The unspoken cause of a form of aphasia finally identified.

877 Story Views


The unspoken cause of a form of aphasia finally identified.

Sometimes life in the land of being demented can be a pretty

challenging place and in fact we see things the doctors don't and no I

am NOT talking about the alien at the foot of the bed

(hallucination). Sometimes things are obvious to us that

"normally-abled" people might miss entirely. Let me give you a simple

and funny (if it isn't you) example of this. The NIH identifies at

least 15 major classifications of aphasia (difficulty communicating),

everything from inability to read certain words to in ability to utter

certain words and so on. In my case the aphasia is more at what I

consider the macro-level; it doesn't just swap out a word where and

there, if I don't keep a close eye on it, it swaps whole phrases and

somethings whole sentences. I know what I want and mean to say,

word-for-word but what comes out has a certain randomness to it

classical to all aphasias like the wrong word but one that rhymes or

might be another word that starts with the same first letter or it

might be the polar opposite. Its like the whole thought gets tangled

on the way out. And one way having a wife for a care-giver is they are

more accustomed to that and perhaps more forgiving.

But it only goes so far and that is the point of this story. As I said

above the NIH has identified 15 or so major classifications of aphasia

but I will describe an additional one they completely miss that can

leave me stammering and almost unable to utter speech. I don't think

the docs have connected the dots yet but any LBD or even some

Parkinsons patients will be nodding at this going, "yep....."

It goes like this:

* It has also been found in some Parkinsons studies that Parkinsons

patients with appreciable amounts of dementia also have an almost

uncontrollable compulsion for truth, hard, blunt unvarnished

truth. This has been documented well and the reasons why speculated

on by many smarter than I. For me its enough to know this is very

probable fact.

* The reason why its fact to me is that often (and more often lately)

my brain has been boiling nice things "your dress accentuates your

hair and makes you look lovely" down to something like "But it makes

your butt look big." always a self-destructive thing for any SO. Not

out of meanness or even actual fact (her behind is just fine, thank

you) but it just comes out. Its not any one in particular either;

had a cable salesman come to our door the other day and I screwed up

and answered the door. Even though I have little patience for cable

TV (long technical story for another time), the efficient and

frankly pollitic thing would be to thank him for his time and close

the door, like 10 seconds and the pain is over. But no, instead of

that out comes the truth: last cable guy that came here cost us this

much money and lied about that and ..." you get it. It wasn't me

dumping on him, there was no anger in my voice, it was all said in a

real even tone but....thats what rolled out...which of course

started an argument with the kid but thats not the point. There is

no feeling or any motivation behind it, the truth just rolls on


To be this additional form of aphasia is only active when you have

this problem and have enough self-preservation left to know you want

to live through the evening. So consequently when I am asked about a

new dress, haircut or other maritally-nuclear thing I clamp my mouth

shut so hard my teeth grind and I just "MMMfffffmfmfmf" and she feels

sorry for the aphasia, unknowing of the bullet just-dodged. It could

be to most beautiful thing I have seen, makes her very desirable but I

like breathing as much as the next person....and the aspects of this

disease and I are becoming....I don't know, fox-hole buddies I

guess. The guest you wish would leave but you must tolerate.

This may sound funny but from the outside it looks REALLY bad. But bad

can be better than some forms of death or violence.

I had better get on the line to the NIH right away....

Peace Jeff


Sign in or to post a comment on this story!

In light of this it dawned on me that LBD may disable me, the dementia may kill me but the aphasia just might save my life.

Feb 16, 2017 - 2:51 PM by Jeffrey C

Join the community!


Register with Email Address

Already a member? Click here to login

healtheo360 believes strongly in user privacy.