Monthly updates from genealogy sites always make me laugh. Mainly, it’s the latest list of a parent’s 4th cousin, 5th cousin or 4th cousin’s son with whom I share a smidgen of my DNA. As most people who know me already know, I was adopted as a baby so have been fascinated by my genetic history. When I was growing up, genetic history wasn’t an every day term – we used “natural father/natural mother” which changed to “birth father/birth mother” in the late 1970s.
I have always known I was adopted, and had a good family life where we all got along most of the time. I used to run away a lot when I was little to find my “real mum”. But usually only ever made it to the end of the road. The last time I ran away I got to Shalford (about 4 miles away from home): it was summer and they had a playground there which I played on and then got bored and decided to go home because it was getting dark. I remember hiding when I saw a police car while making my way home. I had caused some mayhem with my dad out looking for me and the police involved. A big burly policeman put the fear of God in me and told me never to run away again. I didn’t. Many years later, Bert ran away but luckily only to the stairs at the far end of the house. I realised then how much worry I must have caused.
The journey to finding Barbara, my birth mother, is a story for another time but it was incredible and very life-affirming. Hard to explain to people who weren’t adopted. The reason for the brief pre-amble is because Barbara died quite young with the last five years of her life lost to dementia, among other horribleness. So as my mind starts to get fuzzy and I lose words, I have decided to become part of a trial to investigate further into what used to be called “old age”.
I hope to blog my way through the process, but if it gets too boring then I will stop. I am still at a very early point with no concrete knowledge that my brain has lost some of its cells because they have been smothered in amyloid plaque. The first test was a phone call where I described my symptoms – mainly losing words, tinnitus, and sometimes repeating stories or forgetting conversations. These seem pretty run-of-the-mill and everyone seems to agree that they have the same things. But the knowledge I have of my potential genetic link to early onset dementia is at the fore-front of my ever-decreasing brain. Some friends don’t see why I want to know, as they would rather just let nature take its course and I am not saying that I might also change my mind.
At the end of the first call, I had my first “test”. Having seen my dad go through the tests I knew that it was important to focus on the first three words that were given to me to remember. Orange, coin, chair. See! I even remember them today and the test was last week! Then I was asked what day of the week it was (something I quite often ask myself anyway), what the date was, what the season was, to spell the word clock, to spell the word clock backwards (I would have died if I got the spelling one wrong) and to count backwards in 7s from 90 (readers of my last blog will know I regularly do this to try and get to sleep). At the end I had to repeat the three words from the beginning and I believed I got them right.
Next step is an MRI to see how the brain is checking out right now and then weekly injections. Given my imminent retirement and plans to travel around the world, the weekly injections might need to adapt a bit … but I am around in August and September mostly. Short term thinking is the way ahead. We really only just have the next breath.
PS. I did try the test out on husbant. He had been very busy working 12 hours a day. So maybe that explained why he couldn’t remember the first three words…
Snoo's kitchen 
Dear Snoo’, gre
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