alzheimers news-update and more

ALZHEIMERS NEWS-UPDATE AND MORE

i am now 8 days post infusion
having received the first aducanumab infusion
well i might have got the placebo instead
eventually ill find out which i got

for those who dont know what aducanumab is
its an antibody against the bad beta amyloid
that is thought to be the cause of alzheimers disease
at least based on the amyloid theory

the antibody binds the amyloid and removes it from the brain
if it works the scans for the amyloid is clear
the memory gets better

the two symptoms i have noticed so far
are
a low grade headache that i occasionally have to take acetaminophen
to relieve
fatigue that worsens as the day goes on
both
i can live with

now i have a low grade iritis an inflammation of the iris of the
eye
that also can cause these symptoms
i control it with daily steroid eye drops
however
i dont think this is a flare of my iritis

heres hoping my headaches and fatigue continue
it could be that i am getting the real medicine and not
the placebo
i sure hope so
i dont want to lose 18 months of treatment until
all of us in the study get offered the read deal aducanumab


i have been following
karen garner
in her blog called
missing jim confessions of an alzheimers wife

jim died over a year ago
she occasionally blogs to let us know how she is doing

i suggest you click on the above link
to get the feel of what its like to deal with a loved one
with this disease
even a year after their death

i am afraid folks that this diseases effects on caregivers
and loved ones
never ever go away
her blog still oozes with sadness
she is one of thousands so affected


then
last week
now i have thought about this a lot
since i was diagnosed
it was even a segment on the alzheimers movie still alice

someone with the disease
reaching that point
i sitting here today can see where that point is
but
like in the movie still alice
when that point arrives
you are usually to gone upstairs
to carry it through

here is the link to article on how a husband of an alzheimers patient
recognized when she reached that point

was is he guilty

i say yes and no


then
you know when someones heart fails to work anymore
its called heart failure

when someones kidneys quit working
its called kidney failure
now
when someones alzheimers disease advances
its called brain failure

thats what alzheimers disease is and leads to

brain failure

the organicgreen doctor

dear ms b-u r sunshine

DEAR MS B-U R SUNSHINE

ms b
you are a true ray of sunshine in our lives this week
we have our hands on you mostly all to ourselves this week
and
are we having fun or what

the first thing we did is go to our favorite mexican food restaurant
as we walked in
you had your new back pack on
its yellow
it a donald duck backpack
wonder where you got that

now a 2 year old is a busy person
but
sometimes they can make fun out of things
we never think about
probably having more fun that if we had taken
her somewhere
like a park or zoo

like yesterday
there is this old chair your gma she drugged home
it was all beat up real bad
ms b
i instantly saw an end product
a true duct tape chair
so i used 2 rolls of duct tape on this chair
its my favorite piece of furniture in our house

now
i think its your favorite
as you climbed up in it
looked up at me and smiled
please her eyes said

now this chair should be at every park
every daycare
it does so much

it easily goes around and around like a merry go round
it rocks back and forth like a rocking horse
plus its easier to hold on
then
it slides forward and backwards
like you were ice skating or something

i finally had to say
no mas no mas
heck
i was pretty dizzy afterwards
as you said
more more granddaddy
yes
you can say my name now

you ask me
you can have it

me thinks you will return to that old chair
many times while you are here

you love the big ole frog in our small pond
it jumps in
croaks a lot
now you can croak just like it
then
theres the little fishes we have swimming in there
those
ms b
are from the river
where
we plan to wagon you down to today
to throw rocks
get wet
maybe see a deer or a cow or a rabbit or a turkey
on the way we will go past the horseys and mule and cows

our plan is for you to be wet and dirty when you come back
with a big smile on your face

then
its into the garden
to trim off all our spinach
to pull up some big ole carrots
to pick some sweet peas
to pick some asparagus
then
we will plant our basil and our peppers
and
plant our black eyed peas on any bare ground left
maybe just maybe
ms b
we will have some blackeyed peas for new years day
that means good luck for the rest of the year

then
its bluebonnet picture time
we have saved a patch with your name on it

then
by this time
i think you will be all tuckered out

yep
u r our sunshine for sure

here is an article titled
when she was a baby
about a grandfather who wrote a journal for
his granddaughter when she was young
he gave it to her on her 16th birthday

these ms b blogs are to her
to read some years in the future

you can go to my blog page online and type in
dear ms b in the search window
all my blogs to her are there

i/we want her to know how much she means to us
to maybe get a sense get the essence of who i/we are were

the organicgreen doctor

rot care

ROT CARE

our healthcare system is not going to work
if we have one party ram through a program without
the other

although i like the start that obamacare gave us
protecting millions of us from financial ruin
it was rammed down the republicans throats
when the democrats had total power in the late 1990s

that left a bad taste in the republicans mouth
a real bitter one that helped to lose the democrats
any control of the government

what goes around comes around

then the republicans did the
gotcha thing
tried to ram a new plan down the democrats throat
how do you like the taste they said
but
well
politics it seems makes strange bedfellows
the freedom caucus who wanted to wipe out a lot the gains
that were made to protect our health
which most of us dont want to lose
they sort of teamed with the democrats
whom they probably dont agree with on anything
to defeat the attempt at trump ryan care

like a republican senator said at one of those rowdy
back home meetings recently
we just need to back up
take a deep deep breath
pause for a while
get the democrats and the republicans who can work together
to come up with a bipartisan health system
no
they want agree on everything
but
what comes out of it will be mutually agreed on

my suggestion
5 moderate republicans and 5 moderate democrats
with no majority for either party

the plan will probably be a better one
that we can all accept

if we dont
we wont have a workable plan

it will just get changed again with the democrats get power again
that
we cant let that keep happening

first let me say i think that there should be a
two option health care plan

one option
is
medicare for all
just add things to it that make it save money
like a tax for the medicare for all if you chose this one
say a 1 % tax that all pay no matter their income
add copays with the  deductibles and co insurance
like regular medicare does now
the copays would be new
make the copays set or make them sliding scale
eg
i dont mind paying a $25 copay to see my primary care provider

start putting controls on services provided that seem a waste of money
like even stricter criteria for mris and other testings
i have had mris and scans not the research ones that didnt
necessarily change my care that much
it would have saved medicare a lot of money

make it harder to prolong folks lives
did you know that 90+% of doctors die at home
while most nondoctors die in the hospital
i think we know something yall dont

then
allow nurse practitioners or physician assistants to operate
independently
they dont get paid as much as doctors do
let them be independent but keep the pay down to the level
so that they make the same income they do now
but
also then cut the doctors reimbursement to the nurse practitioner level
make it mandatory that all providers take this medicare for all

i personally see a competent neurology nurse practitioner and have
no problem doing it

there are other ways
to get more costs down
like
change how we allow our drugs to cost us so much

look closer at foreign countries like sweden and canada
and england to see how they hold their costs down
then
we need to do those things that they do thats good

then
option two
private insurance
that you obtain yourself or via your employer
set some standards they all must meet
then
put them out in the private market

i recently bought my medicare supplement
it was fairly easy and straightforward
almost too easy
i was worried i was doing something wrong
or
i was missing some loop hole
nope
it just worked fairly smoothly

i think that what will happen over time is that the
medicare for all will gradually take over
if its kept simple and straightforward and efficient
as medicare is now

maybe allow for medicare for all supplements to be sold
like they are now with the regular medicare

i told someone the other day
im calling our new insurance plan the congress is coming
up with
ryanobamatrump care

they
smiled and said
oh you mean
rot care

yep thats what we are going to end up with
if we are not careful
is
rot care

the organicgreen doctor