Bad Days and Alzheimer’s Disease

Okay, so I put in my application at Starbucks.  At least I DID something. It was better than
doing nothing. At worst, if it turns out to be too much for me, I can always
start and work there and then quit. It’s a free world.

You wouldn’t believe how stupid I’ve been lately.  I don’t know whether it’s due to lack of
sleep, being sick, the meds I’m taking, or early onset Alzheimer’s disease, but
I’ve really been doing stupid things. 
Today I had to get my assessment fee to the post office. It’s
technically supposed to be in the office by tomorrow.  I usually pay it automatically through
electronic bill pay but they changed the address on us the first of the year
only I didn’t realize that so last month’s check went to the wrong address.
(January’s check was sent off in December so the address was still okay.)  We only became aware that the address was
wrong when we got mail at the end of February saying that they wanted the fee
and a late fee.  At that time I went back
to our bill pay and saw that it got sent off but when we called they brought
the address to our attention.  I looked
at my account more closely and realized the bill pay place had left a message
saying it had come back and they had credited my checking account.  I hadn’t even noticed that and of course we
had spent the money.  I had been sick and
not paying attention *sigh* so it was like having to pay TWO assessment fees
then L  So anyway I had to pay it to the right
place.  I then thought I had updated the
address but apparently didn’t update it correctly because when I went in to
double check it yesterday, the same thing had happened with this month’s
assessment fee so I found myself writing a check and having to take it over to
the post office today so that it would get to the office by tomorrow.  The office it has to get to is in a far
suburb so I couldn’t just drive it over there. 
It was imperative that I get it to the post office TODAY.

Along with that I had a check to deposit in our checking
account and I wanted to drop this application I had filled out over at the
local Starbucks.  These were the three
little errands I had for myself today on my day off.  Originally I was also going to go to morning
Bible study at the church and maybe do the laundry too but as the morning wore
on, by the time I had done the things I had set up for myself at home, those
other things were ruled out.

I got the check written and in the envelope, the application
filled out, and the check for deposit ready to go then I headed out to the
car.  I drove all the way to the post
office, parked and went in, whipped open my purse to get out the envelope and
began to dig… no envelope.  I searched
all over… still no envelope.  I was so
disgusted.  I realized that I must have
left it sitting on the couch.  Back to
the car thinking that I would have to turn around and go all the way home to
get it because of the three little errands I had to do, that was the one that I
couldn’t wait to do until later! That envelope HAD to be mailed TODAY.

 I got into the car, turned the key and nothing! The car
wouldn’t even turn over.  This was
unbelievable.  It seemed like the battery
had just died on me in the three minutes I had spent in the post office.  I tried it again, still nothing.  Arrggghhh. 
I dug in my purse and found my AAA card and called them, gave them all
the details and was warned it would take about 45 minutes before they could get
there.  I resigned myself to a long wait
sitting out there in the cold car in front of the post office and, as I sat, I
began to worry about how my daughter would get my granddaughter to her baton
twirling competition tomorrow as I had promised to drive them tomorrow
night.  I decided to call and give her a
heads up just in case the car would have to be towed and worked on.  We chatted for awhile and she (having some
knowledge of cars) said she thought it sounded like the attachments (or
whatever they’re called) for the battery were just corroded and that I should
open the hood and move them a bit.  I
didn’t really want to do that so I told her I’d wait until AAA got there.  After talking for awhile she put her husband
on the phone.  We were trying to
determine if it was the battery and he said something about the headlights.  Just for the heck of it, I turned the lights
on and they lit up.  “That’s funny,” I
said, “The lights work.” 

“The lights work?” he asked, “are you sure it’s in park?”

 I checked it, “Yeah, it’s definitely in park.” 

“Are you sure?”

 “I can jiggle it a little bit.”  I jiggled it a lot and then tried it again
and the car started instantly!  I was
glad of that but disgusted that it hadn’t worked earlier.  I had tried jiggling it earlier, but hadn’t
done more than just jiggled it a bit because I thought that was such a stupid
idea… guess it wasn’t so stupid after all. 

So, I thanked him and then I had to drive all the way home
still, get the envelope and turn around to drive all the way back to mail
it.  I still made it in time, though, to
get it out today.  After that I headed
toward the bank/Starbucks but the road twisted in a way I didn’t expect so I
ended up mindlessly turning the opposite direction from where I wanted to go
adding an extra 5 minutes to my trip.

The rest of it went off without a hitch, thank God.

Anyway, those kind of things kept happening to me today and
I kept thinking about my Dad, before we knew he had Alzheimer’s.  He got it back before it was
fashionable.  Nobody had ever even heard
of it back then and I remember going to the post office with him before I moved
to Germany –
before my younger daughter was born (so it must have been about 29 years
ago).  My dad was only about 55 years old
at the time and we went to the post office together.  He went inside to get some odd combination of
stamps and came out with the wrong thing. 
He said (more to himself than to me), “I think I’m losing my mind.”  That was more true and prophetic than even he
realized.  He was literally losing his
mind. He had early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

I get scared because early onset is supposedly genetically
related which means either myself or my brothers may be in for this wonderful
treat anytime soon.  It doesn’t thrill me
to find out (in news articles just released yesterday or the day before) that
new studies indicate that lack of insulin in the

brain main be a contributing
factor.  They’ve discovered that the
brain secretes insulin as well as the pancreas and that Alzheimer’s disease may
be a Type III diabetes.  With my brother
and my son both Type I diabetics, it wouldn’t be out of the question to have my
father be a Type III diabetic – where would that leave me?

So anytime I forget something or do stupid stuff, I begin to
worry about Alzheimer’s disease and I have been doing really stupid stuff for
the past couple of weeks.  But what can I
do.  If I have Alzheimer’s disease I don’t
believe there’s anything much they can do at this point to stave it off.  I did read recently that smoking pot helps…
they’ve found that cannabinoids slows the progression – go figure – so you
never know-  I’ve never really been into
pot, the high never really did it for me, but maybe for medicinal purposes….