Still Alice

by Lisa Genova

“Hello? I’m home,” said Alice. John walked out from the study and stared at her, looking confused and at a loss for words.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in Chicago?”

ALL OF YOUR blood work came back normal, and your MRI is clean,” said Dr. Moyer.

“I want to see a neurologist.”

“I’ll have another one, too,” said Alice, the glass of wine in her hand still half full.

She mostly listened and drank her wine, nodding and smiling as she followed along, her interest not truly engaged, like running on a treadmill instead of on an actual road.

She filled her wineglass again,

At a pause in the conversation, Alice and the woman in red made eye contact. “I’m sorry, I’m Alice Howland. I don’t believe we’ve met.” The woman looked nervously at Dan before she answered. “I’m Beth.”

“Are you Marty’s new postdoc?” asked Alice. The woman checked with Dan again. “I’m Dan’s wife.”

No one spoke. Eric’s gaze bounced from John’s eyes to Alice’s wineglass and back to John, carrying a silent secret. Alice wasn’t in on it.

Once they were outside, she meant to ask John what that awkward saccade was about, but

THREE DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, ALICE sat in the waiting room of the Memory Disorders Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston pretending to read Health magazine.

the others who waited.

all in ...

twenty years older t...

woman who looked at least twenty years o...

father, who sat in a wheelchair

silver-haired woman

next to an overweight man with m...

She had good reasons to cancel her appointments on the morning of January nineteenth with the neuropsychologist

January nineteenth, thirty-two years ago.

she’d never received good news on that day. She’d asked the receptionist for another date, but it was either then or four weeks from then.

neuropsychological tests administered to her that morning—Stroop, Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices, Luria Mental Rotation, Boston Naming, WAIS-R Picture Arrangement, Benton Visual Retention, NYU Story Recall—

designed to tease out any subtle weakness in the integrity of language fluency, recent memory, and reasoning

She had, in fact, taken many of them before, serving as ...

t...

She was the subject bei...

Alice entered Dr. Davis’s office and sat in one of the two chairs arranged side by side, facing him.

He acknowledged the empty chair next to her

unless I have an accurate picture of what’s going on, and I can’t be sure I have that information without this person present. Next time, Alice, no excuses. Do you agree to this?” “Yes.”

Any solid relief and confidence generated from her self-evaluated competence in the neuropsychological exams evaporated.

I don’t see anything abnormal in your MRI.

your blood work and lumbar puncture all came back negative as well.

“You scored in the ninety-ninth percentile in your ability to attend,

You have a recent memory impairment that is out of proportion to your age and is a significant decline in your previous level of functioning.

“When I put all of this information together, Alice, what it tells me is that you fit the criteria of having probable Alzheimer’s disease.”

“You have early-onset Alzheimer’s.

ten percent

have

early...

under the age of six...

“We have a couple of drugs

The first is Aricept. It boosts cholinergic functioning. The second is Namenda.

Neither of these i...

but

slow the progression of...

“I also want you to take vitamin E twice a day and vitamin C, baby aspirin, and a statin once a day.

you’re going to have to tell someone.

It’s important to your safety that someone who sees you regularly knows what’s going on.

She searched her doctor’s eyes for something else, but could find only truth and regret.