Wednesday, January 30, 2008

dresses, drams, dreadful divas...

For the moment, the evening routine has shifted to the slightly more nursely. Dose #1 of the substance of unknown composition and value entered Jeff hypodermically yesterday, and it is my duty to take nightly temperatures and blood pressures in addition to the pill dispensing.*

A large chunk of today went to early prom dress shopping with Olivia. We finally found something she likes at White House/Black Market, and additionally, I snagged something off the clearance rack for the Community Center Gala. Then I decided I liked myself just as well in Becca’s 2006 prom dress. I am rarely a fashion emergency, because I just don’t care that much.

I’m sitting in the dark, typing. It’s 7:30 p.m. Jeff is making little snoring noises behind me. His sleep/wake, not to mention his eating schedule is all wacky, but mostly at night. He may just miss American Idol at 8:00.

I’m a deep person. Can you tell? Prom dress shopping and American Idol.



*Merck, you see, ok'd us. We are now a guineau pig and his carrot-feeder.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Stop Making Sense

You know how sometimes people who become stone deaf lose some of their ability to articulate precisely? Because being able to hear yourself speak gives you a feedback mechanism by which you can continue to monitor your own clarity of speech. I’m wondering if there is going to be an interesting parallel to this phenomenon in my ability to continue making conversational sense.

It is true that I tend to be quirky in my points and style, when it comes to conversation. However, I could always gauge my general comprehensibility by whether Jeff was returning the verbal serve in a way that made contextual sense. Thus our volleys stayed within a framework that--while most likely not everyone’s preferred game--at least, for the most part, did not stray into Dadaistic nonsensicality.

And now I’m not sure. The basics remain: I can ask “how was your chicken caesar salad?,” or “did you get the mail?,” or “are you tired?” and generally get a response that logically answers the question. But if I stray into the quirky, or (to me) humorous, I am typically met with a blank stare of incomprehension. So I backtrack, and try again in plainer style.

Which is fine. Ish. It’s also boring. Consequently I may still inject riffs from my old off-beat manner into the flow, and let them amuse myself only. (Although the amusement of one is not equal to half the amusement of two. It’s more like 15%.)

The trouble will be that since Jeff is still the primary backboard off which my ball bounces, I may find--some years down the road if I find someone else to talk to--that I make absolutely no sense. And that will be strange and, I suppose, disappointing.

Friday, January 11, 2008

How to correct inflation. In the dark and rain.

...first you would gather all the dollar bills you could...says Gabe on our 3 mile trek to his carpool drop-off point.

It’s 7:05 a.m., and the short winter daylight has not yet arrived. A curving line of cars is waiting to turn left into the high school parking lot, blinkers and headlights sparkling through the persistent drizzle.

...then, you would make it so dollars were like yen...

You mean, I cut in, you need about a thousand to buy a pencil? But I cannot think about this too hard as I have reached the moment where I must watch for the “shadow children.” High schoolers crossing the road to school by jaywalking between the dark cars stretched out in line for the traffic light to change. Their silhouettes appear suddenly from behind a car, stepping in front of me with the conviction that I will spot their denim and black jackets, and have the reflexes and traction required not to smear them into the damp road. I go slowly.

...and then you set it up so all the places in the world where they store money would have fiery explosions...

We’ve safely avoided shadow children. Now it’s commuters pulling into the center turn lane, hoping to join our prevailing direction. But it’s disconcerting in the dark and rain. Headlights looming on my flank in my peripheral vision.

...so, says Gabe, you’ve stashed a couple million hundred-dollar bills...

Two-million dollars isn’t that much for an evil scheme, I say. (I am distracted, you see. Someone has to drive.)

No. hundred-dollar bills, Gabe clarifies.

We arrive. I told you we wouldn’t be late, says Gabe. You should have more faith in my sense of lateness.

I point out that Mrs. Child’s car is running and she’s already popped her trunk. He is unimpressed.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

zotzotzot

The more words I add, the more assured I become that Smart Kids (which is what we’ll call it for now,) is beginning to show the contours of a real narrative. That doesn’t keep me from fearing the process so much that I hide from it via procrastination every phrase or so. Zot! I type 2 words. Let’s see how Chiff & Fipple is doing... Zotzot! I type 3 words. You know, I think a nice cup of darjeeling could help right about now. Zotzotzoot! Shiznit, I haven’t blogged in a while...aaannd...maybe Blitzkrieg Bop isn't SO hard on hard on Rock Band... Check me next month. I may have finished a chapter.

Friday, January 04, 2008

boooyaaaah...

Ok, so Wyeth has excluded us from its vaccine study on the grounds that having multiple microbleeds in evidence on your MRI (2 > 1, ergo, multiple,) makes you (particularly if you’re a mouse,) more susceptible to further such mini-hemorrhages.

