In the picture I’d seen of Rich on the internet prior to meeting him, he has short brown hair and a full beard covering his face. He’s wearing a white T-shirt under a denim blue, button-down shirt. He is not smiling. He looks menacing. It occurs to me that the photograph could pass for a police mug shot!
In person, he appears nothing like this unflattering picture of him on the internet. Rich is blond and smiles with blue eyes that are kind and sparkle. His face is clean-shaven, smooth and pink, the kind of gentle face my grandmother would’ve unabashedly approached and patted on both cheeks while saying, “Aren’t you handsome?” He looks at least a decade younger than his online picture and even younger than he is. Rich is fifty years old. He has Alzheimer's.
I learn that Rich has a masters degree in journalism and was the managing editor at a major newspaper for four years when his first symptoms began. It had been his job to assign stories to writers and photographers and edit stories. He made sure everything came together. He was highly competent and loved his job. He loved the written word.
Suddenly and inexplicably, Rich became tired, the kind of abnormal tired that sleep could not restore.
“My job typically needed me twelve hours a day, six to seven days a week. I’d go to work and last at my desk for ten minutes.”
He was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He could no longer work. Everything stopped.
“I know fatigue is a part of Alzheimer’s disease, and I know this disease is very strange and shows up differently for different people. But I still don’t know if the fatigue was due to Alzheimer’s or something else.”
His next symptom didn’t fall under the classic heading of ‘forgetting’ either.
“I started experiencing auditory hallucinations. These are very disturbing. I’d be in another room, and I’d hear the TV on, but I wouldn’t remember turning the TV on. I’d go in the other room, and the TV wasn’t on. I’d think, ‘Why am I hearing the TV?’ So I’d turn the TV on. Now I’d hear the actual TV AND the TV that I was hearing in my head.
Or I’d be listening to the stereo to a CD that I’ve been listening to for thirty years, and I know well what it sounds like. Then this harpsichord music would begin playing over it. And I’d think, ‘Well that shouldn’t be there, that doesn’t have anything to do with this!’ So I’d turn it off, so the CD music wasn’t playing anymore, but the harpsichord music was still there.”
About half of people with Alzheimer’s disease experience auditory and visual hallucinations. But Rich didn’t know this at the time.
“Then I was getting lost. I’ve pretty much lived in Los Angeles for most of my life and, I’ve been driving since I was sixteen years old. I was going to places that I’ve been to a thousand times, and I was just completely getting lost and not knowing how to get back. And again, I know this city like the back of my hand. I know it’s a complicated city, it’s not like living in a small town, but you drive Los Angeles. I went to school at USC. I know this city. And I was getting off the freeway and not knowing where I was. I was getting freaked out. My doctor just kept poo-pooing it and dismissing me. He really just didn’t listen to me.”
