built on hope.
âThanks for your kind referral of Mr. OâBrien,â Clinical Neuropsychologist Gerald Elovitz of The Memory Center wrote just days ago to my personal physician, Dr. Conant. âI know from him that you spent much time discussing his cognitive changes, and the test results here show that they are real.â
Elovitz, who years earlier had diagnosed my late mother, Virginia Loretta (née Brown), with Alzheimerâs disease, went on to note, with reference to awaited test results of a brain SPECT scan, âI suspect an emerging frontotemporal dementia becoming more significant over the past 18 months and likely to progress ⦠If there is no frontotemporal dementia, I would then suspect an early-onset Alzheimerâs-type dementia.â
In a seven-page medical report, with terrifying cognitive test performance graphs, Elovitz described a person I would have never recognized, but yet had becomeâall results in analysis in the probable dementia range:
âMr. OâBrien is younger than 98 percent of the mean norm group age [for dementia], so his below average performance is very problematic ⦠[His] results fell within the range of cognitiveimpairment ⦠His seriously impaired score indicates a significant cognitive deficit in learning capacity for new information, and he needed cues on more than half of the test items to obtain the score ⦠General function levels fell in the very poor general function consistent with dementia. Mr. OâBrienâs very high agitation level merits concern ⦠The findings here reveal short-term memory function within the first-stage dementia range.â
Some denouement, I thought. What a freakinâ loser I am! I had always been an A-brain guy, a good provider, a decent husband, a caring father, and beyond that, a high-functioning, creative mind. For me, it was never about the money; it was all about succeeding in lifeâpaying the bills, taking care of family, and the process of intense thought, problem solving, and inspiration. The Jesuit logic, as my father used to say. Doctors, in follow-up medical reports, noted a âsuperior intelligence,â a nice shout out, I suppose, but perhaps I could have done more with it. Shame on me for that, all the more, shame now that the dots were not connecting, a disconnect at intervals of alarming proportion. My prized possession was heading to a state of atrophy.
Shit, this sucks!
The pretext was over; strategies and disguises for overcompensating in recent years exposed. But I was aversely at peace with it. Someone was finally listening. Maybe I wasnât alone, home alone. Mary Catherine, meanwhile, wobbly on her emotional skates, stood as firm as she could in the crease of the net, awaiting the next shot. Her head was in the game; protective mask down and no time for small talk.
Elovitz had observed in his report, âI went over these [dementia] possibilities with both the patient and his wife, and he told me frankly, âI am not surprised,â and seems relieved that we at least are addressing them head-on.â
Head-on is the only way Iâve known since I slid down the birth canal. The prone position. The oldest boy in a family of ten,I learned early on, for example, that if you
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