We’re both anxious, but our departure feels more normal than not. He walks out with his phone, wallet, protein bar, car keys, and sunglasses in his hand and I suggest he put them in his shoulder bag, so they don’t get lost or left behind and so I don’t end up carrying all of them for him. He gets his shoulder bag, which is a relief and also sad. Why shouldn’t he just carry on in his usual blithe, chaotic way? Why should he have to now feel that I know better? I do know better, but I have known better for fourteen years and it’s never made a difference.
At the MRI place, the techs are pleasant and bored. I’ve read up on things that make a head MRI easier. I’ve brought two Bill Evans CDs and headphones for my phone, in case they don’t let us use the CDs. No headphones, the bored girl says. She adds, with more cheer, Your headphones would break. I ask if you can listen to music down at Yale when you have an MRI, and you can, and I curse myself for having been so selfish as to choose the nearby town, two exits away, with the easy parking instead of downtown New Haven, which is a pain in the ass but where Brian would have had music. He asks the women in scrubs what they advise about taking an Ativan.
“We don’t offer sedations,” one says.
“I know that,” I say—I snarl. “I brought an Ativan. From home.”
“Well,” says the other, older woman primly. “He can take what was prescribed. We’re not allowed to offer advice.”
“I get it,” I say. I am mentally writing my letter of complaint. No one gets an MRI of their head for casual purposes, and there is not a word or look of comfort or concern here.
On some website, it said a washcloth over the eyes helps the patient relax, and I have brought one and feel a little better about the music and myself. Brian takes the Ativan and lies down, washcloth over his eyes. I pull up a plastic chair and we put in our foam earplugs for what will be very loud, startling, occasionally percussive noise. I hold on to his leg. In between the noises, I shout things like “Hang in there, honey!” “You’re doing great.” I keep my hand on his leg the whole time. Sometimes, I touch his feet. He wiggles his toes back at me. This is my Brian: getting through the MRI steadily, wiggling his toes, occasionally keeping time to the noise, letting me know he’s there.
This is exactly who I’m going to lose.
* * *
—
Every day is an up-and-down. （Roller-coaster ride makes it sound thrilling; it is not thrilling. The ups and the downs both hurt, it’s a mistake to scream, and nothing moves quickly.）
While we wait to hear about the MRI results, we meet Ellen and her husband for dinner. I’m very close to my big sister, and the four of us always have a nice time. We’re eating at their country club, which is never a comfortable fit for me but the food is good and we’re happy to be with them. Brian has spent a lot of time in country clubs, due to his parents’ brief, high-flying Main Line Philadelphia period, and he’s designed one, so he’s always comfortable and even enthusiastic about the setting. Everything is fine and normal. Brian orders two appetizers and an entrée and a dessert, and our brother-in-law, who is a man of moderate and healthful habits, shakes his head, one part disapproval to two parts affectionate admiration. A friend of theirs comes over and Brian is introduced to him （the guy already knows me）。 At the end of the meal, the man comes back again with his wife, for more chatting, and I notice, although I would rather not notice, that Brian introduces himself to the guy, as if for the first time. It’s the only moment of forgetfulness.
* * *
—
On the way home, Brian and I have a very typical （as we used to be） chat about our brother-in-law’s recent hip surgery. Having gone through two, Brian is a happy expert. We both think our brother-in-law should continue with physical therapy, as Brian did. Les has already expressed a lack of interest in that, and so has my sister. Brian and I have a very pleasant, self-congratulatory chat about how great it was that Brian continued with PT for a month longer than the minimum suggested and how well it’s turned out for him. Aside from the fact that I’m driving, because I almost always drive now, his judgment seems fine. Brian now prefers to drive five and sometimes ten miles under the speed limit at all times （which is, perhaps, an example of very good judgment? If you know your decision-making skills are impaired, it certainly makes sense to drive more slowly and lessen the chances of a fatality）。 When I am driving, I don’t have to notice his hesitation over which way to turn at an intersection we drive through weekly. The drive is like most of our drives: companionable and mildly entertaining. I see that falling asleep, cocooned and childlike, while my husband, a superior driver, takes us home has now been, in the words of Great Wayne, left behind in another country.
We get home. We go upstairs. Brian has always been the person who “buttons up” the house: doors locked, TV off, kitchen lights doused. Now, on the way up, he turns on all the exterior lights, which is a new thing in the last few months for him, but I don’t argue, because （1） I try very hard not to argue anymore and （2） who knows? Maybe it’s smart, in our little village, to turn on the outside lights. Maybe it keeps the kids from East Haven from breaking into our cars in the driveway—if we’ve left them unlocked. （These are the nicest juvie criminals ever. They don’t even break a window. They open your unlocked car door and take whatever you’ve left in there. Then they close the door and drive away, in their own cars. I find it very hard to be angry or afraid about this. Also, I lock my car, every night. Brian doesn’t, and sometimes now he leaves his car doors not only unlocked but ajar.）
In the bedroom, I recognize the hum of normalcy, and although I don’t relax entirely, I do enjoy it. We brush our teeth. We smile at each other. He takes his vitamin B-12 supplement, which I hope is the answer to the question of what the hell is going on, but which I fear is not. （The descriptions of B-12 deficiency sound dire: suicidal wandering, yellow skin, deep dementia. That’s not Brian.） We get out of our nice clothes. We throw the decorative pillows in a pile. I get into bed and Brian hands me the remote that adjusts our clock. He tells me to pick whatever show I want. The hum inside me stops. I hand the silver remote back to him and tell him what it is. He takes it silently. I get up and find the TV remote on the floor. Neither of us says anything. I have no idea if he thinks this is no big deal, which is how he’s acting, or if this is the kind of psychic destruction he’s trying to manage every day. We watch an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and I say, I love Andre Braugher, and Brian says, Me, too.
Thursday, August 15, 2019, New Haven, Connecticut
Finally, we have our appointment, our second, with the neurologist. We get there in plenty of time. The secretary/receptionist nods at us from behind the glass. Two men in matching plaid shirts, one young, one old, are both slumped in the waiting room chairs, heads resting against the wall. The waiting room is so small, we all have to keep our feet tucked under us.
* * *
—
There are around six million people with Alzheimer’s in the United States. This doesn’t include the people with mild cognitive impairment who might or might not become more demented （statistically, 80 percent of people with MCI do go on to develop Alzheimer’s within seven years, and although reevaluation every six months is recommended to people with MCI, no website can tell you why frequent reevaluation is recommended, as there is no FDA-approved and successful treatment for MCI or for slowing the progression of MCI to Alzheimer’s or, really, for Alzheimer’s itself）。 The six million also doesn’t include people with TBI （traumatic brain injury）， which often leads to some form of dementia, or the people currently suffering from several different forms of dementia, which end just as badly as Alzheimer’s but may progress differently. Almost two-thirds of these six million people are women. Almost two-thirds of the caregivers for those Alzheimer’s patients are also women. More of the patients and more of the caregivers.