Posted 2-22-19
Dateline 1990. I lay semi-slumbered on Dr. Witherspoon’s operating table, dutifully counting backward from 10 to 1 each second in a panic that this anesthesia mask wasn’t working…until I hit about 3 when the lights went out. Wisdom teeth removal surgery isn’t particularly fun, but all things were going exactly as the consult told me it would. Toward the midway point of the procedure, though, something statistically odd happened: I partially woke up. Either I didn’t open my eyes, or I don’t remember what I saw, but I specifically remember crunching sounds of my stinkin’ lower smarty pants molars being removed. It didn’t hurt–not even a little bit–but I remember it all the same. According to the Mayo Clinic, about one or two in 1,000 surgeries have a similar result (around 21k of our of 21m nationally every year.). I remember quite well lying there saying in my best brain voice, but not the out-loud one, that these folks need to turn up the juice…but could not. Soon I drifted back to Snoozeville and woke up packed with gauze.
I have often wondered if there is a chance that any of the Sweet 17 are navigating life in the same deep fog I was in my procedure? My mom utters sentences sometimes that, as I have mentioned before, sound like a perfectly constructed one, except the words are completely wrong. Other ladies smile when I speak to them and physically/facially gesture like they would like to say something—many things—but the “Alzesthesia” keeps them frozen. 🙁 And, of course, for some the lights are on but nobody is home. 🙁 Alzesthesia is a terrible thought to be sure.
Remember the brain parts, all serving specific and complementary functions, act as a super-complex highway system of nerves, synapses and electrical/chemical reactions and counteractions that, when working, allow decisions, speech, memories, and allow us to be us. Break these chains too many times and too many point A’s can’t find their point B’s and the whole system crumbles. Break the wrong sets of connections in late Alzheimer’s patients and the inconvenience turns to crisis turns to trauma and then death. Broken connections that used to be automatic are now so unreachable that all that is left is staring and computing to no avail.
How much do they know and remember… but can’t express? I have a simple but unfulfilling answer: beats me. 🙁 HOWEVER, I do have what I consider to be an important thought: assume they know and hear and understand, at least to a point. Don’t talk about them over them or past them to others. Don’t assume they aren’t listening and that they are somehow subhuman because their human utility to those around them is impaired. Ever. I am not asking you to ask them questions and expect an answer or to expect to discuss hot stock tips or what Trump has tweeted this time. Love them how they are and assume/pray for the best. Make sense? I have a frequent visitor, I will say, who has said out loud probably 5 times “She is going to spit that pill out if you give it to her that way!”. It is true…yup. She likely will. However, assuming she can’t understand or hear is similar to speaking English loudly to someone who is blind or speaks a different language. Instead, speak slowly and clearly. Use simple sentences. When she hears that and understands it, she does it…and out it goes like a bitter watermelon seed at the family picnic.
Alzheimer’s is hard. Much harder than yanking a tooth. Harder than we know. We will never know what they are feeling or understanding, but we have 2 options: 1. We assume they understand more than they do and they just miss out on us treating them with kindness and dignity. 2. We assume they understand too little and they just might be the late teens Mark Applegate sitting on the table worried and scared.
Thank you all. We are in this deal together. 🙂
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-proce…/…/about/pac-20384568