Plaque
I love thinking about the future. I like to lay in bed or sit quietly on my couch and think about the future and all the hope and promise it brings. I often think of my three wonderful children. I’m sure you do the same thing. Our children are wonderful and yours, like mine, are so incredibly amazing. The possibilities are endless. They are capable of anything! It’s so fun to watch them grow and become themselves. Love it!
So while I am daydreaming about what the future will bring, my mind often goes to who my kids will find as their life partners, will I get grandchildren? (don’t worry kids…no pressure here) I want somebody to love me just because I’m grandma. I want to enjoy and spend the day with my kids and their kids. I want to look into their eyes and love and get to know them. I want to hold grand-babies, cook huge turkeys at Thanksgiving, be surrounded by my family at Christmas, enjoy hiking, camping, fishing, and trips to see kids wherever they decide to be in this world. I want to wake up in the morning and know that I am alive and breathe deep and begin another day, thankful to be alive. I want to end the days with sunsets and peacefulness.
Then the doomsday thinking arrives. Damn it. Why does it always have to creep in. Why do I let it. I guess you could call me a realist. I appreciate the bluntness of reality. No secrets, just truth. I can deal with that. Eventually. Cover it up, side step it, go around it, avoid it, add fluff, candy coat it, all of that leaves me confused. Lie to me about it and just see if you get away with it. Just give me the facts and I will figure it out and deal in my own way.
Here it is…….the facts. The fact that someday I may have Alzheimer’s. A word I finally had to learn to spell forwards and backwards because its become a vocabulary word that’s used a lot at my Dr. appointments and at home and in my head and in my daydreaming of my future. “It could happen sooner than later” said one Dr. She went on to say that if I don’t take care of myself I will be just fine, in my Alzheimer’s state of mind, but that my family would not be. They would be dealing with a mom that doesn’t remember who they are, a wife that doesn’t remember the lifetime of love shared with her husband, family and friends. No memories of the kids, spouses, grandkids, Thanksgivings, Christmas, weddings and other special days. Even a memory of the not so good days would be a highlight at this point. I would like to remember how to drive, navigate directions, and how to get dressed and to shut the oven off when I’m done with it. But mostly I just want to remember my family.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, nearly half of all people age 85 and older will develop Alzheimer’s disease — a degenerative brain disorder that currently has no cure. As our aging population booms the Alzheimer’s epidemic will increasingly become a critical concern, not just for the elderly and their families, but also for society at large. These numbers are increasing as 2-3 out of every 10 soldiers returning from Iraq have a brain injury. Not to mention the increasing numbers of people sustaining a head injury every year. These facts kinda scare me.
Plaque. It’s that fuzzy stuff that you find on your teeth in the morning. It builds up on your teeth overnight. Your mouth is not the only place that plaque builds up. You are actually born with it. Small amounts are found all over in your body, on your teeth, in your veins, in your brain. As we get older, that plaque builds up, layer on top of layer. We can take ourselves to the dentist to have it removed from our teeth, but unfortunately we can’t do that with our brain or our veins. All we can do is take care of ourselves. Eat healthy. Low fat diets that include lots of dark-colored veggies are best. Exercise is wonderful. Cognitive brain exercise is a must. It all helps avoid Alzheimer’s. But life happens. I love a nice fatty hamburger sometimes. I have been known to down a couple or more, chocolate truffles with wine while watching ‘I Love Lucy’ reruns. Instead of exercising, I lay around or watch movies. So the plaque builds up in my body. Then sometimes things happen that are out of my hands. When I got hit in the head with a big Ford truck the slimy, thick, fuzzy plaque immediately started to cling to the neuron pathways in the injured section of my brain, almost as fast as it was bleeding inside my head. (sorry, that’s kind of gross). It did that to all of us in the car that night.
Plaque build up, wherever it is in your body, leads to complications later in life such as cavities, heart attacks, dementia and many other things. This plaque has also been linked to the cause of Alzheimer’s. As this plaque builds up on your neuron pathways, it clogs up the system. Prevents it from working right. Think of your brain as the cell phone system of the world. Picture in your mind all the connections that happen all over the world and how important they are in getting vital information from place to place. Now think of a broken satellite or a cell phone tower covered in ice,fog and snow. The connection gets weaker and eventually will be lost.
