Posted 4/23/20
We go marching on this fine Thursday, amongst the madness of today’s life and within the confines of my little series on numbers banging around in my head. 🙂 Today, my Number Du Jour is 4/23, or Gregorian calendar’s very own April 23rd. I shall reduce said date to its simplest format: 423.
Three thoughts on this nifty little number:
- Isn’t it kind of an interesting thing at face value? It is a roller coaster of a number. Upppppppp it goes to 4, then plunged down to two too, then back up to three too and where it goes next…will depend on decimals. Dementia, much less interesting, is also a roller coaster in many folk’s experience. Vascular dementia, and a few other forms as well, have a stair-stepped ascent from well to unwell while others are wrought with ups and downs. Mom is one of the others. She has had her “4” weeks, descended to a low “2”, then surprised us by rebounding to a “3”. To me, in many ways, that has been the hardest part of watching what this savage has done to her brain…the (false) hope when things are better. However, now a few years in we are getting used to/coping with the roller coaster as best we can… without raising our arms…because it is no fun. 🙁
- 423 is also an error in the IT professional world, of which I am a member. This little error, found in the computer’s event log, is described thusly: “When the requested resourced is locked by another request then the server rejects the request and sends the code “423 – Locked” in the response.” The little whitepaper named RFC2518, a titillating read to be sure, simplifies this odd error as “The 423 (Locked) status code means the source or destination resource of a method is locked.” To me, this Request for Comment (RFC) would be better served being renamed RFC 451F, because it is better served as a campfire starter…but I digitally digress. 😉 The techno-babble definition does, however, remind me of dementia. “When the requested resourced is locked by another request then the server rejects the request and sends the code “423 – Locked” in the response.” reminds me that when the mind with dementia tries to recall something (a resource)and it gets locked instead. Sometimes it just simply locks up and other times gets locked up by other requests. Please be careful not to require your loved one with dementia to multitask. It is arguably impossible for a brain working on all cylinders to do two things at once. To a loved one with dementia, it is cruel. Speak deliberately and slower than normal if you see challenges. Do one thing at a time. No sense contributing to the locked up status.
- Proverbs 4:23, much of which was written by the one of the smartest man of all time, says “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Click this link…it is very interesting the views of the heart as the store of good and bad. King Solomon was absolutely amazing. I think, in a roundabout way, he totally would get the point of how this verse applies to dementia, over 2000 years before it was discovered. In our dementia topic, keep your heart healthy! “But, Big, Bad, Butterball-bodied Blog Boy…dementia is a brain thing!” you may say…and rightly so. BUT REMEMBER THIS ABOVE ALL WHEN THINKING OF PREVENTION: As the Alzheimer’s Association says Over and Over again “What is good for the heart is good for the brain“. Want to do all you can to avoid this fate? Take care of your whole body, sure…especially that head… but staying in good cardiovascular shape is essential! Your heart feeds your brain and anything less than a steady supply causes tremendous problems, not the least of which is weakening it against the wiles of dementia. “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” indeed!
#EndALZ
Update: Nothing new to report on mom. I look forward to Facetiming with her tomorrow morning 🙂 I did reconnect with a lifetime friend of mom’s yesterday. It was really nice hearing from her!! We had sooo many fun times in our childhood hanging out with her and her family, that I hated to tell her how mom is doing. 🙁
Wonderful!
Thank you, James! 🙂