Natural Improvement in Weeks
I got tested for the Alzheimer's gene last year. My doctor looked at the results and said I have a significantly elevated risk of developing the disease by 75. Then she said something I will never forgive her for. "There's not much we can do about it. We'll monitor you." Monitor me. Doing what. Watching it happen. I walked out of that office and sat in my car for forty minutes. Not crying. Thinking. Because I had already watched this movie once. I watched it destroy my mother for eleven years. And I was not going to sit in a doctor's office every six months being "monitored" whilst the same thing happened to me. But I need to tell you what I watched first. Because if your mother or your grandmother had this disease, you already know parts of this story. And the parts you don't know are the parts that are going to make you furious. My mother was the sharpest woman I have ever known. She ran the books for my father's business for 28 years. Never missed a number. She remembered every birthday in our family and there are a lot of us. She could tell you what she wore to her sister's wedding in 1974 and what song was playing when my father proposed. The first sign was so small I am ashamed I laughed at it. She called me on a Tuesday. Told me a story about something that happened at church. I said "Mum, you told me that yesterday." There was a pause. Then she said "Did I?" in this quiet little voice that did not sound like her. We called them ‘senior moments’. We joked about it. She joked about it. Nobody was joking two years later. The words started disappearing. She would be talking and just stop. Mid-sentence. You could see her searching. The word was right there and she could not reach it. She would wave her hand and say "oh, you know what I mean" and we would all fill in the blank and move on like it was nothing. It was not nothing. Then the notes started. And this is the part that breaks me even now. She kept lists. Everywhere. Yellow sticky notes on t
