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

Friday, November 4, 2011

the mirror, advocate, the talk

THE MIRROR

i look in the mirror and do i see my future

my younger brother he is the mirror i look at everyday

we have the same genetic make up and are one year apart in age

he has alzheimers disease and was diagnosed officially 
5 years ago after he had helped me move my mother
who had alzhiemers disease out of her assisted living
apartment 
during the move i noticed he had problems moving the 
furniture out of the apartment and he got lost driving us 
to moms new nursing home (we had grown up in that 
small town)
afterwards i notified his wife to have him re-evaluated for 
alzheimers
he was evaluated properly and was diagnosed and was
started on aricept (donnepezil) and stopped working

he was handed samples for this two years earlier 
when he complained to a doctor about memory problems
no work up was done or follow up was done
he had side effects like all of us do who start aricept the 
first month and discontinued it 
he continued to work and his memory problems gradually 
worsened
since diagnosed in stage 3 alzheimers he has progressed now
in five years to late stage 5 alzheimers
(go to www.alz.org and look up 7 stages of alzheimers)

the reading ive done says early diagnosis and treatment is important
sometimes it can alter the angle of decline so that sometimes you 
can gain extra time of near normalcy with your family and friends
or at least where you can know who they are and appreciate them 

thats what i hope as i peer into the mirror
will the early start of aricept make a difference for me
will doing the preventative things im doing make a difference

mirror mirror on the wall.......

ADVOCATE
since my family has a strong history of alzheimers disease and 
because i have been diagnosed with early mild cognitive impairment
amnestic type that could be due to alzheimers disease i have tried to
be an advocate for alzheimers disease as much as possible and hope
to do so while i am cognitively able to do so

i have personally seen the emotional and financial devastation this 
terrible disease can do

its easy for me to be an advocate

here is a link to a recent article from an interview that was published
in the quarterly newsletter from the alzheimers research center at 
ut southwesterm medical center in dallas

go to this link to read this article see page 2 and page 4

THE TALK
next week i will be giving a talk to a large group of family doctors
about my story and what happened to me and will use it as a 
vehicle to talk about alzheimers disease

i realize how little i knew about all this when i was practicing

i hope to talk about those things i should have known 1 year ago 
that would have made me a better doctor caring for the few
alzheimers patients that i had in my practice

if i can connect with just one of those doctors next week so 
that they become better at caring for their patients then i
will have been successful

more next week

have a good weekend

the organicgreen doctor



2 comments:

  1. Great article but of course it would be with you as the star! The world is lucky to have you as an adovcate for Alzheimer's. Thanks for all you do.

    Meg

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  2. This one made big ol' elephant tears! Mirror, mirror on the wall got me. I hope you get through to the doctors in 'the talk'. I know I see patients in a different light after watching my mom go through the last 13 years of her rare cancer (Carcinoid). She had so many signs & symptoms years before her diagnosis. AWARENESS SAVES LIVES! I'm afraid that mirror is staring me right in the eyes....
    BTW... my better half loved the cake :)
    I'm allergic to rum- bummer!
    T

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