Three small steps for Doña Quixote, a giant leap backwards for Gerda towards Dickensian craziness
Sometimes when I function reasonably well for a few days, I ask myself if I might not just be faking dementia as I sometimes think people who don’t know we well suspect that I do. Sadly, though, this week three discouraging things happened that restored my integrity–”I really am not faking this”–but burst my bubble […]
The post Three small steps for Doña Quixote, a giant leap backwards for Gerda towards Dickensian craziness appeared first on GERDA SAUNDERS.
Published on March 09, 2017 23:01
No comments have been added yet.
Field Notes on My Dementia
When I turned 61 in 2011, I was diagnosed with cerebral microvascular disease, a precursor of dementia. Since retiring from my job as the associate director of Gender Studies at the University of Utah
When I turned 61 in 2011, I was diagnosed with cerebral microvascular disease, a precursor of dementia. Since retiring from my job as the associate director of Gender Studies at the University of Utah soon after my diagnosis, I completed a memoir, MEMORY’S LAST BREATH: FIELD NOTES ON MY DEMENTIA, which is forthcoming from Hachette Books in June 2017. But dementia does not hold still. Like anyone with a degenerative brain disease, I continue to dement every day, never done until I die. Every time my brain suffers an additional insult, I have less brain power to puzzle out my remaining “self.” There will come a time when I don’t care or don’t know who I am. Until then, though, I hope to maintain this website with the help of my saintly and tech-savvy husband, Peter.
...more
- Gerda Saunders's profile
- 13 followers

