Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Day 18: an excess of books and my scariest midlife fear

Blogger picks up the first photo in a post and uses it in the RSS feed, so I'm putting this photo here as a placeholder, and also because I knew some of you would be as fascinated as I was. The rehearsal dinner for my nephew's wedding was held in the home of some friends of his. In their basement, they had thousands, I mean thousands, of books. There were so many crammed into the "library" that there was no good way to take a picture. So here is one row (there were four? five?) just to give you the idea. I've never been anywhere that made me feel better about my own obsessive book buying.

Shelves and shelves of books lying on their sides
OK, now that we've got that out of the way. Last night I backed out of our garage (or attempted to) with the garage door down. Photographic evidence:



Can you believe it? I didn't turn the light on, and I just didn't notice. Sam was upstairs, and he says he heard me hit the garage door remote, but apparently the door was already open and I closed it. The car, thank the Lord, was fine.

It's hilarious, I know, and believe me, my people have already taken full advantage of the chance to tease me. But I have to tell you, it terrifies me. Not because of the damage, although that is bad enough (as you would expect if you knew Doug, he was relatively sympathetic and supportive given the scope of the damage)(it took twenty minutes of messing around with it just to open it enough so that we could get the car out).

No, it terrifies me because one of my deepest fears is alzheimer's. I've always been a space head, so it's kind of difficult to tell what's business-as-usual for me and what's a sign of impending doom. My maternal grandmother had alzheimer's, and she spent the final year+ of her life curled into the fetal position, unable to speak or recognize anyone or communicate in any way. She rarely even opened her eyes. She was unable to do anything at all, but she still swallowed when they put food in her mouth, and as long as she would do that, they kept feeding her. All told, she was in a total care facility for the last NINE years of her life. The last six she was essentially unresponsive.

I just can't even tell you how much this scares me. So every time I do some stupid thing, I worry. Is this it? Am I starting to go? I do puzzles and I try to drive new routes to the same old places, and anything else I can think of to keep my brain active. But I'm not sure it will be enough.

3 comments:

KarenB said...

I'VE DONE THAT!! I swear this is like reading The Bloggess' recent twitter feed with the embarrassing things people have done. Except instead of saying, thank God I never did THAT! I'm going with the oh, yeah, me too on this one. Pushed the button, closed (instead of opening) the door, and backed into it. Happens all the time said the repair guy.

It was about 10 or so years ago so if it were a sign of early onset Alzheimer's, we'd most likely know by now. A moment of absent-mindedness does not dementia make.

Cheery-O said...

It has to be scary to have a grandma that went through such a severe case of Alzheimer's. Thanks for being brave enough to share.

A couple of years ago I realized that things that I attributed to stupidity in my twenties and thirties, I now tend to attribute to aging. Mostly it is just being human.

dreag said...

I shouldn't post this in a public place. Looking desperately for an unlocked bathroom and a school after hours after most of the doors to the buildings are locked. Seeing across an uncrowded asphalt lot the door to the gym open as someone walks out. Running like mad to make it before it closes again. Relief as I step into the gym and find the bathroom and the place where my relief is sure to come. I sit down and go. And, lo and behold, I forgot to take down my pants. Oh yeah. Not expensive as a garage door. But . . . where is the brain when you need it to engage. Apparently, I could have just gone while standing outside in the middle of the asphalt with the same result.