118 | March• 2018
WAITING FOR ALZHEIMER’S
For some time she had experienced
the sensation of clouds coming over
her. There had been a few hiccups at
her job. She was a nurse with a mas-
ter’s degree in public health, who’d
moved into several administrative
positions. Once, she was leading a
staff meeting when she had no idea
what she was talking about, her mind
like a stalled engine.
Certain mundane tasks stumped
her. She told her husband, Jim Taylor,
that the blind in the bedroom was bro-
ken. He showed her she was pulling
the wrong cord. It kept happening.
Finally he scribbled on the wall which
cord was which.
So, yes, she’d had inklings that
something was going wrong with her
mind. But to not recognise her own
face! This was when she had to accept
a terrible truth. “Before then I thought
I could fake it,” she would later ex-
plain. “This convinced me I had to
come clean.”
She confided her fears to her hus-
band and made an appointment with
a neurologist. The neurologist listened
to her symptoms, took blood, gave
her a standard cognitive test. She was
askedtocountbackwardsfrom100in
intervals of seven. He told her three
common words, said he was going
to ask her about them later. When he
asked, she knew only one.
He gave a diagnosis of mild cogni-
tive impairment, a common precursor
to Alzheimer’s disease. The first label
that was put on what she had. Even
then, she understood it was the foot-
fall of what would come. Alzheimer’s
had struck her father, an aunt and a
cousin. She long suspected it would
eventually find her.
Alzheimer’s is degenerative and in-
curable, and democratic in its reach.
Worldwide nearly 47 million people
have Alzheimer’s or related demen-
tia. People live with it about eight to
ten years on average after diagnosis,
though some people last for 20 years.
The disease moves in worsening
stages to its ungraspable end. That is
the familiar face of Alzheimer’s, the
BEGANWITHWHATSHESAWINTHE
bathroommirror.GeriTaylorpaddedintothe
shinybathroomofherNewYorkapartmentand
casually checked her reflection. Immediately, she
stiffenedwithfright.Shedidn’trecogniseherself.
Shegazedatherimage,thinking:Oh, no, that’s not me.
Who’sthatinmymirror?That was late 2012. She was 69
years old and recently retired.
IT
