The Memory Artists - Jeffrey Moore [29]
February 2, 2001. The first doctor told her she was fine. But the memory lapses and confusion continued, so I took her to see an expert, Dr. Vorta. He did some urine samples, blood samples, X-rays, CAT scans. A student-technician put her head inside a PET scan machine that traced radioactive sugar as it moved through her brain, showing how vigorously the various parts were used. I watched the monitors while Dr. Vorta pointed out what the colours of the images signified: pirate-blue for the skull casing, blood-red for the cerebral lobes, plum-purple for the tracer. Next he put her in a modified PET scanner of his own invention, which lights up the mess that Alzheimer makes with radioactive dyes: the errant gummy proteins (beta amyloid) that gum up the works. His technician then did a series of word-recall tests, asking her to repeat strings of three or four unrelated words—blue, Chevrolet, turnip, Syrian. Then she was asked to multiply 6 by 12, name the first Canadian prime minister, the current prime minister … She was doing really well and I was beginning to think she didn’t have any problems. At the end of the test, however, which took about ten minutes, she was asked to recall some of the unrelated words. She couldn’t remember any of them. Not even after getting clues (e.g. that one was a vegetable, another a car, etc.). Not one single one.
February 11, 2001. Today we got the news. A discernible shrinking of the hippocampus, where short-term memories are stored. And evidence of amyloid plaque. Based on that and the word tests, Mom has “mild cognitive impairment,” or “premature senile dementia.” Early-onset AD, in other words. What’s the prognosis? I asked Dr. Vorta, well out of Mom’s earshot. She has a chronic invalidating condition, he replied after a pause. Unless a cure is discovered soon, Noel, your mother will be dead in five years.
February 21. There’s nothing more I can do. I can’t be expected to look after her. I’ve got my own life, my own apartment, it’s near the library, it’s cheap and took ages to find. I can’t just get up and leave. I have a lease. And besides, I’m not qualified to look after her. She’ll be better off with people who know what they’re doing. I’ll stay with her this week. And then I’m afraid I’ll have to put her name on a waiting list somewhere.
March 1. Sublet my apartment. Moved in this afternoon with Mom. She’s happier, and so am I.
March 4. Tonight we went to the Dragon Rouge in Chinatown, which Mom really enjoyed, smiling at the waiter and saying “please” and “thank you” in Cantonese, and laughing as she twirled her chopsticks like a baton (we’d had a litre of rice wine). But when I laid down my credit card at the end of the meal she got angry, accusing me of spending all her money. She then made a solemn vow: she was getting her own place because “It’s just not working out.”
March 6. Nothing good to report. Mom has spent much of the past week confused, bursting into tears, forgetting the way to friends’ houses, forgetting whether we drove on the left or right side “in this country,” obsessively mourning her husband and deceased childhood pets.
What dark road are we travelling down? She’s only 56, for God sake. Will she end up like Claude Jutras?14
March 7. Went to a matinée film today and when