Posted 4/19/22
For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. – 1 John 3:11
Are you still a frequenter to email? I am. Sigh…. I have given up of fully keeping up. The sheer volume I receive would take a staff of 10 to keep up with. Through a series of filters and automation I manage it fine, but things still fall through the cracks sometimes. I just don’t see a path from email to something else, but, heck…I didn’t fully see a path from paper to email either, so some visionary I am. I was lamenting the challenge of email and it made me think a bit of mom’s challenges too.
Voila! Shoehorn Inbox (1).
Things You Can Learn About Dementia from Email
- What is important varies– At publication time I have 4,833 unread emails and 112,762 total stored emails in my work email account. It is shocking how many I get on a typical day. I am good, however, at scouring email to find the more important ones. I use tricks and tools in Gmail to help me and I always use the search box because Gmail and Google, the world’s largest search engine, are pretty good at searching. But, the fact of the matter is, most email isn’t worth much. When you are overloaded with data in life, as I certainly am, it forces you to boil things down to what is really important…or at least it should. When you face a dementia diagnosis in your world, whether it be your own or friends/family, please boil things down to what is important. Spending time with your loved one. Telling and hearing the old stories (!!!) and writing them down (!!!!!!!!!!!!) is splendid! Apologize for wrongs from the past, and let them go, focusing instead on the good times. When it is a sunny day in life you kind of have time for the full range of data, but early in the diagnosis, please boil it down and make the mist of the better times. Please.
- Always check your spam folder– There are times that important emails get thrust aside in the presence of the masses and shoved over to an abyss where junk emails go to die: the Spam filter. Spam emails range from advertising to scams to phishing (trying to steal your information or unleash a virus on you) to worse. However, Google isn’t perfect and it occasionally grabs the good and sticks it in the naughty Spam corner. Please carefully check there for good emails periodically and mark things that are NOT spam as “Not Spam”. In dementia, one just dandy little problem that is likely to develop, perhaps quicker than later, is called Aphasia. (Note: What I mean by “dandy” is not at all dandy. Undandy x 1,000,000) The term Aphasia varies from being a generic term reflecting a challenge in communicating through speech, be it a physical crafting of speech to recall to other speech problems to a more specific, but rare type called Primary Progressive Aphasia. This range of conditions can be caused by a stroke, by a head injury, by dementia, or something else. Regardless of the type, including the type recently made public by actor Bruce Willis, it gets harder and harder to full communicate. What gets lost in the process is the important things being said. My mom would repeat the same things over and over at first, but generally we could pick out what she was trying to get across and empathize/recognize it. However, as time went on, the speech turned to word salad. (Not my phrase, but descriptive nevertheless). It gets harder and harder to honor their efforts to communicate with correct responses, and it gets harder quickly at that point. Mom would carry on the cadence of speech, but the words were tossed or were just incorrect words. (NOTE: My blog sometimes gets stuck in the Spam filter because I send so many out at a time. Please check there and mark mine Not Spam so Google figures me out better! 🙂 )
- Always beware of the real Spam– Sometimes Spam that looks real is actually not at all. Mom would say and do things that were completely uncharacteristically rude or inappropriate, or the like, sometimes right before and after being more cogent. Please, as I kind of ramble in these two points, also get this point: When something is said that is good…or awesome…cherish it as a precious jewel as if a gift from your loved one. That isn’t Spam/the disease talking! However, when the bad emails happen, blame the filter for not catching it and move on. Don’t dwell on the stupid Viagra Spam…dwell instead on the good ones and print them off and hang them on the fridge.
