Alzheimer’s – Lessons from my first patient

She was brought to the hospital the following morning and the doctors performed a battery of tests which revealed high beta amyloid levels and decreased temporal brain volume~ indicative of Alzheimer’s which rarely occurs at such a young age.

I touched the tarnished wooden door, the last in the hallway of one of the most prestigious medical facilities in the country and the veil between me and my first tryst with a patient.

Inside, was a petite middle aged woman, whose face was pretty in an unusual way. She was perched on a small hospital bed and hurried to sit up at the arrival of the team of doctors that I, timidly, accompanied. She greeted us with a beaming smile and nervous eyes. The distinguished doctor was quick with his routine enquiries after which he urged me to take lead and ask her relevant questions that would disclose what ailed her. I was shy in my approach, as expected of a newbie, and she was nothing but kind and patient with me. I learned that she was 42 years old, mother of two and lived in the nearby district, she had been married for nearly two decades now and had been frequenting the hospital for the past two months. What started as forgetting her keys or some passwords, led to a night spent away from home and her having no recollection of her whereabouts.

She was brought to the hospital the following morning and the doctors performed a battery of tests which revealed high beta amyloid levels and decreased temporal brain volume~ indicative of Alzheimer’s which rarely occurs at such a young age. She had been an accomplished lawyer, a loving mother, devoted wife and more to everyone she knew, yet now she seemed disoriented and detached from her old self.

Purple is the most recognizable color out of the color wheel. It tends to be the last color that Alzheimer’s patients forget. The elephant is a symbol because that is the only animal that will never forget anything.

The doctor began to proceed with his examination, and asked her to look at the clock plastered into the dull grey walls of the dingy room and announce the time. She smiled, uneasily and simply shook her head. The doctor turned towards the small window in the room and asked her to look outside, only asking her whether it was morning or night. His question was met with silence, and I felt the air in the room become heavier. I was astonished and also, devastated for her, yet she kept smiling sweetly at us, embarrassment clearly visible through her flushed cheeks and quivering hands. He then offered her a glass of water which she gulped down instantly and engaged with her in some trivial conversation that I could not hear, perhaps in an effort to calm her nerves.

The door was pushed audibly ajar and two children walked in, a boy, fourteen? And a girl trailing behind him, merely, six if I had to guess. Their faces, curious and eyes wide. They walked straight pass me and stood in front of their mother, while  their father slipped in quietly and stood behind me, silently observing the woman he married, fade away. She seemed overwhelmed at the site of her family, with a vast multitude of emotions that I fail to put adequately into words now. I learned later, that the children had been instructed to ask their mother if she knew their names. At the time that they did ask her, I could only imagine the turmoil that must have flooded the woman. What I can say, is that my heart has never recovered from the damage of seeing her fail to answer. Her eyes brimmed with tears, yet her smile never faded. She asked us to stop this, ‘inquisition’ of sorts, politely, but the doctors didn’t give in to her request. Instead he stepped forward, looking straight into her eyes, urging her to remember for the sake of her children. I saw her struggle and refuse repeatedly but he showed no mercy, while my attention split between her anguish and the frames on her bedside, filled with photographs of her laughing, her beauty accentuated by the small wrinkles of her once smiling face.

Sometime, in the middle of her agony, I chimed in, requesting the doctor to give them some privacy, telling him that I had learned enough for a day, when her husband whispered to me, his face twisted with hurt, “Medications can do only so much good, This pain is the cure for her dementia, to remind her that her family is  her strength to combat the loss of losing pieces of herself. ” I stood quietly, with pursed lips for the next twenty minutes as she glanced helplessly at all our faces, still unable to answer any of the questions.

The Netflix Book Tag

I’m back with another great book tag but with a twist! I’ve posted my version of the ‘Netflix book tag’ along with the original ‘Netflix tag’ ~ courtesy ‘Rats’(that’s what I call him!)

1. Recently Watched: The last book you finished reading

  She says: ‘A discovery of witches’ by Deborah Harkness. I picked it up very casually but it’s a great read TBH!  He says: ‘Alice in borderland.’ Its actually a japanese TV show and unlike any of the other things that I usually watch. I’m really hoping for a second season.  

