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Your laugh, star shower in my boredom skies

Ocean softly rocking my soul

Eternal journey, worn out days

Without this smile, your smile

My lethargy dies in your smile

Your designs confound my tomorrows

And at your lips I dig

The insouciance of lost yesterdays

Your laugh hammers my certainties

Exhausts my fortresses… your smile

Nourishes my shy flames

Floods all distress… your smile 

Your laugh renews me

Gets me away from myself

Mock my passing tragedies

And far in distance finds me

Should your smile expire

In silence I’ll await a return

My laugh will wash away your clouds

Your smile will rise in my skies

“Do you know what it is like to look ahead and see that everything you defined yourself by is going to be robbed from you, bit by bit, pieces by pieces?” That is the question a patient with early Alzheimer once asked me. What was I to answer? After all, I am young, healthy-looking; I should not know what he is talking about, right?

For instance, imaging this. You love words. Writing is who you are. It is part of how you define yourself as a person. “I am a people person, but above and beyond, I am a word person”. Alzheimer’s steals your dictionary. It erases the page with that word that you are looking for, leaving you stumbling in the middle of a sentence.

Now, take this and apply it to your own self. What is that one thing that is at the very core of who you are, part of your identity, of your visit card? Is it playing the guitar? Swimming? Cooking? Now imaging having dystonia in your fingers. Losing a leg. Losing the sense of smell after a frontal lobe injury. Losing how you define yourself. Or even worst: imaging having slowly progressive loss of the use of those abilities. Little by little. Bit by bit. Like that nice childhood pond slowly running dry. Or even worst than worst: living with the continual feel fear of losing those, because you know that there is something in you creeping, threatening to steel those away at any moment. That is what multiple sclerosis does.

Multiple sclerosis eats the brain away. Ironic for someone whose specialty is that same organ right? For someone who define themselves by their wit, their intellect (not trying to brag here, just making a point). I was in the MS clinic today, and I was looking at patients (some of them with MS, not all) with word-finding problems, ataxia, tremors, and I got scared. I can’t even discuss minor symptoms without getting all tearful. Not because of what is now. Because of what could be. When? Who knows. Maybe never, so why worry, right? Well if any knows how to stop the worry-mill, you tell me.

But there are 2 things I am thankful for. 1) I learned to appreciate each day for what it is and what I have at the moment (physically and cognitively-wise). 2) I think I in a better position to understand my patients when they ask me “Do you know what it is like to look ahead and see that everything you defined yourself by is going to be robbed from you, bit by bit, pieces by pieces?”

So House episode yesterday totally made blogging uncool. I was disappointed, for a couple of hours that is. It made me reconsider my whole idea of taking anecdotal events and turn them into an hopefully entertaining topics. I went to bed with my new-found desillusion and since a headache (actually, in my mind, it was a brain bleed, much cooler) was keeping me away from Morpheus’ arms, I was forced to think about how people interact with the world these days. Soon enough, I had to admit to myself that blogging is the current version of writting for an underground local newspaper. Hell, if Sex in the City would have been released this year instead of 10 years ago, Carrie would not have been writting a column, she would have been writting a blog. Maybe she was? I can’t remember.

Anyway, since I always wanted to write a column in the local underground newspaper and haven’t done anything such as since I wrote a music column for Psychnews (or smg like that), our undergrad student newspaper, I decide to not let House influence my life (that would be a first) and to continue to blog. Afterall, I am not doing it to be read (as opposed to the character yesterday), but just for the fun of writting. So be it.

Crazy

I opened my eyes tonight

Caught a glimpse of a new day

I can still see your smile

Hazy, inebriated smile

Was this all craziness?

I’m beginning to feel you

I’m losing me, the years

I’m beginning to lose the pain

Knowing where this all began

All the years that have gone by

Made me stronger than this shell

So pretty, so naïve, can’t you tell

Still it is me who’s frail

Was this all pure folly?

