Ever since Grandma was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, I’ve been reminiscing about our past memories together. These memories will last forever in my mind but not hers. I wonder what I could’ve done if I knew she had this disease earlier. ‘Could I have stalled some of the symptoms? If I took her to the doctor sooner, would her downward spiral have been prevented?’ These never-ending thoughts have occupied my mind since her diagnosis. Lost in thought, I stare off into the distance as I sit on our old wooden porch. Every heart-wrenching emotion feels crystal clear, but my surroundings seemed to have blurred into a single monotonous color. Trapped inside my mind, it almost feels like there is a movie reel in my subconscious playing through the endless moments when I should have realized something was wrong...
…
As soon as I walked up to our front porch I could hear the faint notes of “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles playing on Grandma’s 1950 vinyl record player. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw her humming and stepping along to the beat. She was so distracted by the song that she hardly noticed me entering the living room. I chuckled and admired her effervescence as she clapped along to the music playing from her dust-ridden record player. As I walked towards the nostalgic aroma of freshly baked oatmeal raisin cookies on the countertop, I asked her how she was doing. Finally noticing my presence, she replied, “Oh, just wonderful Ashyah. I went on a walk with Tucker to the Senior Center. Even though we managed to get lost along the way, it was nice to have a change of scenery.” She smiled, making her wrinkles more profound. Helping myself to a cold glass of milk, I smiled back. “I was meaning to ask you, but I couldn’t find the car keys so I had to run all of my errands today by foot. I thought Tucker might have taken them, but I couldn’t find them anywhere near his water bowl. Do you know where they are?”
I stared at her with a puzzled expression. “Grandma, I thought I gave them to you before I headed off to school.” A visible twinge of sadness flashed across her face, but she quickly composed her expression. Although I noticed it, I decided not to question her further about it, in case it made her more upset. I made sure to tell my parents when they came home from work, but they simply blamed her mistake on old age.
A few months later, when I entered the living room I immediately felt something was off. As I walked further into the living room, I noticed a slight burning odor and immediately ran to the kitchen. ‘It has to be the cookies,’ I thought frantically. As I opened the oven to a suffocating cloud of smoke, I realized that she completely forgot the cookies were there. Clearly oblivious to the extent of her actions, she simply thanked me and said that she intended to make the cookies crispier. I decided not to question her further and asked whether she had found her car keys. She looked at me with a confused expression and said “Wh-wha-t do do you mean, Ashyah? I always had-d them with me, honey. Is there, um... something wrong? “Noww, dear why don’t youu go and eat a couple of the cookies I bakedd for you today. They’re your favorite…” I felt twinges of guilt and grief since I made her upset, but I also realized that Grandma was beginning to lose her memory…”
…
A sudden cold breeze snapped me back to reality. Looking back on it now, it seems obvious that she was presenting symptoms of the disease, especially after researching the neuroscience behind it. I remember reading that Stage 1 of Alzheimer’s is usually detected by one’s inability to create new memories as the amyloid-beta plaques and neurofibrillary tangles accumulate in the brain. The reason why she was showing signs of troubled speech and the inability to think of new words were because the Alzheimer’s disease pathology had spread to Broca’s area, the area that enables humans to produce speech. Although I’m grateful we took her to the doctor soon after this happened, I wish we had taken her there a lot sooner.
…
At the appointment, Dr. Brooks asked us several questions about her overall health, use of prescription or over-the-counter medicines, medical history, changes in behaviour, diet, and ability to carry out daily tasks. After thoroughly explaining the cookie and car keys incidents, she reassured me that these were common symptoms of aging. However, she wanted to be sure. The nurse then conducted a couple of memory tests, counting and attention tests, and standard medical tests. Grandma had some trouble during the memory tests; for example, she was able to draw the face of a clock correctly but was unable to place the hands at twenty minutes after two.
Later, we went to the Imaging wing of the hospital to get her PET scan done, and I could tell Grandma was anxious. It was frightening to see her like this, afraid, almost like a child.
The PET scan results came back after two days, but they were not what we had expected. The doctor called us early in the morning and explained that although the results looked relatively normal, there seemed to be some atrophy to the brain. Dr. Brooks continued to explain the tests that were conducted, but at this point I zoned out, too fearful of what she might say next. Finally, she admitted, “Your memory loss seems to be explained by Alzheimer’s disease.” Dr. Brooks acknowledged that this conversation can be overwhelming and offered us a space to freely ask her questions. She said she wanted to see Grandma every six months in order to check in on her and keep track of her condition.
…
The past month has been the hardest for our family, especially for me. I wasn’t used to seeing Grandma like this. Her symptoms had progressively worsened. She would spend most of her time talking to herself. I often tried to cheer her up by chatting or reading a story to her aloud, but nothing made her smile. At one point, she began to actively avoid us. She started going to bed earlier and avoided all conversations with us. Once, she took her medicine twice by accident, forgetting that she had taken it earlier in the day. I made reminder cards for her, which worked for a couple of weeks, until she misplaced some and gradually forgot about them entirely.
I constantly found myself looking back on our memories together and wondered what would make Grandma happy. One day, I was in the basement and came across her vinyl record player. A smile stretching across my face, I walked upstairs and placed the record player in the living room. “Grandma, I have something to show you,” I said. I pointed at the record player and started it. Music filled every corner of the living room, and for the first time in a year I saw a smile on Grandma’s face.