2. Top Picks: A book/books that have been recommended to you based on book you have previously read

  She says: ‘Twilight‘ by Stephenie Meyer, ‘Night world’ by L.J. Smith. I’ve already read both of them as a teenager though! I do however want to expand on my love for the ‘supernatural’ and maybe give ‘The Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy’ a go!  He says: ‘High rise invasion’ and ‘archer’ but they really don’t seem my type, I don’t think I’ll watch them.  

3. Popular on Netflix: Books that everyone knows about.

  She says: All books from the ‘Harry Potter’ series by ‘J.K. Rowling, ‘The hunger games’ by Suzanne Collins. The list goes on, really and rightfully so, I’m in love with how these authors create a whole different world so realistically.  He says: Friends, Brooklyn 99, TBBT, Breaking bad. I’ve watched all of them.

4. Comedies: A funny book

She says: ‘The comedy of errors’ by William Shakespeare. Probably, Roald Dahl’s works. I’m not very into comedy actually.    He says: ‘Brooklyn 99‘, I really relate to the lead ‘Jake Peralta’ and as unnatural as they may seem, his reactions are usually how I mentally react to similar situations at first. (I’ve learned to control my outward reactions since then!)

5. Dramas: A character who is a drama queen/king

She says: Is it weird if I say, ‘Bellatrix Lestrange’? Weirder if I might add that she is one of my favorites from the ‘Harry Potter’ series. I clearly have a flare for drama!  He says: ‘Gina’, ‘Sheldon‘, I mean he’s always complaining. I’m not really the drama kind (laughs nervously)

6. Animated: A book with cartoons on the cover

She says: ‘Charlie and the chocolate factory’ by Roald Dahl, ‘Matilda’, ‘The BFG’ – all of his works. I read most of them as a kid and absolutely fell in love with all of his books and how ridiculous yet fun his stories were.  He says: ‘Rick and Morty‘! Its weird, quirky and unique sometimes even non-sensical

7. Watch it again: A book/book series that you want to re-read

She says: ‘The best of me’ by Nicholas Sparks. He’s actually one of my favorite authors and I could reread any of his books, but this one had my heart from the time that I read it. I love how he manages to play around with love and tragedy in each of his titles.He says: ‘Peaky blinders‘. I would enjoy it so much the second time around, now that I know to savor it. The show has everything- action, drama, comedy and even romance.

8. Documentaries: A non-fiction book you’d recommend to everyone

She says: ‘How to be a bawse’ by Lily Singh. I’ve never been much about the self-help section but Lily Singh’s personality and odes of wisdom have brought this nothing short of amazing title that needs to receive more attention from the masses. I have benefited a lot from her ideas in my personal life, HIGHLY RECOMMEND!He says: ‘Social Media’ it’s a reality that we need to face. Social media has become a daily, not if hourly addiction for all demographics and its better to learn more about it before its too late. (mysterious, right?)  

 

 

The importance of being jobless

Lets talk about, “The importance of being jobless”

Does reading this sentence shock you? Are you afraid to quit your job, because you’re afraid of being jobless?

Your mind is probably rejecting this statement. How can being jobless be important? Right from childhood, we’ve been told that its important to be “busy all the time, work hard and not be idle” and being jobless is something negative.

As I see it, Passion is nourishment for an idea and Nothingness is the fertile ground in which you can grow. There is nothing in a seed that says its going to become a flower, yet they bloom. Translation: If you doubt yourself, you will never bloom because you will never plant the seed of your ideas. Every child is curious, and every man is passionate. That ‘empty space or nothingness’ is the most fertile ground for new ideas to flourish, new careers to be explored and new businesses to be built. You can never build something new for yourself if you never give yourself the leisure of an empty space.

Why settle for something  when you can possibly have everything? It does take courage, a price to pay, to destroy what you have so that something new can be created out of the destruction. Creative destruction.

Save some money, quit your job, write that mail to your boss, today.