I’m beginning to feel you

I’m losing me, the years

I’m beginning to lose the shame

Knowing where this all began

I know where I am, I am lost

Driving laughing thinking

This is pure craziness

Yet I drive and I laugh

Oh how deep I am falling

I’m losing me, the years

I’m beginning to lose the hope

Of knowing where this all began

Where did this all begin?

I closed my eyes tonight

Laughing awake in my sleep

I am fresh, full of hope

Crazy when this all began

I feel like I am one of the lucky ones who actually love going to work and miss it after a few days when I am away. Part of it is the obvious reason why I went into my line of work, that is to help people. But another part is also how interesting, and funny, my patients can be. Today, when I asked a patient who was the president before Obama, his answer was: “Doofus”. How can you not laugh at that. Anyway, this answer inspired the current post. Here are the best quotes from my patients.

I had a patient once telling me: “getting old is a pain in the butt!”. I am sure it is!

Another said: “the good thing with losing your memory is that you forget that you are forgetting”. I can’t argue with that!

When being asked about their hearing, the patient answer: “I have a hearing problem, like most of my friends do, but then again, most of them are dead”. Yep, death tends to make hearing difficult.

When asked how long the patient’s wife has been complaining about his memory problems (a typical question), the patient answered : “lets see, I have been married for 50 years… I would say about 49 years”. Ok, this guy was a smart alec.

I asked a patient the following question (another typical question): “do you live alone?”. Patient answers: “why, do you want to come over?”. And I remind you that I work with people who are on average 85 years old.

Giving a naming test to a patient, he could not come up with the word “Unicorn”, so the psychometrist tells him as a cue: “This is a mythical kind of a horse”. Patient answers without missing a beat: “I am mythical kind of a guy!”. Hard to not start laughing on this one.

Patient, with a strong English accent (not knowing that I am French Canadian): “Maudit calisse tabarnak”. THAT was funny, and unexpected. Especially since that was the only French he picked up while driving vans between New England and Quebec.

And my all time favorite. When I was at Dartmouth, I was bringing patients to get an MRI as part of our study. And as you may know, you can’t wear metal in an MRI. A patient, a very proper 82 year-old charming lady, wearing a track suit just took off her bra and put it in her jacket pocket, since that was the only thing with metal on it. As I was walking her back after the MRI, she told me: “ I have never gone back home with my bras in my pocket; I didn’t think it would happen at 82”. I was so embarassed, I did not know if I should laugh, but as she winked at me, I just cracked up!

I am sure that there are other stories that I could come up, like the patients who want to introduce me to their grandson when they see that i am not wearing a ring, but those above are my all-time favorites.

Choices

I can think of me, I can think of you

And everything else that I should not do

To produce this torment; anguish, and pain

I don’t want to know this was all in vain

I can think of all that I have been told

All the caution words, they just left me cold

Not ready to hear what I should not do

What I should not feel, what is there for you

I can see in me, I can see in you

Where we should not go, what I ache to do

The pain I’m causing, a choice I despise

When all I wanted was my own respite

Can you see in me what I want to sway?

Not to cause you angst, or to turn your days

Not to turn a world and make you believe

We’ll get forgiveness from whom we deceive

But to make my ways just that much brighter

Wake up with a smile and my heart lighter

Walk right through my days with a playful grin

This you can’t shoulder, those are my own sins

So, what is this going to be about? Outlet for poetry and other creative writing, state of mind, pet peeve of the moment, and humorous thoughts and situations. Lets give this a try.

This week, I was reminded, not 1or 2 times, but 3 times in one single day, of the fragility of life and how important enjoying the moment is. A 57 year-old patient I saw has been dealing with early-onset Alzheimer’s for 10 years, already having reached the average survival period of this disease. A friend in his early 50s found out that he has an incurable heart disease and that he does not have that long to live. My 62-year-old father was diagnosed with a not-so-common autoimmune disease, that is thankfully curable.

Life can be short, or at least can be shorten significantly, without a forewarning.  Have you said what you wanted to say? Have you done what you always wanted to do? Have you seen what you wanted to see? Too often, we postpone our priorities because of our hectic life style. Meanwhile, life happen. It is not slowing down… and that dream that you wanted to realize… well now is the time to realize it.