welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Monday, May 2, 2011

unbelievable revisted, bb

UNBELIEVABLE REVISITED
one of the things i want to do with this blog is to show whats
happening as i go along with my diagnosis and to show
what i feel when things happen in my life especially regards to
alzheimers

i watched the larry king live special unbelievable the alzheimers
epidemic with my wife she last night

sometimes these good specials like this are shown without
commercial interruption
i was so glad that there were commercials between each
session as i needed some recovery time as they covered
each topic and interviewed each well known person about
their love one with the disease

i relived the experience with my mother as i watched the show

you can see the devastation in each of their lives as they
discussed their experience with this devastating disease
it was important that they showed young people who are
having to cope with this disease in family members at a
young age
they will see more of this in their lives as they get older
it will be an expensive disease for our medical system to
handle in the future

wish this would have been a two hour special instead
but think that it got the essence of the disease

as i watched larry king take his neuropsych screen test
(recognized the questions and drawings-remember i did
it twice last week)
what was difficult to watch was the fact that he was doing
better on the word recognition part of the test that what
i did
larry king  is old i am not old
its not fair

lary king took an mri and it was normal
early on in the diagnosis the mri is normal but a pet scan may
not be normal
i have had a normal mri in january of this year and had one last
week in dallas as part of the azheimers research study

ronald reagan knew enough to write a letter to the american
poeple to announce he had the disease
his diagnosis and announcement helped to bring attention to this
devastating disease

his son ron was interiviewed on the show
he decided to not have any tests done
he did not want to know

i wanted to know and want to know more
i got all my life ducks lined up before i was officially tested
i had long term care insurance set up, i had a good disalbility policy
in place for years, and i had my financial future lined out before i
was tested and diagnosed with my mild cognitive impairment amnestic
type thought to be from alzheimers

if i was not ready i would not want to be tested yet
but im at the point in my life that i wanted and needed to know
i was not ready five years ago
but am now

i wish they had spent more time on the new tests they are
working on and more discussions of the scans available and
research that is being done

angie dickinson the actress whose sister developed the disease
in her mid 50s said it best when she was asked
what would she say to some one who was just diagnosed with
the disease or had a relative just diagnosed wth the disease
she said
oh s*@#

well i have had my oh s*@# moment and have decided to
march on with my life
i am glad i know

BB
that heat celtic matchup is going to be a good one
whoever wins the series my be wore out at the end
thunder got mauled by the grizzlies
they need to win the next one

the organicgreen doctor



3 comments:

  1. Thought show was very good as well..

    I agree could have been longer..

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unfortunately your lucky number was just drawn. I know it really sucks that you are going through it, but you are an inspiration to all who are going through this. There will always be why this and why that, out there. But we all just have to take it one day at a time. Hang in there, doc and know that you and your wife are never alone in this journey! God bless! Kim

    ReplyDelete