THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 68 JULY 31, 2019
BUILDING: COURTESY OF SUBJECT. SCAN: COURTESY OF GAVIN PALONE.LORD: MARY EVANS/RONALD GRANT/COURTESY EVERETT COLLECTION.with an itinerary for the morning and a ques-
tionnaire to fill out between tests, but before
my meeting with Dr. Michael Doney, who would
go over my history and answer any questions.
Another woman took my vitals: weight 177.6
pounds, blood pressure 118/72 and heart rate
- I was disturbed at my weight, as it always
was under 172 according to the scales at three
different Los Angeles Equinox locations, but
happy to be told that my blood pressure was
good and even proud when she commented on
how I must be athletic to have such a low rest-
ing heart rate. I almost offered that, if I take
it when I just wake up, it is usually around 43,
but then decided that such boastfulness would
be pathetic.
I was led to another room where my blood
was drawn and then returned to my suite
where I met Dr. Doney, who is about my age. We
went over my health history, which has been
happily uneventful. He asked me about any
concerns I might have and I told him that both
my dead father and living mother had dementia
and that I feared the genome sequencing would
reveal that I would meet a similar fate. Dr.
Doney explained that the genetic testing would
show if I had the APOE4 gene variant, and that
if I had one allele (genes have two alleles, one
from the mother and the other from the father),
it would mean I had a three to three and a half
times greater chance of getting Alzheimer’s,
and that if I had two APOE4 alleles, that would
increase my odds of the disease by 12 times.
I presented my conjecture-slash-hope that
my parents might not have Alzheimer’s, but
rather that their decades of reliance on anti-
depressants and anti-anxiety drugs might be
the cause of their condition. He agreed, saying
depression itself is strongly correlated with
like the people who work at an Aman or Four
Seasons Resort. She let me know that we’d be
looking at one hour and 15 minutes in the
machine, but I could take breaks when I
wanted them. She asked what music I wanted,
and I, being a middle-aged white man, chose
classic rock, as I’m sure she expected.
If you haven’t had an MRI before, it really
isn’t a big deal. You lie on your back and get
slid into a giant donut that makes a lot of
noise, with a TV monitor above your head, so
you can watch something during the proce-
dure. In this case, a video of tropical fish in a
tank, which was distracting and pleasant to
watch ... for about four minutes.
As the machine started whirring and clank-
ing, The Eagles’ “Lyin’ Eyes” came through the
headphones. Listening to the lyrics of this bal-
lad with more attention than I ever had before,
I wondered if Henley and Frey had made up
the whole story or if the lyrics emanated from
real characters. The “pretty girl” is described
in far greater detail than her husband, the
“rich old man with hands as cold as ice,” which
caused me to conjecture on his backstory. Did
he really love this much younger woman or
was he just trying to hold on to his youth? If
this was the case, as I suspected, would he also
be the type who’d spend a lot of money on a
high-tech health assessment that used artifi-
cial intelligence to offer a program with which
he might enhance and lengthen his time left
on this mortal coil? Before I could address the
irony of the song, I had fallen asleep.
“Do you want to take a break?” woke me
from my deep slumber. I reassured the voice
that I was good, and was then told that I would
need to hold my breath several times during
the next part. I did this 20 times, sometimesTHEN CAME
the CT scan of my
arteries. The technician
there, who was the most cheerful of the day,
on the order of a Club Med G.O., told me that
I’d have to hold my breath for these but not for
nearly as long as in the MRI. Compared to the
hour and a quarter spent in the donut, this
was comfortable and quick. After that, I was
back in my suite, had changed into my own
clothes and was sitting on a couch with
radiologist Dr. Nathan Hernandez to go over
the MRI and CT scans.
“How often do you actually find something
that is serious and in need of attention?” I
asked Dr. Hernandez.
“About 15 percent of the time,” he replied.
“How many of these do you do a day?”
“Usually, six to eight.”
“So, once a day you have to deliver bad news?”
“About that, yes,” he said, matter-of-factly.
This was the first time during the day that I
actually felt a bit nervous.
On a large screen, Dr. Hernandez pulled up
a profile image of my skull. For the first few
seconds that he described my brain, I had
trouble paying attention, as I was transfixed
and alarmed by how much, without the cover-
ing of flesh and hair, I looked like an orc from
The Lord of the Rings.
Coming out of my reverie, I picked up that
my brain looked good. I had no white mat-
ter hyperintensites, which appear as small
white spots on the MRI and could indicate
cognitive disease. A person my age would
normally have 10 to 15. No aneurysms. No
masses. My hippocampus volume was in the
81st percentile — down to single digits would
be considered normal — and that is impor-
tant, as a bad reading could indicate early
onset Alzheimer’s.
Dr. Hernandez took me through the pictures
of my insides southward to my lower organs.
I wondered if he had bad news, would he have
told me up front, or would he spend half an
hour going through the normal stuff and
then hit me with, “Now, this is interesting:Health Nucleus
in San Diego
addresses the
top causes
of aging with
early detection
of cancer
and neuro-
degenerative,
cardiac
and metabolic
diseases.Left: the author’s
brain scan.
Right: a similar-
looking orc
from The Lord of
the Rings.dementia and went on to highlight that even
with APOE4 E4, lifestyle would play a part of
the equation and it isn’t a sure thing that I’d
end up a mush brain (my terminology, not his).
He also said that they can usually see brain
abnormalities, such as reduced hippocampus
volume, in those who will have Alzheimer’s,
five to 10 years before cognitive difficulties
arise, and this will be covered in my MRI.
IN THE MRI
suite, I was greeted by a
woman, who I guessed
was in her mid-40s. She fit right in, mood-
wise, with the rest of the staff: super cheerful,
getting a little panicky that I would not be
able to make it to the point when the techni-
cian told me to exhale. It left me wondering
how someone older and less fit than me would
handle this activity. Later it was explained
that the length of time was based on the num-
ber of heart beats they needed to count off to
scan each part of my heart, so, ironically, my
prized slow heartbeat was the cause of my
near suffocation.
By the end of the MRI, my butt and lower
back hurt and I realized that they offer
breaks for good reason and that I should have
afforded myself some time out of the donut.