Yet another wake-up call

{it's your turn soon)

I have a new customer for my gardening: an elderly couple who live in a converted barn on a hillside overlooking the river Nadder and the railway line. They are both too old to manage the heavier garden work, and the man who mows the lawn and cuts the hedges likes to do a quick and easy hour's work with motorised tools and not get involved with any really physical work. So I have been pulling out the Russian Vine that has grown unchecked to the very top of the conifer cluster and high stone wall. It was killing the trees, and had begun to send tendrils up under the eaves into the roof space.

I began by clearing away the long grass and weeds which had grown up in the flower beds and borders, because the bulbs are already growing up, and she would like to be able to see them. Her sight is deteriorating due to macular disorder, and she cannot see clearly much further than her feet, let alone through a mass of weeds. I uncovered some early crocuses, and a beautiful deep purple flower that I still can't put a name to. Neither could she, because it was too far from the pathway for her to walk to.

Every few minutes, the man wanders out to where I'm working. He says one of two things: "I was going to ask you something, but I've forgotten it", or "Do you know a local mechanic who'll come out and see to my car?"

He has Alzheimer's disease. It came on him sometime in the last 12 months. He still has his long-term memory; he can remember where things are kept around the garden, and where his friend lives on the coast. And he can obviously remember something in the short term, because when he comes out to ask me the question, he knows that he decided to come and visit me for some purpose. But he doesn't realise that he is repeating the same behavior regularly. How can he, when he doesn't have the recall necessary to make comparisons? He doesn't even know that he has Alzheimer's, because what the doctor told him was probably lost five minutes later.

Some time ago, I wrote a story in response to a challenge; to write a short story in which all the action took place in a span of 5 minutes. There could be no reference to events outside of that window. I settled on imagining a pair of people living together in a home who had lost their short-term memories. At the time, I didn't go and look up anything about Alzheimer's or Dementia or other known conditions, I just wondered what it would be like if all you could do was live for the moment.

The story is here (Stalemate) if you want to read it. Just out of interest, when it was reviewed, the reviewer imagined two old men together. I knew better, but didn't contradict him; sometimes it's instructive to see how other people think.

What has focussed my attention now is that I seem to have imagined quite accurately what it is like to not remember, and I am worried. Is it going to happen to me? Or to someone close to me? Because at the moment, there is very little that can be done about it. The attitude in the health service is very much one of not wasting resources to deal with a problem where the sufferer is going to die within a short timescale anyway. There might also be a hint of not rushing to cure someone of a condition that they do not know they suffer from, and which doesn't actually cause pain or physical discomfort anyway. But does the sufferer feel mental anguish?

I am now becoming fascinated with what I might try to do if I myself began to lose my short-term memory. The first and probably most important question is, how would I know?