Category Archives: Aging

Size Matters!

Posted on December 18, 2021 | 3 comments

That’s a title that should get some attention, but it’s not what you think. As Ryan Reynolds once said in the hilarious sit-com Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place (1998-2001) “Come, sit, admire my big brain!”

I didn’t talk about this back in the Spring when it happened, but last April, out of nowhere, I had a massive migraine headache. I had never had one before, and the symptoms of this particular one were more like the symptoms you might have if you had a stroke, and that’s how they evaluated me at the hospital.

At one point after a brain scan a tech mentioned “some brain shrinkage” and off-handedly said “But that’s normal.” First, no guy wants shrinkage, especially George Costanza. Who remembers that episode?

As someone who has one of the genes responsible for Alzheimer’s and whose father had Alzheimer’s, hearing that you have brain shrinkage is particularly alarming. After watching my father get progressively worse over a number of years until his passing earlier this year, my biggest fear is that I will end up like him.

Following the ER visit where they decided that it was only a migraine headache, I was determined not to end up like my father. I began reading about Alzheimer’s, how and why it occurs, and possible behavioral/nutritional interventions to minimize my chances of forgetting all of you wonderful online friends over the next twenty years.

I just want Alzheimer’s that makes me forget every Keanu Reeve’s movie I’ve ever seen.

I’ve decreased my alcohol consumption. I’ve gone back to playing table tennis. I just signed up for piano lessons. I exercise every day. I’ve altered my diet, minimizing sugar intake and increasing fruits, vegetables and plant proteins, as well as intermittent fasting 2-3 times a week. I also have a half-caff cup of coffee once in the morning and once in the afternoon. All those things have added up to me feeling like my brain is sharper every day.

Because of a previous cancellation, yesterday was my first follow up with the neurologist. He was interested in whether I had any more migraine symptoms since the ER visit. I told him that I had some very mild symptoms now and then. Nothing that impairs my functioning or even bothers me much. I told him that my bigger concern was Alzheimer’s. I told him about my father and my genetic testing.

This is what I feel like my brain is now

He pulled up my brain scans on his laptop and said that there was not really any shrinkage and couldn’t understand why the tech had said that. He looked at an image of my brain and actually said, “That’s a great looking brain.” And he emphasized that it almost appeared as if my brain could barely fit inside my skull.

I walked out of that appointment feeling like I was floating on a cloud. A weight that I didn’t realize I was carrying was suddenly off my shoulders. I know though that I can’t let my guard down. Alzheimer’s is in my genes and it could get me if I’m not careful. At the end of the day though, all I’m thinking about, with a smile on my face, is that I don’t have any “shrinkage” and I have “a great looking brain.”

Don’t take anything for granted and have a great weekend! ~Phil

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Posted in Aging, Alzheimer's, Humor, Uncategorized

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Here’s What I’m Really Afraid Of…

Posted on November 13, 2021 | 3 comments

This is definitely me

I remember about fourteen years ago… Yay! I haven’t lost my mind to Alzheimer’s yet! That’s not the point of this though. Fourteen years ago my dad was 70. He lived about a five hour drive from me, so we rarely saw each other, but we did talk on the phone monthly. At that time, I noticed that every phone conversation we had was the same. He would tell me about his old golfing buddies, but lamented that he didn’t golf much anymore because most of his buddies had passed away. Every damn call he would tell me about his deceased golfing friends. At the time I thought he was drunk, which was always a possibility.  Looking back, maybe that was the beginning of his Alzheimer’s. Or maybe it was just the beginning of the symptoms that I noticed…

My dad retired at 57 and never worked another day in his life. He wasn’t a millionaire or anything. He had been with the same company for over thirty years and they offered him a buyout package with a pension for life. Like me, your first thought is “Wow, that’s great! Who doesn’t want to quit working as soon as possible?” The fact that he never worked a day in his life again is what has me wondering. He was a hard worker and a very frugal man who wanted to hang onto his money. I can’t imagine him at 57 just deciding to never make any more money. That’s why I wonder if he wasn’t already seeing the early signs of Alzheimer’s in himself.

As a younger man he was always active. He’d go camping, in a tent like a man. No fancy trailer or cabin camping for him. Instead of buying firewood, we’d just go out in the woods and cut down trees. He kayaked and canoed. In the winter he went skiing. I even remember him taking scuba diving lessons. So why would someone that seemed almost hyperactive, retire at 57? I’m not 57 yet, but I’m trending in that direction, and when I forget something, which may very well be perfectly normal, I wonder if my dad, at 57 saw the writing on the wall. Did he suspect that he was losing his ability to do his job?  Was that when the Alzheimer’s started?

