This week I watched the first of two programmes by Terry Pratchett about Alzheimer’s Disease, a rare form of which he has been diagnosed as suffering from the early stages. It was one of the most heartening things I’ve seen on TV in a long time, and at the same time one of the most depressing.
Sorry Terry, I know you don’t like being described as ‘brave’ for doing the programme, but I thought the whole idea of letting cameras invade your life at such a time was heroic. It’s all very well for the Lifeboatman to say ‘I was just doing my job out there in that force12’ but that doesn’t make him any less of a hero.
Terry’s books have already been enough to immortalise him in my eyes (they occupy two of the nine shelves that I allow myself on public display.) But letting a camera crew follow you around for a year and not only witness your sudden inability to tie your tie but hear your thoughts on it, that is something special.
The programme frightened me. Sir Terry Pratchett (he was knighted in 1998 for services to literature) is the same age as me. When people younger than me die of cancer it doesn’t frighten me. Cancer is one of those things that can strike at any time and I know it is in the lap of the Gods whether I get it or not. But Alzheimer’s was something that happened to old people – not people my age. And then I realised.... Oops.
I retired from work years ago as a result of my neurological disorder which was not only causing physical problems but also stress as I tried to do a day’s work that varied from 9 to 14 hours in a fairly responsible position. Add stress to the pain, exhaustion and ‘clumsiness’ of the neuro issues and it was time to retire. The stress caused concentration troubles, memory lapses, short temper, inability to sign my name consistently, sudden inability to spell common words, and various other problems. In fact, the same things from which Terry Pratchett is now suffering. He knows it’s Alzheimer’s because the brain scan showed it. Most of those issues have stayed with me. I had assumed mine was still stress but what if were Alzheimer’s. That is too awful to contemplate.
I have a feeling there will be lot of people of my generation rushing off to their doctors asking for a brain scan.... Meanwhile I shall stay well away from brain scanners and just assume mine is stress. When I can’t tie my tie or button up a button I shall ask for Jo’s help as usual and pretend I never saw the programme.