Parents, relatives, friends, and partners want you to achieve security and status and understandably, they advise you against it, but you? you want freedom and passion for yourself. In this, conflict of interest, Prioritize yourself ; You’ll be thankful later. Save some money, quit your job, write that mail to your boss, today, And become jobless. Do not be afraid if you feel like doing nothing for the next 2 weeks after you’ve quit, its natural, let the shock be absorbed and the tired habits be broken down. Your energies will build back in slowly and refocus, which you can materialize in activities  that you love to do. 

Invest in yourself, upgrade yourself

Welcome to this blank canvas of time. Use it to do what you love. Read a lot of books, attend training programs. Invest in yourself, upgrade yourself. Your life will turn around. Give yourself that space, to think, to rest, to read, to ponder, to travel, to eat better, to be fitter and I promise you, out of this space, your dreams will begin to take form.

Have you ever driven a car? To accelerate, you have to change gears by releasing the accelerator, and pressing the clutch. If you want to go faster, to the higher gear, you have to release the accelerator for a few seconds again. Your break, your sabbatical, your joblessness is just that. You need it to change the gears of your life and your career.

Everyone will doubt you ask you to stick to what you have already – because something, no matter how nonsensical, is better than nothing, but job where you do not feel dedicated, devoted makes you feel mediocre at best, and gradually becomes boring, repetitive, and toxic.

That is why, I ask you to repeat after me- ‘Nothing is better than Nonsensical’.

Only from nothing, can arise something new

Only in silence, can music be created

Only from darkness, can light be shone

Only from solitude, can love be appreciated

Only on a blank canvas, can you bring to life a beautiful painting

And only from joblessness, a beautiful career can be discovered

That blank space, that silence, that boredom is just a ‘pull back’ before you ‘shoot off.’ Don’t let anyone tell you what to do. Don’t ask anyone for advice. Don’t be afraid of losing your friends or disappointing your boss. Remember: No one improved their life by just sucking it up and sticking around, No one got their dream career by working hard on something that they do not love. If you never take that risk, you will never know what risk-takers (like me) end up achieving: “Risk hai to Ishq hai.”

Quit your job. Trust yourself. Just do it.

GUEST POST ~collaborated with a close friend of mine on this.

#TAG: the bookish snob

Here’s my first attempt at a tag! Thanks @potterheadaanya for making me try this out!

ADAPTATION SNOB: Do you always read the book before watching the film/ TV show?

I try my best to. I have been team ‘books are better than the movie’ for as long as I can remember. I mostly don’t bother watching the movie after reading the book, on the other hand, if I come across the movie and don’t realize that it was originally based on a book till after I’ve seen it, I go back and read the book version, as a rule.

SHIP SNOB: Would you date or marry a non-reader?

For me, reading builds your personality, emotional maturity and creative thinking in ways that other forms of art are unable to, and so I would jump at the idea of a partner that is an avid reader as well. However, over the years, my boyfriend has taught me, that this might not necessarily be the case and proved to be a notable exception. Thus, for the forseable future, I will be settling down with someone who watches movies almost as keenly as I read books.

FORMAT SNOB: You can only choose 1 format to read books for the rest of your life. Which one do you choose: physical books, eBooks, or audiobooks?

Hardcopies, without a doubt. Ebooks are convenient, but they don’t make you engage with the plot as much as a paperback does and I am yet to try an audiobook, despite numerous recomendations by my brother.

GENRE SNOB: You have to ditch one genre – never to be read again for the rest of your life. Which one do you ditch?

Self help, and Historical guides. I cannot conjure up any reason as to why but I don’t see myself picking up a book from these sections anytime soon.

COMMUNITY SNOB: Which genre do you think receives the most snobbery from the bookish community?

Unpopular opinion: Classics, and maybe rightly so.

Nominating @belladonna @fisbibliofiles @lightmotifs, can’t wait to read your crack at the tag!

The ‘Never Have I Ever’ book tag edition

I have always been into games of all sorts, and I found this really cool book tag game! How many times have we sat in a circle with friends and played a round of ‘Never have I ever’ to wrap up the evening, but never like this!

