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!

Very happy to hear this today, and so well deserved: Nino Ricci's fantastic novel, Origin of Species has been nominated for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

I reviewed it for the Ottawa Citizen, though it is unfortunately not online. But here's a blurb the publisher picked that I'm presuming will be on the paperback jacket when it's released:

“An entertaining and emotionally rewarding read, this book will transport Nino Ricci to further heights of literary stardom and could well overtake his first, Lives of the Saints, as his signature work — much as the original Origin of Species did to the career and life of Charles Darwin.”
— Ottawa Citizen

Inspired by Twitter's 140 character limitation I have only one comment to post right now:

I'm wondering if media and media types are thriving a little too much on bad news just now, as they almost giddily report recession fallout.

Maybe it's just the way it was reported, but when I read this article on the Calgary woman who, through the miracle of IVF, gave birth to twins at 60 I was put off by some of the comments from her doctor. I fully agree that the ethics around fertility drugs is sketchy at best. In particular this woman, it seems, put her life and the life of two babies at risk because she could never reconcile not having had children. But questioning her age based on the fact that it's "two generations" away from the newborns' is worrisome. Plenty of children have older parents. Hell, my mom was probably considered ancient when she had me in 1960 at the age of almost 40. I survived - and thrived - with a mother full of wisdom and the kind of knowledge that comes from a lived life.

No-one questions the phenomenon of men becoming fathers at "grandfather" ages. There are plenty of examples of this in pop-culture. David Letterman for one. Does anyone question his motives? Who can deny that the eventuality of his son has softened him, and clearly made him very happy. No-one likely believes little Harry is deprived of love, affection or means. Men can have children until the day they die, provided they find someone young and fertile. I mean, it's not outside the realm of possibility like it is for women, unless they spend beyond their life savings to do so. 

Sadly, in most countries, you can't even adopt a child past a certain age. So, the older men who can still father naturally have it made - provided it's what they want.

Regular readers know I spend a great deal of time, words and energy championing men. But today I'm on the side of this Ranjit Hayer - it seems to me she had her heart in the right place. And though I generally disagree with fertility technology and the business behind it that, more often than not breaks people's hearts while emptying their bank accounts, I fully support an older woman's right to bask in the joy of mothering.

Her case is a little different than most because she had tried for years to become pregnant, and after having a few miscarriages, she sought help. Generally though, our society is still somehow signalling to young women that they have loads of time to get pregnant and can do so well into their 40s, as natural as can be. This is wrong, as well as the notion that frozen eggs past a certain age (say 35) will result in pregnancy. Plain and simple, we're born with all our eggs and from puberty til menopause we lose them every month. They do not replenish, and they age. I wish Ms. Hayer could have reconciled herself to her biological and physiological fate, though I can tell you, that is not an easy thing to do and takes time and the kind of understanding that is not in abundance. But since she couldn't, I wish her good health and a long life with which to enjoy her children.

There's just no excuse or real explanation for what happened to a Polish immigrant who was killed by a taser at Vancouver airport last year while he waited for his mother to meet up with him. A collective of individuals left a confused, non-English speaking man alone to fend for himself.

Columnist Gary Mason makes a great effort to put it in context in today's Globe & Mail.

Part of this tragedy is learning how preventable it was

Mr. Mason believes any one of us in this day and age would have dropped the ball and left helping Mr. Cisowski to someone else. I agree, for the most part. I witness this kind of me-first-last-and-only attitude daily on transit and the streets of Toronto. But I like to think there are some folks out there who believe it's important to leave their own needs aside for a moment to help someone else.

Why is doing the right thing so often trumped by doing your own thing?