Diagnosis

The symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease hardly appear at the beginning. At the early stages, patients of this disease make the same mistakes as healthy people often do. In the case of Alzheimer’s disease, these mistakes gradually increase. In such a case, even a medical specialist can’t diagnose it decisively. It is simply difficult, and diagnosing a person with Alzheimer’s disease has a major effect on the patient and the people involved. In my mother’s case, most doctors avoided diagnosing her with Alzheimer’s disease. I felt that people began to say she had had the problem for a while —her trading partners, her coworkers, her friends, and her secretary, in that order.

I lived with my mother, but I hadn’t suspected that she had Alzheimer’s disease. She had always been a forgetful person since I was a child. At that time, we were tired because we needed to cover my grandmother’s caregiving. So I had assumed that my mother was simply tired. I observed that her forgetfulness increased but thought that this might be temporary.

That could be normalcy bias. People tend toward normalcy bias during disasters. When a disaster happens, some people often think, “This is still okay” or “ I will be okay” or “This time, it will be okay.” Then when it’s too late, these people can’t react correctly or can’t escape the situation. This mentality might even increase the damage of the disaster.

We met many doctors. It took about three years for us to find a doctor who diagnosed my mother with Alzheimer’s disease. I was surprised, but I still took an optimistic view of the situation. Back then, I didn’t have enough knowledge about Alzheimer’s disease. I believed I could continue my teaching job and acting on stage, but I needed to quit both a few years later.

One can say I lost a chance to escape from my mother’s Alzheimer’s disease. My mother had a lot of friends, and I had an elder brother. I had assumed they would help us, but actually, no one helped us. They had already escaped from us. Most of them even ignored us.

I missed the chance to escape this situation, but I fought my mother’s Alzheimer’s disease for over twenty years with my mother. I let her live out the rest of her natural life.

Sometimes I regret those twenty years—I wish I escaped like other people had—but I look on the bright side. At least I know who really cared about my mother. My mother’s address book has the names of over 1,500 people, but only about ten people worried about my mother and constantly contacted me. I will treasure these people for as long as I can.

Proofreading by ProofreadingServices.com

Picture by Taeko