How I feel things have changed in nine years since my diagnosis

Nine years ago, today at age forty-seven, I got my diagnosis. I think that the tests that I had were blood work, cat scan, sleep study, sleep deprived EEG and a pet scan. After all the tests were done and the results were in, I was told by my first neurologist that my pet scan resembled an Alzheimer's patient. Because of that, he gave me a diagnosis of EOAD, but he said that because of my age, I should seek a second opinion. After seeing a second neurologist, my diagnosis was changed to mild cognitive impairment (MCI). My symptoms at the time of both of my diagnosis were short term memory problems, problems with word retrieval, constantly repeating myself and sometimes getting lost.

Although my husband complained about me forgetting things and repeating myself, he appeared to be in denial. He also accused me of only forgetting things related to him. I still remember that my neurologist told me that I needed to reduce the stress in my life. I was told that it would just make my symptoms much worse. Although I have a memory impairment, this is something that I haven’t forgotten. At the time of my diagnosis, my children were fifteen, nineteen and twenty-three years old.

Some people might ask me how has my life changed since my diagnosis. My response to this is that my diagnosis was a “wake up call” that I needed. I was in a verbally abusive marriage for twenty-seven years and I thought that I could handle it until my youngest son graduated high school. He was graduating in 2008. But in Oct. 2006, just fifteen months after my diagnosis, I started having PTSD related to my husband’s anger. I was so afraid that I was going crazy and that I wouldn’t be there for my three children. In Nov. 2006, I moved in with my twenty-year-old son, who had his own home. It has been a very long process, but after about three years, this past Jan. 2014, my divorce became final.

In some ways, looking back and thinking about these nine years, since my diagnosis, I’m doing a little better, since I started taking control over my own life and not allowing people to treat me badly! But in some ways, I know that things have progressed.

I still continue to sometimes struggle with word retrieval, remembering things such as someone's name and over the past few years I’ve noticed a decline in my comprehension. This is just something that I’ve had to find ways to adjust to this.