Personal Narrative Essay On Alzheimer's Disease

Every Saturday morning, embraced with the sweet smell of vanilla, a smile that could make the sun jealous, her sweet embrace warmed my heart leading me to believe the world was as kind and gentle as Nana. Every week for ten years Nana, shopped with me, cooked with me, and played with me. She was one of my caretakers.

“Who are you?” This is a question I have heard ever since I was sixteen years old, and not from strangers on the streets, from my very own mother. I was a teenager when my mother originally developed Alzheimer’s and then later, dementia. I can still recall the first time she ever asked me that question. It was springtime, I know that because I had just come home from softball practice. I had yet to take even five steps into the house when a shriek rang out.

I was 16 when I learned what it meant to be dead. I had known of it before, but I didn’t really know death -- I was too young to really understand. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to ward off the waves from washing away my grandparents when they were in Mexico, and I was here. We were separated by oceans of land so our contact was limited. And the oceans only got deeper as I realized that Alzheimer's meant something beyond just memory loss. It meant I watched my Abuelito’s glassy eyes lead to an empty attic, and knew I was waiting for a tsunami to take it over like it had the rest of him.

They say I look like you, that I sound like you, I remind everyone of you. But you forgot who I was.

Forgetting things comes naturally with age, so my father’s loss of a name or word did not faze me, especially as he approached seventy. Additionally, being in school across the country made it easy for large changes to look relatively small. But, I soon realized I was avoiding the situation in an effort to comfort myself. Witnessing history repeat itself would be too painful to think about, so I attempted to dismiss it. My mind flashed back to almost ten years ago, my first encounter with a neurodegenerative disorder, at which time my grandmother was slowly succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease. Watching my grandmother’s mind erode and my presence in her life slowly erode was difficult, especially at age 14 when almost everything is personal. Flash-forward

In 2009, my grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Prior to this determination, my family and I had simply attributed it to the forgetfulness of old age. However, as my grandfather began to ask the same questions within a matter of minutes, we knew there was a deeper issue. After my mother had to stay on the phone to help him navigate previously familiar roads, she took him to the doctor. Years went by and his cognizance and memory began to deteriorate even further. Upon the death of my maternal grandmother, he moved in with my family due to his inability to live alone. My grandfather required constant supervision and monitoring at all waking hours. These circumstances exposed us even further to this disease as we realized the

Comfortably dying, steadily but surely eradicating the remainder of my humanity. Cells dying, dilating then slowly leaking away into the bloodstream. I am dying, I can comprehend the events that are occurring even though I am young. The heart rate monitor has a relaxing drone; which suppresses my depression and continuous tears. How do you accept dying at the age of nine? Oh right, you are not supposed to.

Every morning I wake up and it is the same routine. I start with brushing my teeth, shower, get ready, make breakfast, and head to work. When and if I miss doing something because I ran out of time or I was in a hurry and just forgot I find myself frustrated. Can you imagine waking up and not remembering your routine at all? Image waking up and not remembering a loved one, how do you feel? At this moment you are feeling like someone with Alzheimer’s disease.

I hit a boy with a bat in the second grade after he said “short girls can’t play baseball.” I saw red, and as my mom says, “When Audrey is seeing red, let her be.” Overcome with emotion and not thinking about consequences, I was too young to find a constructive way to deal with things that upset me. It would not be until my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s five years ago that I found a balance.

Having Alzheimer’s would cause your parents to forget everything over time, including you, their only child. Because you were so young, Alden and I decided to tell you that they had just been killed. We figured it would be better for you to believe that they were dead than to tell you that they do not even remember who you are. But, throughout these past few months, we have noticed that you haven’t forgotten about them, and no matter how hard we have tried to prevent you, you have always tried to find a way to see your parents again.”

Alzheimer’s affects more than five million Americans and is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States. One in three seniors dies with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia, and it causes more deaths than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined (Alzheimer’s Association®, 2016). The number of people with Alzheimer’s grows daily and is expected to continue to increase tremendously over the years to come. So what is Alzheimer’s and what are the effects it has on one’s life?

He smiled at me with tearful eyes as his pain slowly diffused away. 'Thank You Dr Duraiz!' he said. So exhausted he was, and in considerable pain, too, that he fell asleep within moments. My grandfather suffers from Alzheimer's disease and Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia. It was a cold winter night around 3 a.m that he became agitated and started complaining of abdominal pain due to urinary retention. As my parents were discussing for him to be taken to the hospital, i stepped in. I argued against him to be taken to the hospital. Living in a small town of Pakistan has it's own disadvantages. Not having proper medical care and/or a proper medical setup. Studying at one of the best medical schools, Aga Khan Medical College, i found our city hospital to be very unhygenic and was sure that my grandfather would end up having a urinary tract infection. Instead, i went to a medical supply department and bought all the equipment needed to catheterize him. And my decision paid-off well. My grandfather did not have to go through the trouble of being transported to the hospital and it gave me memory that i will cherish my entire life.

Researchers are on the look out of why some individuals who have the brain changes associated with the earlier points of the continuum do not go on to develop the over symptoms of the later points of the continuum. The accumulation of the protein beta-amyloid outside neurons in the brain and the accumulation of the protein tau inside neurons are the main contributors in the development of the Alzheimer's disease. A healthy adult brain will contain 100 billion neurons, each with long, branching extensions. These extensions will help individual neurons to form specialized connections with other neurons. These specialized connections are called synapses, and information flows in tiny chemical pulses released by one neuron and detected by

Whilst growing up in India, I had very few relatives that I often communed with, and after my move from the U.S to India I grew very fond of them. Around two years into my stay, my great uncle, who was our house neighbor at the time, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and just 6 months in he found it difficult to understnd where he was, and about a year after that he had a lot of trouble identifying people without interacting with them, and over time became less and less interactive, and ceased to do any of his previous hobbies, such as tennis. I found it difficult to comprehend at the young age that he was suffering, and I understood it as he was simply getting old and forgetful. It was only two years ago that I came to the realization that he had Alzheimer’s. It had been a while since his passing, so it wasn’t crushing on my twelve year old self, but he was only 65, and I was always curious as to why his passing was somewhat early.

We kept a steady pace; still chatting excitedly over what we hoped would happen that evening, and as we were crossing the street into a small shopping area, my brother noticed that there was a car approaching the stop sign at an unsettling speed, and he mentioned such as he picked up his pace; but I had been off “in my own little world” to say, and I couldn't recognize what he was trying to tell me, a moment later I glanced to my right and it finally began to translate. I began to run.