After giving up on voice-recognition technology to create this post, I am resorting to hunt and peck, seek- and-ye-shall-find, technology. I think I am doing quite well fighting off dementia, thanks to my ever-patient, care giver and beautiful wife Karen. I insist on continuing to find out how to return to voice-recognition, since my special gift of Essential Tremor keeps my fingers dancing out of tune. 

 

Twenty years ago I was diagnosed with Essential Tremor. Last year I agreed to donate my brain to the University of Texas Southwestern’s research into the shared symptoms of Essential Tremor, Parkinson's, and dementia.

 

I paid no attention to dementia symptoms until I began to track some disturbing episodes on my day-to-day life.

 

After working as a bi-weekly columnist for the North County Times, followed by several years of posting my The Riehl World blog in the Oside News and OB Rag, digital newspapers, I discovered I had lost my ability to find words to put together.

Thanks to voice recognition technology, which I am using at the moment, I have been able to occasionally write pieces like this one.

 

Here are the signs in my daily life that led me to schedule an appointment for a dementia test with my doctor.

 

I understand that forgetting little things, like where I placed my glass of water or my eyeglasses, is common among people of my age. But it became troubling to learn from Karen that when I said or did something which had been completely erased from my mind, it became troubling.

 

One morning, while brushing my teeth, I decided to go to the next room to get my bottle of water. When I returned to the bathroom, I discovered the TV remote in my hand.

 

An hour later I was folding clothes taken from the dryer to put into the drawers in the bedroom. After matching socks to put together in a drawer, I was disturbed that I had two undershorts that did not match, I checked the dryer to see if their matches had been left behind, before realizing I only wear one pair at a time.

 

In the middle of a conversation, I often have to stop, searching for the right word. But more worrisome have been the times I’ve had to ask Karen, “Where are we going?” while we were on the way to the store, as planned.

 

One morning, again while I was in the bathroom. I looked up to see beneath the mirror a tube of Sensodyne. I stared at it, struggling to remember what it was for. Having used a tube of prescription medicine to treat my facial dermatitis, I wondered if I should smear the toothpaste on my face, before spotting my toothbrush..

 

One morning, when I got into the car to drive to the store. I stepped on the brake and attempted to shift gears. When the engine did not start, I worried that the battery was dead. For a moment I did not realize I needed to simply step on the brake and push the ignition button.

 

After returning from the store with two boxes of cereal, I put them on a chair, then checked the kitchen to see if they were there. When I didn’t find them there, I went out to search the car. When I couldn’t find them there, I returned to the house to tell Karen I will need to return to the store, where I suspected I’d left them. Then I found them, just where I had left them in the chair.

 

These were the episodes that caused me to call the doctor to schedule a test for dementia.

 

He told me, to my relief, that I had moderate cognitive impairment. But I also learned there was nothing to stop me on this road to dementia. I can stave it off for a while with plenty of daily exercise of both body ad mind, as well as a full social life. I’ve taken up Wordle and other word games. And we are very fortunate to live here in the Chateau Lake San Marcos, where our social life is so full.

 

I plan to continue with this blog for as long as I am able to. I know I’m not alone in this adventure.

 

 

 

 

My Christmas Gift

 

Today I agreed to donate my brain to medical science. (I’ll pause here to allow regular readers of my published opinion pieces to stop laughing.)

Twenty-two years ago, after an afternoon of heavy yard work, I reached for a cold beer and sat down to rest. As I brought the bottle up to my mouth I couldn’t keep my hand from shaking. I had to hold on with both hands to keep from spilling. That had never happened to me before. I refused to believe it was because of the onset of old age, chalking it up to the after-effects of unusually hard work on a hot day.

But at my next doctor’s appointment, when I was asked to hold a tongue depressor in front of me, I couldn’t hold it steady. I explained my older brother had been diagnosed with Essential Tremor, having undergone deep brain surgery to reduce the symptoms. The doctor told me this neurodegenerative disease is inheritable. He added ET to my medical record.

My symptoms have had a relatively mild effect on my life. No longer able to type, I have to use voice recognition technology to enable me to keep writing these columns. I had to give up model airplane building and switch from finger-picking my guitar to thumb strumming a ukulele.

Those comparatively minor sacrifices, plus coping with modifications in personal hygiene tasks and suffering from occasional social embarrassment, have been my only complaints about living with ET. But as a member of Facebook’s Essential Tremor Awareness Group, I have learned of the many others, of all ages, whose lives have been substantially challenged by the disease, many from a very young age.

When I learned of the study being conducted by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center to find future therapies for those suffering from severe cases of ET, donating at death to help others seemed the right thing to do.

The study requires a neurological and cognitive assessment every 18 months to track the progress of the disease. To determine my eligibility to participate, I was given a test of the shakiness of my hands. I was sent the image of an Archimedes spiral that looks like this:   

 

I was asked to copy that freehand with each of my hands. Here’s what my right hand produced:

 

 

My first cognitive test question was, “Who is the President right now?”

It pained me to write “Trump,” since I well remember how, during his 2016 campaign he ridiculed a journalist for his physical disability, imitating him by swinging his arms around wildly. That hit home with me at the time because my Karen, suffering from spinal stenosis, sometimes appears to be conducting a symphony orchestra while she walks unsteadily across the room.

It came as no surprise when I was told I definitely qualified to be included in the study. The next step is to undergo my first comprehensive assessment of cognitive and neurological symptoms. It will take place on January 19 and 20   in two-hour virtual Zoom sessions in our home.

I’m looking forward to it.

