Looking for my Lost Words

I read an article in a magazine (ok, it was "People") about a high school boy who was caring for his mother. She suffered from early on-set Alzheimer's disease. Unbelievably, she was not yet 40.  Sometimes - more often than I'd like to admit - I wonder if I have a lesser version of that same disease. Even worse, I can't imagine either of my teen boys feeding me, or keeping me from roaming the neighborhood at night in my jammies

I have struggled with migraines since I was 7 or 8 years-old. They have gotten very bad over the past 2 years. There is a drug on the market which I call "Dopamax." It is taken daily and supposedly reduces migraine frequency. I asked one doctor to prescribe it and he said, "Sure, if you don't mind losing your words." I love words. I read books like a chain smoker. I have been published - twice. I have won money for a short story I wrote in the 1990's. NO! I don't want word aphasia. Give me anything else: Pain, bio-freeze, generic Imitrex. But don't take my words away.

Two months later, I am back at the doctor's office, seeing the partner of Dr. Anti-Dopamax. She brings up the word-erasing medication. She says she's worried because I take too much generic Imitrex, and it's starting not to work. I bring up her partner's concerns, and she minimizes them: "Oh he just said that about word aphasia because he had recently seen someone with it. It goes away once you stop taking it (Dopamax)." I agree to try it. It works, but I do notice some "word loss." I can't remember the state flower, Carolina (Yellow) Jasmine.  I can't remember my employee id number when I log on to the computers at work. I can't remember my locker combination - also at work. In both instances, I have to have a manager look up these numbers. I give up the Dopamax. It worked sometimes, but was not the price of losing my words and numbers.  My word recall seems to return and I think nothing more about it.

Flashforward to this summer. I am offered a lucrative but temporary job in my chosen career. It is very intellectually challenging. I have to work with extremely sensitive and personal documents. I put a great deal of pressure on myself to excel. I want to be called back in for future, temporary "gigs." (I don't like to stay at the same company/business/firm for long. I get bored after a bit. Co-workers start to grate on me). The problem with this "contractual position" is that, in trying to be green aka environmentally friendly in designing their office space, they have created a migraineur's living hell. Exposed fluorescent bulbs over-run the building. Everyone has to have a computer in today's working world. I am no exception. I am awarded a shiny new Dell laptop. Apparently the "flicker" of the screen or refresh rate of the computer are saying bad things to my brain: "Your head hurts, lady!" seems to be the main message. I go back on the Dopamax. I cut out the overhead fluorescent lights and bring a table lamp from home to work by. This time, Dopamax doesn't seem to work. I stay on it, and also take Imitrex, Excedrin Migraine, ibuprofen. I am hurting 50% of the time. Luckily, I don't seem to be "losing my words." I design a chart comparing two groups - can't say any more. I am so proud of my work, and receive many compliments.

The contract ends around the first of August. Frankly, I am ready to go. The subject matter of  my work is depressing. I feel like a co-worker (or two) is trying to make me look bad. Most of all, I have lost a summer with my youngest child. He will never be 8 and turning 9 ever again.

I go back to doing my at-home, part-time, boring but predictable job. My salary isn't too shabby, I realize, and I start applying myself more. I appreciate it, and I don't miss the stress and pain of the old position. I stop taking the Dopamax. I stop gradually, as instructed. I don't miss it, since it never worked on this go-round. What I do start to miss, after I stop the medication, are "my words." How this could happen is a mystery to me. I am forgetting names - still - four months after stopping. I couldn't recall the word "privacy" just yesterday.

A long time ago I read that drugs - medications - can be stored in body fat. Theoretically, if you lose or "burn" the fat, the drugs can be released into your bloodstream, even years after you have ingested them. I have been working with a personal trainer since September. Never have I exercised with such intensity. I accuse him routinely of trying to kill me. I am certain he is a sadist. On one occasion, it was all I could do to stop myself from declaring my hatred for him.  I am hopeful that after Andre is satisfied with the body fat I have lost, my "big words" will return. I will be able to remember my daughter's roommate's name; the name of that common fruit I eat daily; the name of the governor, etc. If not, I will be in the market for a room in the Alzheimer unit at a local nursing home.

Birthday

I just had ANOTHER birthday. Really. Wasn't the last one only a few weeks ago? The best part was my 14 year-old bringing me breakfast in bed. It was enough food for six men, but I had to eat it all: scrambled eggs, pancakes, coffee cake, coffee, and then a cake he made from scratch. I call him Kramer - after the Seinfeld character, because you never know what he will come up with next.

Just the week before, he was in the er getting stitches in the bottom of his foot - from stepping on a food processor blade in the middle of his floor - at 1 am. (Note the "Kramer" resemblance)

It was an interesting phone call with the pediatrician later that day, when I had to ask for pain meds (remember, this man has DHEC or DSS tailing me)

Him: "What happened to Joe's foot?"

Me: "Uh, he stepped on a food processor blade, which was lying on his bedroom floor."

Him: "What was he doing with a food processor?"

Me: "Uh .. he and his brother were chopping up beef jerky?"

Him: "At 1 am?!"