The Rules :

  • Link back to original creator: Madame Writer.
  • Link back to the person who tagged you or the blog where you first saw this tag.
  • Answer all prompts.
  • Add one more prompt of your own.
  • Tag at least 5 people.
  • Don’t lie.
  • Have fun!

Never Have I Ever…read a later book in a series before reading the first book

I have! Probably on stumbling across a great read in the library or the bookstore and becoming too engrossed in it to check if it was part of a series.  

Never Have I Ever…burned a book

I have not! I cant say ive even thought about it.

Never Have I Ever…read a book I knew I would hate

I have! After finishing ‘P.S. I love you’ by Cecelia Ahern in a meager 4 days, I was overtly excited to feast on another of her titles. After the first chapter or so, I undeniably realized I was not intrigued by its premise but forced myself to finish it and give the author some benefit of the doubt. Her writing style is noteworthy but just different from my tastes.

Never Have I Ever…wrote a fanfiction about my favorite books

I have not! I am however, looking forward to writing one in the very near-future.                            

Never Have I Ever…hated a book by an author I love

I have not! My favourite author of all times, is Nicholas Sparks and I can proudly admit to having read all of his published works and liking each one of them. His patented blend of love and tragedy keeps me coming back for more.

Never Have I Ever…read the end of a book before reading the beginning

I have not! I hate spoilers! Books, TV shows, Movies, the plot can no longer hold my interest if I am already aware of the outvvome.

My Question: Never Have I ever read two books at one

I have! I cant say that I enjoyed it too much. I learned that I prefer to keep myself engaged in one book at a time rather than divulging my curiosity into two books at the same time.

Never Have I Ever… liked a movie more than the original book

I cant say that I have! A writer’s pace and the depth of a scene can never be replicated on screen, vice versa, the beauty of a visual cannot always be captured in words. Movies and theatre have their own place in my heart, but I’m team books through and through.

text messages

And as simple as they sounded, his
words carried more meaning than any
conversation had in ages.

He could no longer
fight or offer up explanations, he couldn’t find a reason to fight for this relationship any longer.

All the struggle and tears devoted just to becoming a part of his life had been labeled worthless in the blink of an eye, in a text amounting to less than a hundred and twenty characters.

I couldn’t help myself from feeling devastation yet again, for a relationship that I had already mourned nearly two years ago. Despite my urge to hold on, In that moment, I knew; nothing couldn’t bring back what was lost, and that it was time to let go of yet another hand.

Happy Mother’s Day

Tell me how do I fight with my body, when there’s no fight left in my mind?

Understanding the diagnosis was hard, chemotherapy was harder, but honestly, becoming myself again was the hardest.
I spent countless hours, mulling over the meaning of my existence, reliving, in my thoughts, each experience that I had once cherished. It took some time for me to grasp hold of reality, to accept that my life had not ended as soon as the verdict on my condition had been passed. To not give up, or give in, to accept that these were the cards that fate had dealt me and that the outcome was still in my hands, no matter how powerless they seemed was an exhausting mental excercise.

My perception of my body shifted within a matter of seconds, and I subsequently spent hours figuring out how something foreign, something unwanted was allowed to grow inside of me, against my own will; and I kept staring at my hands as if they weren’t my own, As if I was held captive in my own body, as if I had lost all control.
When I saw the faces of those dear to me, all I could see was death staring back.


It was difficult, learning to accept their kind words with grace, and recognising sympathy instead of feeling pitied. Accepting that those who loved me were trying their best to be supportive, keeping me in their prayers.
Understanding what they were going through, how it felt to be with someone whose time in this world seemed limited, and to keep myself from leaving them to save them from pain of my soon-to-be death. On some days, it was so painful, that forcing myself to smile would bring tears to my eyes, and everything the doctors, motivational speakers, writers and my friends said sounded exactly the same.