Last week I posted an article of a study about linking head trauma to Alzheimer’s. Today I received another article. Doomsday is here. They linked TBI to Alzheimer’s. It’s a fact. I am at a high risk for Alzheimer’s. I’m not happy with this news, neither is Dan, or the kids or the rest of my family and friends. But I can deal with it. That is why when you ask me if I would like another piece of pie, I will decline, if I have one at all. That is why instead of watching that movie, I will be outside exercising, or if the weather is bad I will be downstairs working that treadmill or the Total Gym(Chuck Norris and Christie Brinkley, get out of my way) as hard as I can. I will continue to log all my calories and exercise into my Droid application daily. That is why I have thrown away my deep fat fryer. That is why fatty foods have been banned from my house. That is why I hiked over 100 miles this summer and lost 20lbs and I am going to lose more. Just waiting for those cross-country ski’s from Santa/Dan. (Oh Santa, I also need a new pair of snow pants.) That is why I put up with major pain after exercising. That is why I sometimes cry when I am daydreaming about my future. I want to really be there in my future, mind and body. I want to remember what it felt like to see my children graduate from college and join them in the joy. I want to remember wedding days, I want to remember what it’s like to hold your brand new grand baby and that wonderful new baby smell. I want to remember my 50th wedding anniversary and hopefully many more after that. I want mostly to remember the faces of those I love and why and how I love them. I want to remember the smell of Dan’s cologne when he kisses me. That is why I am totally changing anything from my past of how I used to eat and exercise. Hopefully changing my future in the process. It’s a whole new look at my lifestyle. Sound easy? Good, cause it’s not. But I’m doing it.
I also want to share the facts with you. Here is the article I have been following. If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, please at least read the first paragraph.
Can Head Trauma Cause Alzheimer’s?
“One of the most robust environmental risk factors ever identified—and most consistently identified—for Alzheimer’s disease is head injury,” says Dr. Samuel Gandy, Associate Director of the Mount Sinai Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, in Big Think’s recent expert panel about the disease. This finding has grave implications for those who have suffered brain injuries, and, in particular, military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
”Traumatic brain injury is considered the signature injury of these wars,” says Dr. Gandy. A 2008 report by the Army echoes this, estimating that 10 to 20 percent of soldiers and Marines leaving Iraq and Afghanistan have traumatic brain injury (TBI). And these numbers may be low—according to an ongoing series by ProPublica, many brain injuries sustained on the battlefield go undiagnosed.
A single severe incident of head trauma—as could result from a concussive explosion—can increase the risk for Alzheimer’s disease, says Dr. Gandy. As well, repetitive head injuries can lead to similar degenerative brain diseases such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
While the mechanisms are not precisely known, head trauma leading to dementia appears to create havoc in the brain that tears synapses, says Dr. Ottavio Arancio of the Taub Institute for Research in Alzheimer’s disease at Columbia University. Within hours or a head trauma, the plaque beta amyloid—one of the well-studied hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease—can be found in patients. This material, the beta amyloid, is in the brain since birth in small amounts, and largely without effect. “However,” says Dr. Arancio, “something happens in the disease and this balance, the communication within cells, is broken and there is an accumulation of this material.”
Some research points to a genetic component to Alzheimer’s disease making one more susceptible to the consequences of trauma. Although researchers have not found a single gene that causes Alzheimer’s disease, the allele ApoE 4 on chromosome 19 is linked to an increased risk for the disease. A study of boxers who possess ApoE 4, rather than another allele in the ApoE genotype (1, 2, 3), were found to have an increased severity of neurological defects after their time in the ring.
More Resources
— “Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in U.S. Soldiers Returning from Iraq.” New England Journal of Medicine.
— “Repetitive Mild Brain Trauma Accelerates A Deposition, Lipid Peroxidation, and Cognitive Impairment in a Transgenic Mouse Model of Alzheimer Amyloidosis.” Journal of Neuroscience.
— “Brain Wars: How the Military is Failing its Wounded.” ProPublica
— “TBI Could Be the Next Agent Orange,” Big Think interview with Paul Reickhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran of America
our headbangers ball 