The thought of a leader of any nuclear armed country suffering from dementia is alarming. Forget the calls of “lock him up” for crimes against his country. There should be rallying cries of “get him treatment” for a debilitating cognitive disorder we have watched get progressively worse over the years. A serious professional mental health assessment (MHA) is in order.
In the midst of writing this post my alarm went off signaling to move the car for morning street cleaning. I immediately saved my posting, bounced up out of my seat with the vigor of a twenty-year old, ran to the hallway and commenced putting on my beanie hat to brave the cool winter winds of February in San Francisco. Mind you I turned sixty-one my last birthday.
Upon seeing my coat hanging, yet before reaching for it, something felt out-of-kilter to me. Where the brain fails, intuition of habit reminds. As I hurriedly looked down to pick up my shoes the sad realization of a cognitive failure hit me. I was standing at my coat & shoe rack with my beanie on, in a tee-shirt, in my underwear. The thought of, "I never put my hat on first when dressing," hit me like a ton of bricks. Another look, down at my bare feet and briefs, brought first terror then complete laughter to my morning.
So perhaps the moral to this blogpost is from an old quote, "people living in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones." But then again dear reader, I am not running for a government office that puts my finger on the launch button for nuclear weapons of mass destruction. I'm just a sometimes forgetful 61-year-old senior blogging in his underwear, and not potentially standing on the White House lawn looking down at bare feet and briefs.
The good doctor John Gartner in the video above thankfully distinguishes between normal aging forgetfulness and a cognitive disorder from brain injury/aging called Phonemic Paraphasia. Based on the doctor's explanation my mental lapse is normal for my age. I've been given a reprieve, for now.
Oops! there's goes my afternoon alarm reminder of a luncheon appointment today. Slowly I Turn!
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