Alzheimer’s, Coronavirus & Christmas

A little more than a decade ago, Sandra and her husband, Chas, found themselves sitting at a dining room table in a house hundreds of years old in Blockley, England. They were fulfilling one of Sandra’s dreams of visiting some of the world’s grandest gardens in the Cotswolds region.

When Sandra retired at the age of 62, she became a Master Gardner and had created an inspirational garden at their home on Island Creek just outside of Oxford, Maryland. But, a true gardener’s work is never finished. They live by the credo, “next year’s garden will be better.”

So, at the age of 72, she wanted to walk around the famous gardens of England with Chas taking pictures and she, with her little notebook, scribbling about texture, color, sun, shade, dry, wet, size, blend, and that all important question, have I fallen in love with this plant.

She became frustrated one evening while trying to plan the tour for the next day. Her memory was giving way to lapses and confusion. Chas had noticed that some of their conversations were being repeated. Something was amiss.

Upon returning home, Sandra visited a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University Hospital. He conducted preliminary tests and then sent her for an in-depth exam that produced a diagnosis — Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI).

The diagnosis came with a caveat — it could be a case of MCI that lasted a lifetime or it could be the beginning of Alzheimer’s Disease. It was the latter.