Alzheimer's

Today at work we somehow got onto the topic of not being able to remember what happened only a week ago and that progressed somehow into me talking about how Alzheimer's runs pretty strong in my family, and I'm totally in line to get it.

This then transferred over to the topic of talking about how funny it would be to see me with Alzheimer's, and I'm sort of afraid of what will come out of my mouth when I get it. When the dementia really hits, and I can't remember what year it is, there's going to be two ways that it's going to go. Way #1 - which I'm sort of hopping for - is that someone tells me that I have Alzheimer's and that it's a few decades later than what I think it is, and that the person I'm talking to is a family member, but older than what I think they are. I understand because Alzheimer's has been part of my life since the get go, and believe them. Seriously, I've known that I'm going to get the disease for such a long time, and it's been part of my world view, that if someone was to come up to me 50 years from now and tell me that I have the disease I'm sort of hopping that I'd believe them.

Way #2 - which I'm worried about - is if the dementia really kicks in. I'm SUPER afraid that there's going to be days that I respond to everything in Swedish. Or if you catch me in the wrong 'year' in my dementia, that I'm going to be in my super sarcastic phase. There's a lot of my life that I don't want being brought up in front of Addison. There's a lot of personality bits that made sense, to me, at the time and location that I was doing them, but I really don't need my daughter meeting Freshman year at college me. I understand that it's not exactly like it's me in 2004, but that mentality, and that stupidity does not need to be showing up and rearing it's head any more. The worst would if you somehow caught me in the mission phase of my brain. I love that time period, I did some great things, and some great things happened to me during that time, but at the same point it'll be an interesting ride for whoever's talking to me if that shows up in the old folk's home.

Edit -
What I didn't write in this, that I should have, but I didn't, was the topic of why it was that I write. While talking about Alzheimer's, one of my coworkers said that they understood why I was the way that I was if I knew that I was going to forget it and it could come back and bite me when I'm old and grey. For them, it suddenly made sense why I didn't drink or didn't do drugs. Personal convictions, religion, and anything else that I had said prior to that, didn't really sit well enough for them, but knowing that I'm going to loose my mind, that made sense to them that I didn't want to loose it any earlier than needed.

But that made me wonder, in the back of my mind, are there some actions in my life that lean towards my knowledge of Alzheimer's in my family? For example, do I write so much, because I know that I might not have it later? I habitually write in my journal and other things like this, because I know that one day I won't be able to remember it? Am I obsessed with being smart, with keeping my brain active, because I know that I have to fight now to keep it?

I honestly don't know where the conscious actions start and where the subconscious takes over. It'd be interesting if that was true, but I can't say it is. Just something that sat with me, and has stuck with me since.