HerKind.com

This morning I had the opportunity to interview Lisa Genova, author of Still Alice, a novel about a 50-year-old Harvard linguistics professor who is diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer Disease. I reviewed the book for the Globe (read it here: The Memory Thief) and found it a lovely book, compassionately told, very real and unusually written from inside the heart and mind of a vibrant, active, intelligent woman battling, accepting then slowly relenting to her diminished memory. What emerges in Alice as she slowly loses her mind is her raw heart, her default emotional responses and her essential self.

The story is quite affecting. Not least because I am just two years shy of the age of the novel's protagonist, an age that is not outside the realm of possibility for this diagnosis. Luckily my (too frequent) brain freezes lately are fairly common of a multi-tasking person, under a little bit of stress, and experiencing the hormonal ups and downs that perimenopause brings. If I accidentally leave my stove burner on, or put my French press full of hot coffee in the fridge by mistake, it's pretty harmless. If I forgot how to make the coffee or get back home from the corner store I might have greater cause for concern.

Alzheimer's is a brutally tragic disease, causing a person to lose track of themselves, their individual life, their preferences, their memories of their loved ones, and many more unspeakable losses. Perhaps when we think of Alzheimer's we think mostly of elderly people, completely dependent on their spouse or family, or living in a nursing home in a special Alzheimer's care unit, spending their days in utter, yet idle confusion.

Well, according to the Alzheimer Society of Canada, out of the half million Alzheimer and dementia sufferers in this country, 71,000 are under the age of 65. Some are as young as 30s, 40s or 50s. That's a whole lot of years to be alive with an increasingly debilitating disease.

But what I found out while reading this book and talking to Lisa is that early diagnosis is important, and more money needs to be raised for this purpose, so that these younger persons with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia can get on a drug program that hopefully fends off the progression, or at least takes them to a manageable plateau until just maybe a cure is found. If it continues to be thought of as a disease of the elderly who have lived most of their long lives fairly well, then those funds will be in short supply.

This is the third Alzheimer's book I have reviewed. Sometimes I don't know why I get chosen for these types of books, but since they take me to places that are inspiring and educational, I'm not questioning it. I recommend reading it. You won't be sorry. And don't be surprised if you see Lisa on Oprah one day, shining a bright light on a very worthy topic.

On another note, while talking to Lisa I found out that she left a successful neuroscience career to become a fulltime writer, armed with nothing but a deep ambition to write a book about an active successful, cerebral woman who gets diagnosed with Alzheimer's, written from her point of view. This was because, while her PhD allowed her to understand what was going on biologically with her grandmother who was coping with the disease, she didn't get a chance to ask her one question. "How does it feel to have this."

So, she took the advent of divorce to reinvent her life, to commit to writing this book and, with only a few writing manuals and a year of acting classes to guide her, she imagined and created this remarkable story. To boot, unable to find an agent or publisher because the topic was not thought to have wide appeal, she self-published and self-marketed the book. Word of mouth about it led to an agent, a book deal with Simon &  Schuster and a top ten rank on the New York Times (and Globe & Mail) best sellers list. AND a two-book writing deal with her publisher.

Not bad for taking a risk.

On a day like today when my mind is very muddled with worry about the diminishing media jobs in Canada, and therefore the huge competition I'm up against while searching for a job and writing work. When I barely know where my next rent cheque will come from, this conversation this morning reminded me of why people like Lisa and myself take risks. In life, we are guaranteed so little. I think it's important to seize the day. I have always thought so, but it was nice to have it affirmed.

Funny thing is, she didn't even know she was doing that for me!