Me: "Well... they do have rather odd sleep hours...."

Him: " Beef jerky. It's a Charleston tradition. Okay - I'll call in something for the pain." (Unsaid to me: "- and add this to the report I am compiling on you continually asking for pain meds and amnesiacs for your kids. First Versed - now this.")

Redneck one day; Blue blood the next

Yesterday, I went with my sons to Wal-Mart to buy gun ammo. Patrick left J there on the way home from school; then came home and got me to go back with him so they could get their bullets; (you must be 18 or 21). I hate Wal-Mart. When we got there, I was very embarrassed to find my 14 year-old boy draped over a shopping cart full of bullets or bird shot or whatever it was. He didn't want anyone else to get them. But the icing on the cake was when my platinum Visa got turned down at the check-out. There was a huge line behind me, and the cashier had earlier screwed up because I paid partially with a wad of cash J gave me. Luckily I had a debit card and the transaction was completed. When I got home, there was a message on my answering machine from "Fraud Prevention Services" at the credit card company. A hold had been placed on the card account because of suspicious activity. The “suspicious activity” was my $10 purchase of vitamins on-line earlier in the day. Why?

Today, I had take M to the cemetery and help him do gravestone rubbings - entirely inappropriate on an emotional level for a third grader's school project, but no one asked me. He wanted to see where his great-grandparents and great aunt were buried, so we went to Christ Church cemetery, which used to be extremely creepy when I was young. It was not in "perpetual care" in the 1980's, and I begged my parents not to put my brother there. For some reason they listened and put him in the fake-flower cemetery instead. I can never find my grandparents' graves; my aunt is next to them. I was there 5 weeks ago and again 2 weeks ago, but we wandered about for 20 minutes in the rain. We put a sheet of paper over the headstone of a person I didn't know and used him/her for the "project." It still gave me the chills.

Dead Squirrel & Summer Plans

The exterminator came by Friday. Whereas the old one (the creepy guy inspecting my...clothing) would never venture into the attic, this guy seemed happy to climb up there. He told me there was a dead squirrel up there, but gosh darn he couldn't reach it. Then I engaged him in conversation - something forbidden by my spouse - and asked if he had ever seen that stupid show, "Duck Dynasty." I watched once, simply because I happened to be in the same room as the tv. It was a disgusting episode in which the "matriarch" of the so-called "dynasty" fried up a mess of squirrels. The bug guy said he watched that show, had seen that episode, and indeed used to eat squirrels all the time. His were what I would term "free range" because he grew up in Ravenel. The bug-boy said, "Yeah, my mama stopped cookin' squirrels a few years ago." "What happened," I asked, "Did you get sick from eating them?" "No, we raised a baby squirrel that fell out of his nest. He grew up, and we trained him, and he'd come running to us when we called for him. But one day we had to let him go because he was all grown up and wild and tearing up our house. Mama said no more eating squirrels because one of them might be Junior." I think I might become a vegetarian. The following day I sent my 14 year old up into the attic to get the squirrel carcass. He said he couldn't find it. Well, I found it today and sent the oldest boy to get it when he got home from school. It is fun sometimes being able to boss people around. Today, I also signed up that same oldest boy for summer camp at the US Naval Academy. He has no idea!! My spouse went to high school with Tim Scott. We might be able to get him appointed to the USNA. No college expenses for him. The next time he screws up his face and says, "I'm not a brain like you were in high school, mom. I don't just sit around and read all the time...." I will smile to myself and think, "Go Navy! Beat Army!" (This same smart alec equalled my highest math SAT score - which I got at the end of my senior year- when he was just a sophomore, He can also play the cello, play the piano and run FAST (if he had been Andrea Yates's son, he would have escaped). And I think I just might send the 14 year-old to Camden Military Academy for their summer camp (But first I must check out the molestation allegations) And Mark is all normal now, even his toe is fixed, thank you Dr. M. Dr. M should be a child psychologist. He took me out of the exam room and said, "His toe is awful. I'm gonna have to do surgery." I said, "Can you give him some Versed?" (This was the only bad part; Dr, M looked like I had just asked for a vial of crack. He probably had his nurse call DSS). "I can't do that," he said. Geez he looked appalled. Just the day before I had asked the pediatrician the exact same question, and he, too, gave me a look of horror. Yet, Dr. M did offer to check M into the hospital and have him knocked out. But instead, he used some kind of relaxing talk in a soothing voice and cut on the baby's toe. Unfortunately, he had to do a second procedure a week later, but used the same pycho babble again. After the second procedure, I took M to "Sonic" and then to Rivertowne CC. My brother told me exactly where there was mistletoe, and I stood on my toes and got it down. Luckily, it was a cold, rainy day, and no one was around to see me acting that way;" Hey, Bernice. Isn't that the lawyer who did our wills? What the hell is she doing jumping up and down by that tree?" M was home this past week-end and took me downtown to lighten my wallet. I saw a woman in one store, and I know I should have recognized her. She recognized me. I think she was a friend of a friend. I read an article recently about a woman with early onset Alzheimers. She was diagnosed when she was only 38. I will be 38 in a year or two. Scary.