Here: I have included a link in case anyone is as geeky as I. Click this if you're interested:click here (oh, wow...I think I got the link to work!)

Jeff is in a bit of a more-bummed-than-usual state of mind as a result of thinking about how he now has these “mini-strokes” going on. Truth is, it seems it is a normal and not unexpected piece of the illness. But it has not helped that he tried to install new weatherstripping on the back door today and found he just can’t get vice grips and screwdrivers to do his bidding anymore. So, for now, a rolled-up towel is serving as a draft-dodger, and I will look into installing something else once the cold chill releases its grip. Having restored two of the kitchen ceiling recessed can lights to working order today, I’m feeling that I’ve maxed out my handywoman alter ego for the moment.

For now Jeff is watching his new favorite television personality--stock commentator Kramer on MSNBC whose catch phrase is, as far as I can tell, BOOOOYAAAAAAH! I did not need boooyaaah yelled in my ear as I attempted to complete the drum part of Cherub Rock (while Becca played the guitar,) on Rock Band, but we survived.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

this is today

Traffic to D.C. was sparse and accommodating for Wednesday morning rush hour. People returning to their post-holiday lives on a staggered schedule, I supposed, kept the roads unusually clear on the second of January.

Jeff and I took our preferred “beltway-avoidance route,” cutting a counter-clockwise arc around the northwest quadrant of downtown before dropping south on Wisconsin Avenue to Georgetown University Hospital.

The light commuter density afforded us another nice surprise. Designed, apparently, to approximate Dante’s 9 layers of hell, the GUH visitor parking garage normally forces us to spiral deeply into the earth until we squish into a tiny spot next to the harpies and squanderers on level 7 or 8. Today, by lovely fluke, we parked right next to Cerberus--aka the ground level stairwell--and had but a brisk run across the plaza to the main hospital building.

Above the parking catacombs, it finally felt and looked like winter. As the short, frizzy-haired nurse relieved Jeff of a half-dozen or so purple-topped tubes-full of blood, I scanned the gray skyline where the stark brick hospital campus gave way to a clear view of most of the Washington Monument obelisk, and the flat horizon beyond. The heating unit under our 7th floor window radiated reassuringly through my blue jeans. Jeff read the paper.

It was supposed to be lumbar puncture day. We were still in the screening stage for a Wyeth Alzheimer vaccine study. Jeff had scored appropriately high for overall health, appropriately middling for cognitive status, and appropriately companioned in that he had me--the required partner to schedule, drive, and fill in the blanks.

I can’t remember how old I was when I finally became brave enough to open all the drawers I could reach from the dentist’s chair when I was a kid, and push the buttons on the water-squirter and air-blower when the dentist stepped out of the room, but by now I was shameless about flipping through the binder on Jeff (known for the study as J-L-C,) which the nurse-practitioner had left in the windowsill. So I’d peeked at the MRI report, but made little of it until Brigid, the N-P, came back and explained the delay. Seems that in the brief description of the MRI reading the radiologist had made mention of foci which represented old parieto-occipital hemorrhages. While a single such point (Brigid explained,) might be discounted, more than one could possibly be a disqualifier. Thus we decided, with Brigid’s support, to postpone the lumbar puncture until she could seek clarification from the radiologist. Who, after all, wants to be spinal-tapped for nothing?

We took the cash for the parking allowance (our less infernal parking space notwithstanding,) and declined the ungarnished tunafish sandwich bag lunches. They aren’t bad in a pinch, but this time we treated ourselves to Italian, in a cozy little bistro on M Street. Furthermore, and most uncharacteristically, we ordered pinot noir with lunch. And Jeff was there as we ate chicken caesar salad and penne primavera. You never know with AD, when you’ll get the blotchy cloud of Alzheimer’s confusion, and when the sparkle of the person you love will be unmasked. And when the clouds lift, yours eyes tear up more than if you lived in full sun all the time.

We left the The News CafĂ©. (I know, I know. Sounds more like the coffee shop at the Amtrak station than a clubby Mediterranean den, but there you go.) Three doors down, (with a vagrant sitting on the sidewalk in front,) was, to no one’s surprise, a Starbucks. Jeff ordered a tall brewed. I ordered a grande soy white chocolate peppermint latte. (In whatever order that goes. It was dessert. Ok?) We handed the sidewalk man six bucks on the way out. He smiled more nicely than anyone else had that day.

So, we’re waiting to hear where we stand on the MRI reading. I don’t suppose I can blame the drug company. If you were testing the efficacy of your vaccine on Alzheimer’s you’d be looking for uncomplicated cases. If indeed such cases exist.