Good months, bad months

When people are interested in my story, and when they ask me how I'm doing, I say that people in memory care tend to have good days and bad days.  I, on the other hand, have good months and bad months.  Fortunately, I'll have a string of good months before encountering a single bad month.

What's a bad month like?  Well, the worst part about one is how scary it is.  I'm afraid of returning to the dark days of 2015 and early 2016.  I begin having brain hiccups of the type I was having back then, such as an inability to remember to lock my car.  I may be reminding myself to lock the car as I pull into a parking stall, but when I come back out of the store it's unlocked.  This could have unfortunate results with car prowls on the rise.

I may also have a return of the episodes of depression I described in Beating the Dementia Monster.  These are relatively mild, and they only last into the evening.  They may be a very mild form of "sundown syndrome," but I'm not sure.  This usually appears in people with more advanced disease, and I don't display all of the symptoms.  But, who knows?  The feelings were strongest and most disruptive back when I had the most serious cognition and memory problems.

I speak in Spanish with friends in Latin America over the Internet a couple of times a week.  I began learning Spanish 13 years ago, so I'm still learning.  Or trying to learn.  During good months I can speak both fluently and fluidly, and I feel well about it.  During bad months, I'll struggle with the simplest conversation.

During bad months I'll slur my speech more than usual.  This is frustrating and a bit embarrassing to me.  But, like the other traits, this will largely pass with time.

So far, I've had no indication of the return of the phenomenon I fear the most -- impaired vision.  I had to stop driving for more than six months when I couldn't reliably see pedestrians.  For now, my driving is free of close calls, and I feel completely safe.  But I am risk averse and will stop immediately if the vision problems return.  As we found out in 2015-16, Amy can drive me, and I can take the bus.  After all, the bus is reliable and free for seniors.

Something I've noticed is that any or all of these can occur during a bad month, but they don't all come and go in unison.  I'm guessing that's because these different changes arise from changes within different parts of the brain.  The disease affects different parts of the brain differently.  I also believe that the different lifestyle changes I've made in different domains have different healing effects on different parts of the brain.  As we said in Beating the Dementia Monster, the BDNF protein does much of its work by prompting stem cells in the hippocampus to form new neurons there.  That's certainly good for memory and space-time orientation.  But what about the rest of the brain?

What prompted my to write this today?  I seem to be coming off of a "bad month."  It wasn't terribly bad, but I was slurring my speech more than usual.  I also had periods when I had trouble putting the words together for a coherent conversation.  But, as in the past, these problems seem to  be on the wane.  Interestingly, I've had no issues with memory or cognition during this period, although I usually notice them during a bad month.

The worst thing about this month has been my balance deteriorating more rapidly, but that doesn't seem to get better.  I'm not finding any doctors with great ideas about what to do about it.  Physical therapy helps a little, but its power seems to be waning.

But things are looking up.  When I wake up in the morning, I remember what happened yesterday, and I know what's on the agenda for today.  Life is good.