When I’m living in a memory care unit I’m going to tell this joke to the staff every day

At 70 my dad stopped traveling or taking trips with his girlfriend. He stayed home, watching the news and doing Sudoku. He had become uncomfortable being anywhere he wasn’t familiar with. That’s very common in Alzheimer’s. In Alzheimer’s you forget recent information first, which was why he couldn’t travel anymore. It made him feel completely disoriented. As I used to say of my dad, he couldn’t remember what he did 30 minutes ago but he could remember what he did 30 years ago.

I have one of the genes that contributes to Alzheimer’s. That gives me a 30% chance of having Alzheimer’s. There may be other elements that increase my risk. Every time I forget a word, or put the yogurt in the cupboard and the salt shaker in the fridge, I wonder if I’m destined to live another thirty years or more, but only know who I am for the next 10-15 of them. That’s what I’m really afraid of.

That’s why I’m back to writing more here. This blog is my history. If twenty years from now I’ve forgotten who I am and who I was, I hope someone shows me this blog, which has been a part of me for the last 18 years and hopefully will be for several more years going forward. So, future Phil thanks you for reading and commenting. You all are now an important part of my memory one way or another.

Have a great weekend! ~Phil 

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Posted in Aging, Alzheimer's, Dementia, Humor

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Running From the Devil: My Race to Beat Alzheimer’s

Posted on July 18, 2021 | 10 comments

Do I have Alzheimer’s disease? No, not yet. At least I haven’t been diagnosed, but I have reasons to believe I’m at very high risk. My father, who recently passed away, had full blown Alzheimer’s and Dementia. My maternal grandmother wasn’t diagnosed, but was showing signs of it shortly before she passed away. Having a family member who had Alzheimer’s doesn’t automatically mean that you will get Alzheimer’s.

About 6 months ago I did the 23 & Me genetic testing. At the time, I wrote about my results in THIS POST, but  I only wrote about the fun stuff. What I didn’t write about then was that the testing showed that I have the APOe4 gene, meaning that I have a 30% chance of developing Alzheimer’s after age 65. This did not surprise me. It’s why I did the testing. I know, some of you are thinking, “A 30% chance and nothing to worry about until 65? What’s the problem?”

The problem is that with Alzheimer’s, there are usually subtle signs and symptoms that appear long before a diagnosis is made. Most people ignore or hide those symptoms, or attribute them to getting older. I see those symptoms in myself. If I’m cleaning up from dinner and holding a container of chip dip that needs to go in the fridge in one hand and the salt shaker that should go in the cupboard in the other hand, over 50% of the time, I reverse them when I put them away. Yes, I know that as we get older we all have more forgetfulness, but in mine I see a pattern. It’s not just putting the chip dip in the cupboard.

I  lose my big words more than I’d like. The multi-syllabic 50 cent words that impress people often escape me. It makes me feel quite lugubrious, when I want to say something and I know that I know a word for what I want to say, but I just can’t find it. (Yes, I’m trying to intentionally use big words as I talk about losing them) It’s a tangible feeling that I’m rummaging around in my head for the word and there’s a blank spot is where the word I want should be. And I can’t think of a simple synonym either! It’s like my brain has completely lost something. Sometimes the sentence I’m saying trails off or I just don’t finish it. Trust me, there are several other examples, but I’m not going to list them all. I know when something doesn’t feel right. I wonder if that might be why my blog, that I used to post to five times a week, has become something I just do occasionally now. Losing one’s sense of humor is a symptom.

If I do get full blown Alzheimer’s some day, I hope this is me.

So what am I going to do? I’m going to exercise regularly and I’m going to try to stimulate my brain to create new neural connections by learning. I intend to resume piano lessons, learn to speak Spanish,  join a chess club, post to both my blogs at least once a week, and resume table tennis, which was a passion of mine when I was younger (I once beat a guy who played in the over 40 World Championship tournament.)

Does anyone remember this movie? Balls of Fury (2007) Or was I the only one who watched it?

In addition to doing those things, I’m going to embark on a lifestyle/diet program that is supposed to have remarkable effects on preventing and reversing some of the cognitive losses of Alzheimer’s. If the results are as good as the book says, I will be very happy. Here’s the book:

Don’t worry, my blog isn’t going to turn into me preaching about Alzheimer’s, I’ll still try to write funny stuff, but I’m hoping to write about it and my journey here occasionally with sensitive humor. My dad losing his mind to Alzheimer’s over the last fifteen years, and me thinking that I might go down that same path is sobering. When I Googled “Alzheimer’s funny” to find some pictures for this post, I didn’t find the memes as funny as I thought I would. Some seemed mean or sad. Hopefully I’ll avoid that if I poke fun at myself in the future. Thanks for reading. I hope you’re having a great weekend! ~Phil

 

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Posted in Aging, Alzheimer's, Dementia, Humor

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The Jigsaw Man Ran Out Of Puzzle Pieces

Posted on July 4, 2021 | 18 comments

Some of you may or may not remember a post I wrote about 13 months ago titled The Jigsaw Man. If you missed it, it was about my 83 year old father who had Alzheimer’s and dementia. I thought of him as The Jigsaw Man because that’s what his brain, his memories seemed like to me, a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces didn’t fit or match up with each other anymore. He had bits and pieces of information in his head and it seemed as if he were constantly trying to grasp them but they would slip through his mental fingers. Even his memories of who I was seemed out of his reach over the past couple years.

