Sometimes life in the land of being demented can be a pretty
challenging place and in fact we see things the doctors don't and no I
am NOT talking about the alien at the foot of the bed
(hallucination). Sometimes things are obvious to us that
"normally-abled" people might miss entirely. Let me give you a simple
and funny (if it isn't you) example of this. The NIH identifies at
least 15 major classifications of aphasia (difficulty communicating),
everything from inability to read certain words to in ability to utter
certain words and so on. In my case the aphasia is more at what I
consider the macro-level; it doesn't just swap out a word where and
there, if I don't keep a close eye on it, it swaps whole phrases and
somethings whole sentences. I know what I want and mean to say,
word-for-word but what comes out has a certain randomness to it
classical to all aphasias like the wrong word but one that rhymes or
might be another word that starts with the same first letter or it
might be the polar opposite. Its like the whole thought gets tangled
on the way out. And one way having a wife for a care-giver is they are
more accustomed to that and perhaps more forgiving.

But it only goes so far and that is the point of this story. As I said
above the NIH has identified 15 or so major classifications of aphasia
but I will describe an additional one they completely miss that can
leave me stammering and almost unable to utter speech. I don't think
the docs have connected the dots yet but any LBD or even some
Parkinsons patients will be nodding at this going, "yep....."

It goes like this:

* It has also been found in some Parkinsons studies that Parkinsons
patients with appreciable amounts of dementia also have an almost
uncontrollable compulsion for truth, hard, blunt unvarnished
truth. This has been documented well and the reasons why speculated
on by many smarter than I. For me its enough to know this is very
probable fact.

* The reason why its fact to me is that often (and more often lately)
my brain has been boiling nice things "your dress accentuates your
hair and makes you look lovely" down to something like "But it makes
your butt look big." always a self-destructive thing for any SO. Not
out of meanness or even actual fact (her behind is just fine, thank
you) but it just comes out. Its not any one in particular either;
had a cable salesman come to our door the other day and I screwed up
and answered the door. Even though I have little patience for cable
TV (long technical story for another time), the efficient and
frankly pollitic thing would be to thank him for his time and close
the door, like 10 seconds and the pain is over. But no, instead of
that out comes the truth: last cable guy that came here cost us this
much money and lied about that and ..." you get it. It wasn't me
dumping on him, there was no anger in my voice, it was all said in a
real even tone but....thats what rolled out...which of course
started an argument with the kid but thats not the point. There is
no feeling or any motivation behind it, the truth just rolls on
out....

To be this additional form of aphasia is only active when you have
this problem and have enough self-preservation left to know you want
to live through the evening. So consequently when I am asked about a
new dress, haircut or other maritally-nuclear thing I clamp my mouth
shut so hard my teeth grind and I just "MMMfffffmfmfmf" and she feels
sorry for the aphasia, unknowing of the bullet just-dodged. It could
be to most beautiful thing I have seen, makes her very desirable but I
like breathing as much as the next person....and the aspects of this
disease and I are becoming....I don't know, fox-hole buddies I
guess. The guest you wish would leave but you must tolerate.


This may sound funny but from the outside it looks REALLY bad. But bad
can be better than some forms of death or violence.

I had better get on the line to the NIH right away....


Peace Jeff