 

President Tweet and San Marcos Mayor Meet the Virus

 Donald Trump says his use of social media, countering what he calls fake news, made him president. This morning, as I watched the DOW sink by more than 900 points (so much for his recovering economy), I came upon President Tweet’s latest rant:

Covid, Covid, Covid is the unified chant of the Fake News Lamestream Media. They will talk about nothing else until November 4th, when the election will be (hopefully!) over. Then the talk will be how low the death rate is, plenty of hospital rooms, and many tests of young people.

Today’s CDC Covid 19 report suggests talk after Election Day will be mostly about what a failure he has been in fighting the spread of the virus.

Here are the numbers for the last seven days:

More than 70,000 new cases per day in the United States

More than 4,000 new cases per day in California.

More than 1,000 new deaths in one day in the U.S.

Yesterday, the San Diego Public Health Services reported the City of San Marcos had a total of 1,283 cases.

Mayor Rebecca Jones has no Twitter account, but you can find her on Facebook, where her only mention of the virus is in her October 19 post, listing the rules for her Facebook visitors: “No politics, no Covid, no negativity.”

At the city’s website there’s a tab titled Coronavirus Disease Update, featuring a video message from the mayor, where she assures viewers:

-We are here, and we are prepared.

-You can rest assured that emergency services are fully operational.

-We are keeping as many City services available as possible.

-We also recognize the importance of supporting our residents AND our -businesses in order to keep our community strong.

-Our City is strong. Our country is strong. And we will prevail.

Click on a tab titled, What can I do to prevent getting Covid 19? and you will find this advice:

There is currently no vaccine to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to this virus. Please follow all the steps outlined by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to help protect yourself and others. You can view the latest guidelines and information here.

Mayor Jones, like President Tweet, doesn’t take leadership responsibility for urging her constituents to wear the face coverings that can stop the spread of the virus. Unlike the president, she provides a link to those who do. 

Why We Could Lose the War on COVID 19

The day after the World Health Organization declared the spread of the virus a pandemic, President Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office.

“We’re all in this together,” he promised. “We must put politics aside. We must stop the partisanship and unify together as one nation and one family. Acting with compassion and love, we will heal the sick, care for those in need, and emerge from this challenge stronger and more unified than ever before.”

A week later, in his COVID 19 press briefing Trump declared, “I’m a wartime president. That’s what we’re fighting. It’s the invisible enemy. That’s the toughest enemy, the invisible enemy. And we’re going to defeat the invisible enemy.”

By July 3, when the number of cases in the U.S. had skyrocketed to 2,752,704, Trump barely mentioned the invisible enemy in his speech at Mount Rushmore.

“The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets of cities that are run by liberal Democrats is the predictable result of years of extreme indoctrination and bias in education. Our children are taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but villains.”

His vow to lead a unified nation in fighting a war with an invisible enemy had vanished, resulting in aiding and abetting that enemy by refusing to practice and promote the only weapons that can stop it: the use of face coverings, social distancing, and avoiding large gatherings. He continues to hold huge campaign rallies, while demanding that states and schools reopen, regardless of the spread of the infection in their locations.

Trump believes the way to fight the invisible enemy is to show no fear, by going on the attack in the way wars have always been fought. Attend huge campaign rallies to show your support for the president, go to the beach with friends to show you refuse to be held captive in your home.

This invisible enemy welcomes those who confront it by showing no fear. It needs hosts to survive. Until its intended victims understand that, the virus will win. 

The Virus of Sextortion

It’s Cocooning Day 50, with no Covid -9 cases so far, in our Château Lake San Marcos community. Karen and I wear facemasks when we leave our condo to take daily walks. We discovered how to fashion a mask by using two rubber bands to hook over our ears to hold a hospital sock over our nose and mouth. We tried everyday socks, but discovered their thickness hindered our breathing. The thinner hospital sock souvenirs, if less fashionable, are more comfortable. Thanks to Netflix, Prime Video, our “Social Distance Singers” YouTube production, and ongoing writing projects, we’ve been able to fend off the boredom of social isolation.

An unexpected benefit in our daily lives has been the unusual absence of scam telephone calls. But that hasn’t kept the online predators away. Yesterday I received this email from a Syed Mehmood Ahmed.

I do know, *******, is your pass word. Hey, you don't know me. Yet I know just about everything about you. Your current facebook contact list, phone contacts as well as all the online activity in your computer from previous 127 days. Consisting of, your self pleasure video footage, which brings me to the main reason why I am writing this particular mail to you. I will be forwarding the recording randomly to 5 people you're friends with. It may be your friends, co workers, boss, mother and father. I would like to make you a 1 time, no negotiable offer. Get $2000 in bitcoin and send it to the listed below address. You've 24 hours to do so. Your time begins as soon you read through this mail. 

Guilty only of viewing an occasional X-rated film, I was not worried about what the predator threatened to reveal to my friends and relatives. But that first line caught my attention with an actual password I changed ten years ago. Yahoo had announced email accounts had been hacked at the time. Nevertheless, I immediately changed my current password, as added protection from wannabe hackers. An Internet search of the extortionist’s name was of no help. Variations of the name are as common as “Joseph Smith” in the USA.

In a June 17, 2019 CNBC story, Kate Fazzini wrote, “Overall, extortion by email is growing significantly, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Compliant Center (IC3). Last year, these complaints rose 242% to 51,146 reported crimes, with total losses of $83 million.”
I learned attempted extortion is a federal crime, so I went to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center and filed a report. It’s also punishable in every state, so I filed a report with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, which has law enforcement authority in the city of San Marcos. Finally, I notified the Executive Director of the Château Lake San Marcos to warn our fellow senior citizen neighbors of the threat.

Having to hide from a health threat over which we have no control, it felt good to fight back at those who would take advantage of our isolation.