Yes, he passed away about ten day’s before Father’s Day. What was interesting to me was that my memories of him changed with his passing. During his last several years he wasn’t the man I grew up with. Initially I thought that to be very sad, and it is, but the process of laying someone to rest requires sorting and sifting through their whole lives. Ironically, and maybe intentionally, my dad saved pictures going back through his entire life, possibly knowing when his memory was fading that he would need these to remember who he was. He missed the internet revolution, so all of his pictures are of the printed out, Kodak film type, that never got a single like on Facebook.  Something about that makes them seem a little more special.

It was good fortune that he did, because it was a wonderful reminder to me of who he was over the course of his life, and it softened the painful memories of the last 5-10 years.

One thing that my father’s disease and passing has given me is an appreciation of the here and now. We always think we have more time. My dad, who was 84 when he passed, lived a pretty long life, but from day to day, he didn’t remember most of it for the last several years. He lived in the moment because it was all he had. On my last visit with him at the memory care facility he’s lived in over the past year, in the moment all he wanted was to sit in the courtyard and feel the sun on his face. So that’s what we did, and he smiled.

Here’s to hoping that in the afterlife he’s finally getting the internet and can read this. Thanks for everything dad. ~Phil

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Posted in Aging, Alzheimer's, Alzheimers, Dementia, Dementia, Humor

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Screw Benjamin Buttons: The Top 5 Benefits to Aging

Posted on January 12, 2013 | 4 comments

I hate to admit this, but there’s no getting around it anymore. You’re getting older. I’m not, but you definitely are. Most of you are dreading getting older. I’m not. Screw Benjamin Buttons. I can’t wait to get old! There are benefits to being old that I cannot believe! It’s like some secret club, only the members that are in it now have no idea how good they’ve got it.

1. Getting Stuff Cheap: You only have to be 50 join the AARP and you get all kinds of stuff really, really cheap! It costs $63 to join for 5 years. Here’s one benefit: At the movie theater you get 49% off of soda and popcorn. That’s your $63 paid back right there in one trip to the movies! I’m thinking of getting a fake ID so I can pass for 50. Separate from the AARP is the fact that you get cheap coffee virtually everywhere! I admit it, I have a morning Starbucks fix and I can’t wait to cut that bill in half. 

2. Freedom of Speech: We all have freedom of speech, in theory. There are two groups however that can get away with saying whatever they want and people excuse it because of their age. Little kids and old people. How often do you hear some grumpy old person say something outrageous and people around them just shrug their shoulders as if to say, “What are you gonna do? He’s just old.” Whereas if you or I say something crazy, we’re in a meeting with Human Resources the next morning. I’m practicing my Ed Asner voice for those occasions when I want to say what I really think.

3. The Fashion Freezer: Whether we choose to or not, at some point our sense of style and fashion gets frozen in time. We’ve seen these people at work and thought, why are they still wearing clothes or a hairstyle that hasn’t been popular in 20 years? It happens to everyone. Sadly, at some point in the future there’s going to be a whole generation of accountants, lawyers and politicians walking around with their pants hanging off their ass. The upside is that you can stop buying new clothes and put no time or thought into what you wear each day. 

4. Travel: I cannot wait to go on a Golden Memories bus tour! They’re cheap, someone else plans them, does the driving and puts on a movie for you to watch on the ride. Las Vegas here I come! The only downside is that it’s a bus full of old people. 

5. Retirement: Retirement doesn’t mean never working again, it means only working at what you want to. What I want to work at is hanging out with other old dudes at the coffee shop and playing chess all day as I drink my half price coffee. Maybe I’ll still write this blog too. As social media evolves into smaller and smaller sound bites or tweets or whatever comes next I may be the last blogger on Earth in about 10 years. By then my following of grumpy, old people will be tremendous, until they die off of course. 

If you would like to age gracefully with me you can subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle and perhaps enjoy my murder mystery novel White Picket Prisons which you can find by clicking on of the links in the right sidebar. Stay aged my friends.

 

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Posted in AARP, Aging, Benjamin Buttons, The Phil Factor, White Picket Prisons