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2/28/07

Paint it Black.  It's a song I used to love, but could never relate to entirely.  Now, sadly, I can relate to it.  I know that getting depressed is a common reaction that Alzheimer's patients experience, especially as they approach the middle stage of the disease.  But I'm determined not to succumb to such a common predilection.   Besides, sitting around moping about what seems to be my ineluctable fate won't help to improve matters and may even contribute to my demise.  I'm glad I finally found my diary.  I forgot where I put it and couldn't find it for days.  It was right here under my pillow all along, resting comfortably. 

At the very least, I need to understand more about my illness and the progression of that illness.  I need to learn more about neurological organization and neurological disorganization.  I need to learn more about neurological function and neurological dysfunction.  I know, and appreciate how all of the abilities that I have hitherto possessed, depend upon an orchestrated arrangement of cognitive processes and their concomitant components.  

I've lost my train of thought.  Where was I?  Something about understanding my disease.  That reminds me, I still need to have my wife pick up my medication this afternoon.  Oh, she probably won't need to be reminded.  Now, I must focus.  I must get my mind to focus once again on the topic of today's entry. 

I need to understand more than just how the individual components of the brain work.  I need to know more than just what is happening in the localized neural tissue of the various brain regions.  I need to see the big picture, not just the cognitive components.  You are the creator, so you know more about how this system works, and how this system breaks down, more than all of the well-meaning neuropsychologists and cogntive psychologists put together.  While they scramble to secure unequivocal, generalizable findings, you know all. 

The lord giveth, and the lord taketh away.   After all, it is his to give and to take, not mine.  All the faculties I have heretofore possessed are gifts that God has bestowed upon me.  I must treasure them while I still have them.  I must thank him for each of them.  So lord, I thank you that I can still hold a reasonably rational, intelligent conversation.  I thank you that I can understand what others are attempting to communicate to me: their instructions, their advice, their memories (including memories that I share with them), their hopes, their dreams---even their complaints and their disappointments.  Being able to reciprocate the love that others, like my wife and my children have for me, is such a blessing. 

I thank you that I can still make a pretty good dinner, even if it means throwing hamburger patties on the grill and cooking them to perfection, while the beans burn inside on the stove. 

I thank you that I can navigate through surroundings---at least through surroundings that are routine and familiar to me.  I thank God that I can still recognize the beautiful faces of my wife and my children.  I thank God that I can still recognize places where I have lived throughout the course of my life, like Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and Wheaton, Illinois, for example.  I thank God that I can reason things out, and express them right here in my diary. 

I can still read and write, and now that I know that I will likely gradually lose these abilities, I treasure them even more, and I am so grateful for them. 

Am I sad?  Who could not be, given my diagnosis and my ineluctably dismal prognosis?  Do I want my whole world painted black?  I sure do.  But I can still see the colors that come from your painter's palette.