There is a treasure chest of memories buried somewhere in each mind, locked and hidden from all. We guard it jealously from anyone’s prying eyes.
But when life gets really quiet, or when one catches a whiff of a familiar perfume or hears the strains of an old love song, the key turns ever so slowly. Then the lid opens.
Memories, like tiny butterflies, escape from their nest, and we relish that delicious aroma again. The music resumes. We recall the flavor of wine once tasted, the bitter now rendered sweet by time. A lonely tear escapes from a heart no longer accustomed to weeping and catches it by surprise.
Why do some of us spend a large part of our lives focused on forgetting? Like the song says: “What’s too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget.”
There is joy in remembering and sharing even the not-so-happy events of our life. We love to tell and retell stories about the war, amused at the wonder that sparkles in the eyes of our grandchildren as they listen in disbelief.
Lately however, while hanging out with former classmates (yes, children, older people hang around, too), I have noticed we worry and fuss a lot about memory. Names and faces escape us. Nervously, we laugh at our own senior moments. Why do we feel compelled to introduce ourselves over and over again to our “old” friends? We disguise our fears behind weak jokes about “old timers’ disease.” But truly, it is no joking matter.
They call it the long goodbye.
A year ago, my best friend gave up her fight against Alzheimer’s disease. This lady, who once cried over anything at all, could not even shed a tear. Just as she forgot how to laugh, she had forgotten how to cry.
Someone has described its onset as a fog that settles on the mind, or like slipping into the twilight. It is a malady that strikes with very little warning, and affects not just the sufferer but every single member of his family as well.
In Australia, the figures are staggering. Some 1,300 Australians are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s every week. The Alzheimer’s Association in the United States shows 5.4 million Americans suffer from the disease. In the Philippines, the numbers are climbing.
All over the world, millions of men and women embark on this hopeless and heartbreaking journey to nowhere, bereft of their memory and dignity, unable to find their way out of the fog.
But here is a story that brings hope.
On a recent “60 Minutes Australia,” they spoke about Dr. Edward Lewis Tobinick, a medical director of the Institute of Neurological Research in California, where they have discovered “a new shot at life.”
Answered prayer
They told about Tobinick’s new revolutionary procedure that could be an answered prayer for the millions of victims around the world.
It consists of an injection of perispinal etanercept, an anti-inflammatory drug originally created to treat rheumatoid arthritis, delivered to the base of the neck, after which the patient is uncomfortably tilted upside down, for five minutes, with the head pointing to the floor.
It sounds almost comical, doesn’t it? But the results are far from funny. They are astounding.
In the “60 Minutes” episode, the patient is Charlie, an Australian, who, minutes after the procedure, emotionally talks about the “fog lifting.” He answers questions about his personal life and current events, that prior to the shot he couldn’t even understand.
The day following the procedure, Charlie continues to improve, and now remembers what he did for a living. A month and three injections later, Charlie says: “It’s like a miracle.”
A couple from Melbourne was immediately hopeful when the husband began to sing and dance with his wife only days after the first injection. Unfortunately, they could not afford to stay in California. Because the treatment is still not sanctioned in Australia, Alzheimer’s won out in the end.
(Researchers at Queensland’s Griffith University have plans to start testing the drug in 2012.)
Perispinal etanercept attacks excess TNF, a protein found in all human beings, but which is 25 times higher in AD patients. It is not injected into the spine or the spinal cord, but into the back of the neck, and into the blood system that surrounds the spine. The patient is then positioned on a slant, headfirst. The effects are immediate and astonishing. The damage from Alzheimer’s starts going on reverse!
Stroke and dementia patients are now lining up for this anti-TNF shot. They have discovered extraordinary and lasting results even for sciatica.
We pray that this is indeed a breakthrough in the battle against Alzheimer’s, “a barren disease, as empty and lifeless as a desert. It is a thief of hearts and souls and memories.” (Nicholas Sparks, “The Notebook”)
It is too late for my best friend.
But for the millions who are still lost in a long, dark and desperate night, the dawn seems to be breaking. Let us greet the new day!