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A Firm Grasp on my Marbles

The Source

It was one of the proudest moments of my life. I looked at the lab technician and said, “Tom Brown, 100 Main Street, Chicago, Illinois.” The white-coated little gal looked at me in amazement. She said, “How did you that?” I said, “I’m psychic.” I don’t think she believed me, but no matter . . .I passed the test. This time last year found me bound up in a series of tests and medical procedures and although the problem was with unwanted items in my stomach, each visit to the hospital required a test of my mental facilities. I didn’t ever bother to ask any of my testers what my brain had to do with my gut, but it seems to now be standard procedure to check the head even if you entered the hospital because of a toe. Jacksonville’s top mechanic, Dave Zink, used to do that. I’d bring the car in for an oil change but he’d check my belts while I was at it. This may be old news to anyone who’s had a protracted hospital stay lately, but it was new to me. I was having trouble swallowing so they checked my memory. Were they afraid that I was forgetting to gulp? The brain test was pretty much standard in Jacksonville, Springfield, and at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis. At Barnes they listed a series of things then asked me to repeat them. Easy-peasy. Memorial in Springfield put me through a twenty-minute test where I was to poke my answers into a laptop with the questions flashing by at what I thought was an unnecessarily fast rate of speed. I kept looking for the “slow down” key but none was to be found. And I’ll admit that by the end of the test I was both bored and frustrated with the whole procedure and started punching keys at random. It’s a wonder I passed that one. But the day I truly blew them away occurred at a clinic on the west side of St. Louis. Just two weeks before in Springfield I’d been asked to remember “Tom Brown, 100 Main Street, Chicago, Illinois,” so I could repeat the address some ten minutes later. Easily done. But what blew the mind of the lady in St. Louis was when she said, “Mr. Bradbury, I want you to remember this address . . . Tom Brown. . . “ and before she could finish I repeated the address that I’d heard two weeks earlier. “How did you do that?” For once in my life I was honest with a medical person and I said, “That’s the same address they gave me in Springfield two weeks ago.” She said, “And you remembered it?” I said, “Yes. Now is there really any need to finish this memory test? If I can remember something from two weeks ago then I should be okay with everything you give me today.” Hospital protocol demanded that she finish her test with colors, shapes, numbers, and pictures, so we slogged our way through twenty more minutes of tests. I’ll tell you the truth: I walked out of the hospital feeling pretty darned good about my mental facilities. I’m just glad that the testing lady didn’t see me wandering around the parking lot trying to remember where I parked my car. Dementia is a real and terrible thing and I in no way mean to make light of the misery that many families must endure when a loved one suffers a loss of memory. The awful shadow of Alzheimer’s is something that hangs over all of us and there’s even a psychiatric condition that’s been identified when people hear so much about memory loss that they become paranoid and chalk up every senior moment as a sign of serious trouble. So after having gone through such a series of tests and coming out the other side with a healthy mental status I can say with some certainty that perhaps we worry too much about losing our mind. I can remember back in the 1960’s when reports of flying saucers started filling our news reports. Within days everyone was seeing strange flying objects. This autosuggestion can easily lead to a mental mass hysteria that can be solved by telling ourselves . . . Wait a minute. I’m okay. I did not put the silverware in the freezer today and even though I can’t remember a name I can recall the face clearly. Yes, we remember the trivial Tom Brown’s who live in Chicago while perhaps forgetting where we placed our phone, but 12-year-olds do that, too. And there’s a good deal of consolation in the fact that whenever I can’t remember something I simply make a call to Cedarhurst retirement facility and ask my 98-year-old father who nearly always has the answer. I wonder if Tom Brown could do the same.