Jan's Story by Barry Petersen Page B

miracle took place we would laugh about the fear and how the bad days were behind us, all the while sipping champagne to celebrate her wellness. We would pick up our lives and all would be back to normal.
    Wouldn't someone invent a vaccine, a shot that would bring her back? It had to happen soon, because the truth of where she was going couldn't be happening to us. My mind screamed in denial. I could not allow this.
    The screaming didn't matter. The rage didn't have any effect. The daydreams were useless, or worse, they fed my ongoing denial. The changes came when The Disease decided, not me. My daughters tried helping me in this new job as caregiver on those times when we were all together. Sometimes it was heartbreaking.
    We all met in Palm Springs, CA for Christmas in 2006. I rented a house with a pool and a mass of bedrooms. Emily and her husband Craig drove from Denver with their dog, and Julie flew in a few days later. We goofed off, sat by the pool, and read books, or napped, and shopped for silly Christmas decorations.
    I bought presents for everyone from “Dad and Jan,” but I knew Jan had no presents for me, because I had done all our packing for the trip. The girls and I hatched a plan, and we went to a book store and I picked out two or three truly trashy mystery novels, suitable for long airplane flights, and the store wrapped them in bright Christmas paper. The plan was that the girls would slip the books to Jan and she could slide them under the delightfully garish 2-foot high revolving plastic electric Christmas tree and feel that she was gift-giving to me.
    She wouldn't do it. Flat out, not interested. Somehow, she had it fixed in her mind that my Christmas present was going to be a new suit by Armani—that is what Barry needed and deserved, she said. The practical reality was that there was no way we were going to go suit shopping. I was overweight and didn't want to spend the money on an expensive suit, especially as the credit card bills soared from our vacation.
    No matter … forget any books for Barry, the present from her would be a suit and if she couldn't get it just then, she would buy it later. And that became her present of choice for Christmas and my birthdays from then on. The Armani suit was a fixation for her, the perfect present for Barry that she would pick out, if not now, later.
    Later never came.

TIMELINE
Summer, 2007
Barry's update to family and friends
    We were back in the US in June and saw Jan's neurologist in San Francisco. During these appointments the doctor administers a quick test where she memorizes a few items, writes sentences, gives the day and date, what city she is in, etc.
    It was clear that Jan was having a lot of trouble with short-term memory. For instance, given a list of five items, she could not remember any of them about two minutes later. This was a significant difference from our last visit.
    COMPENSATING: This is a new one, and I am told it is not unusual at this point. I noticed Jan reacting to my questions with answers that showed she couldn't remember something but didn't want to admit it.
    Jan is “compensating” in other ways. The other day she went shopping at the local “Friendship Store” (a store in Beijing where we lived part time while in Asia) which sells Chinese goods to tourists. Jan wrote “Friendship Store” on her wrist. When I asked that night where she went, she flipped over her wrist and had the answer ready.
    I also noticed something else unusual for Jan; she closed herself off to new experiences. This happened when someone suggested that she might enjoy visiting a local produce market. She got visibly angry. A little research shows that this is probably not anger, but fear. It can be daunting to contemplate doing new things. This was noticeable because Jan was usually first in line for new experiences.
    I must confess that I am taken aback at how fast Jan's short term memory seemed to evaporate …