- Forwarding emails-Forwarding email is much easier than forwarding verbal communication. It is word-for-word and you get all the info intended. What forwarding email reminds me of in dementia is gossip. In particular, this article: LINK. Sometimes seniors are the worst offenders at gossiping about other seniors’ dementia. Seniors making fun of other seniors with the disease is not only evil, it is terribly sad. Mom was teased multiple times while on walks at a local walking track because she would repeat sentences or forget something they thought she should remember. Few things make me more mad than even thinking about that. 🙁 Build up, friends, don’t tear down. Life is too short and… age is the biggest risk factor of dementia. (Bonus note: PLEASE forward my website to anyone that needs to see it. Please. 🙂 Not to make me money…I don’t get paid for this. To help. 🙂 )
- Reply All– Using the “Reply All”, in email, when it is intended, is great. Everyone stays on the same page with the same, unfiltered info. The conversation, therefore, is trustworthy and it works well. However, when one does a reply all on accident, all filters end and either people get too much information, bad information, or they get piles and piles of unneeded information. Oh, for filters in dementia. Sigh… The filters often come off and lots of info that either isn’t true or is true but shouldn’t be said it blasted through the room often. Mom would comment about the size of employees, would make inappropriate statements, or just talk about people sitting nearby not noting that they were right there. It was a hard time…and it seems common as well.
- If I had more time, this email would have been shorter– Winston Churchill, among others, was credited with saying “If I had more time I would have written you a shorter letter”. I completely get that. The busier I get, the longer the emails get (and the longer the posts get as well). We need to take the time. We need, again, to make time. We have a gift, albeit it a double-knit Father’s Day necktie some days, because we have lots and lots of time with our loved ones. Some more than others. Maximize your time. Craft special moments even if within a routine. Boil it down to love and time and service.
- Spell Checker– Spell check sometimes does great at its job and sometimes it fails terribly. Sometimes you just gotta laugh and apologize for laughing. Same with the funny things that are said and done in the realm of dementia. Give yourself grace if you chuckle at it a bit. I am never advocating bullying, teasing, or being mean, but there are some things that are said and done that you two can have a shared chuckle over just like you used to. Laughter, applied in the right dose, is the best medicine.
- Attachments– Don’t you hate sending an email and forgetting the attachment? Or trying to send an email and the service saying the attachment is too big? Soooo frustrating. I want to discuss a secondary use of attachment in dementia. Being/becoming attached= loving someone. Growing so close you are practically one. Such is the life of many nursing home and hospice workers, whether they recognize it well or not. We see you and we thank you for loving our loved ones when just keeping them safe and as healthy as you can is the basic job description. Mixing metaphors a bit, it is the difference in a great 5th grade teacher, like I had, and a good one. Loving when one is less lovable…or some days not at all lovable, is as Christlike a picture as one can show. Thank you all. Really. Thank you!
- Emailing yourself– Do you use email as a reminder to yourself? There are better ways in Gmail, yet I still email myself all the time in a form of acceptable digital “talking to myself”. Sometimes I take it to another level and hit the Snooze Email button and have it resend it to me at a more convenient or timely time. Did you know that excessive dependence on lists to function in activities of daily living is a potential warning sign of dementia? Sure enough, it is. I highly recommend using lists. They help order our days, they make life easier, the guard against mistakes, and the make life smoother. However, if you go from being helped by lists to being paralyzed without them, it is a warning sign. This is especially true for making lists about things you normally would breeze through. If you have to make a list for what is referred to as Activities of Daily Living, it is a concern that you need to bring up to your doctor as soon as possible. This kind of self-reflection is hard…I get it. However, the benefits of early diagnosis far exceed the negative sides.
- Email is an archive until it isn’t– Some people, including me to a point, use email as an archive. I have very old emails that I can look back on with joy or sadness whenever I want. Sometimes, however, an email gets broken by technology or by economics as some companies close down and their email dies too. When a single email or a whole account is deleted, it is gone…and with it goes joy and experiences we can never reexperience. Dementia deletes and deletes and deletes, and deletes, and empties trash, and deletes, and deletes. Savagely. Nothing more. I hate that this disease does that to your loved ones and to mine. That is why we have to find a cure….and soon. Now would be good. Let’s do what we can to #EndALZ today. Is life better with email? Probably so. However, it sure would be a heck of a lot better with a cure.
Update: Not much going on with mom. I visited several times last week, but couldn’t come yesterday or today. Tomorrow I will have supper with her and try to squeeze a smile from her.
Note: Mom would get a kick out of the topic. She used to Love saying “The only thing I know about computers is the word starts with a K.” with a big belly laugh. 🙂
Runnin’ Til I’m Purple Update: Saturday I am running a really long run…around a marathon distance. NEXT Saturday I am running a 50k on the Frisco Highline Trail for their yearly event. I am around 60 days until my big run… Gulp.