How do you stay positive when everyone gets to age beautifully and i’m asked to lose all my hair just to survive till the next month? When my 4yr old daughter has to see her mother’s body pricked with needles, when my husband has to hold back my hair every night, watching the woman he loves, vomiting, lying on the bathroom floor, exhausted, crying? When I can’t get myself tell my dad, that he might see his daughter pass away before he does, because he might not survive losing me?
Tell me how do I fight with my body, when there’s no fight left in my mind?


Every waking minute seemed surreal, almost dream like and every morning I hoped to wake up from this nightmare.
Nothing felt important any longer, everything started to pale in comparison, but at the same time, the smallest things had never mattered to me more. The hope, the prayers,and the words of those who love me forced me to hold on for the sake of my life, even when there was nothing to hold onto,
and I spent the nights waiting, to emerge into a new dawn, a dawn
when the chemotherapy would have finally run it’s course, and the reports would sing a happy song.

I was crazy about you

happy, yet untrusting

In between nights filled with intriguing yet light hearted conversation and mornings with your charasmatically crooked smile, it was impossible to tell when you became mesmerized
with me, and I couldn’t believe that I was capable of making someone feel that way.
Despite the risk of sounding cliche, I admit that you taught me to be happy, and I was, with you, happy yet untrusting, and it’s become my greatest
downfall.


Then why did I walk away? I ask myself this question often, the answer is because I was afraid that you’d grow tired. Tired of all the work you’d put in this relationship, all the soul you’d have to invest in me, and yet it didn’t keep me from wondering, rather, from being afraid that you wouldn’t think about what could’ve been. I know how horrribly selfish it sounds but weren’t you the one who taught me to be selfish, to ask you for whatever I wanted, and albeit my friends’s constant reminder that it’s your loss, my conscience tells me that it’s mine too.
I think a lot about that one midnight, when the words kept rolling off your tongue, “I was crazy about you.” you said, and it left me yearning in a way I didn’t think I ever would, it made the world start to spin, but what it didn’t do, was bring you back to our safe Haven.
I knew acceptance of what had been lost would come gradually, but in that instance, the realization of how I pushed you into the arms of the demons that haunt you now was definite, and all of the blame was upon me to shoulder.

one bullet was easier than therapy

He was, “as simple as quantum physics.”

What was he like?
He was, “as simple as quantum physics“, he’d often say.
He could made you feel like you were crazy, and like he was crazy, but he also made you feel like you were genius, maybe because he was a genius.
I never dared to make sense of what made him; him, and quite frankly, he didn’t care about the opinions of this world, maybe not even mine. It was mediocrity that affected him, and that’s probably why he created sheer magic in everything he did. It’s like he celebrated his work, and we celebrated his brilliance. As he’d pour his heart and soul into whatever he’d pick up, he would remind me that it’s about quality, not vanity; never vanity.


He made his life more than just his career, and his accomplishments were multifold- he’d read Sartre, idiolise Nietzsche, study astronomy, learn stoicism. He could play the guitar, practise prose, write with his left hand and his right. He’d invest his time and his money in charities, or in science projects, or in innovations that were beyond the comprehension of both, you and me. Music, culture, art, stars, poetry, books, he gave them all to me, he gave me memories. His intelligence was beyond belief and yet he was the kind of person that touched every life he ever crossed paths with. Knowing him was loving him.


Was he whimsical? God, he’d turn his phone off and leave to fish or farm or whatever he’d fancy that week. He’d walk out of award parties, if he was bored, even if his own award hadn’t been called out yet. He wasn’t afraid to burn down metaphorical bridges that needed to be set on fire, and to use them to light his way.
He said he wasn’t made for this rat race, and i agreed because he already had his own kingdom. He was my fighter, smiling, as he broke every rule and made his own place in the sun. Happy being the outsider, never demanding to be let in into this society. No, he wasn’t shunned, he just rejected your lobbies, your small talk, and all the fake friends. You had to be so much more than a bloody trophy to hold his attention.
He taught me to care about saving the world, he made me want to go to Mars myself, he became my Mozart, a force of nature itself, my best friend.
If you couldn’t see him for what he really was, you might as well dont because he’s was just too good for you all.

inspiration: rohini iyer #justice4ssr

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