The FastDay Forum

Good for you, Marybeth, both for being prepared to put yourself forward for the research and for having your 'exit kit' ready!

We currently have a bill before the House of Lords (part of our Parliament) which is seeking to allow assisted suicide in the case of terminally ill patients. It is modelled on the law in a few states in the US and there would be strict conditions in place to protect those who might be under duress to take that route. I feel very strongly that I should be able to decide what I want to do with my body and that the government has no right to restrict my choices.

I am 'doing my bit' to help with the training of doctors, by leaving my body to Cambridge University so that trainee doctors have a body to use during their dissection classes. Providing, of course, that there is enough left after they have harvested any useful organs! It will, after all, be no use to me after I'm gone!

@Marybeth,

It isn't likely they will tell you anything about your results. That's the most annoying thing about studies. A dear friend is in an MS study where she gets an obscenely expensive drug for free and gets periodic MRIs, but they won't tell her a thing about what they find, even when she develops symptoms. She finds it disturbing.

But do be careful about scaring yourself when they give you tests. I also have a strong family history of dementia on my mother's side. Years ago I participated in a study where they gave me a test where I had to do something with words. I did quite poorly at it. A few years later, I read a long description of that very test in the New York Times, and learned that it was a test for early Alzheimer and that based on my performance on that test, I had flunked it. That supposedly meant my chances were very good of developing dementia within a decade.

Well I took that test was 13 years ago and people are still paying me money to write, often quite a lot of it. So much for that prediction! I have also learned the hard way that sometimes it is better not to see your imaging. My neck is so bad on X-ray and MRI that it is very easy to get into thinking it should hurt all the time. But a few visits to my acupuncturist last month gave me enormous relief, no matter how ugly the bones look. The same may be true with our brains.

The famous Nuns study found some nuns whose brains were riddled with plaques and tangles when dissected after death, but they had seemed quite normal. Others who had been demented has much better looking brains. That is why they are studying brains so much more carefully now, as they really don't know what the physiological correspondences are to the symptoms.

Finally, about the Final Exit. My parents were enthusiasts for that solution and used to proclaim it loudly whenever another friend started to decline. However, when they started to decline, the first thing that went was their desire to exit. My mother went through a long humiliating period that would have horrified her 79 year old self, but we couldn't even get her to sign a DNR until she was certified, and by then she had handed in the form. I had to struggle mightily to get the doctors to stop tormenting her during her last year and when I ordered them to stop, as her POA, became the butt of some very ugly accusations from doctors who were running up huge bills giving her treatments that did nothing but hurt her and leave her terrified.

So this isn't a simple solution.

Shame on me. for I have missed a few pages of reading.
But, in good news, I have been called a yummy mummy today...er specsavers?
And cuddled grandkids.
And been asked to various Christmas events.
So life is full..... far fuller than I remember my Mum's at the same age.

Um, what quals do I need to be a lovely Sassy?

Missing a few IQ cells short of 150.... or just getting on in life and enjoying it

Thanks Penny, yep - that is me to a tee. Come on in folks.

Really going to bed now, as it is calling big time.

Another horrid cold wet windy day, must be November!
More armchair Xmas shopping to be done, though we have ventured out earlier and bought actual presents too :0)

@peebles

Thanks for this very thoughtful reply. I think I was scared about the possibility of realizing during the various cognition exercises that I wasn’t doing well. So irrational of me, especially as I am one who wants to know everything about my own health in order to make decisions and plans.

I know what you mean about tests not seeming to show what is really going on. When I was having severe sciatica pain, the MRI showed that, judging by the deterioration of the spine on the right side, that’s where the pain should be—actually it’s on the left side. (Turned out to be Piriformis Syndrome more than something caused by a spinal condition.)

I’m so glad that your testing turned out not to be predictive. As I look over my mental/intellectual activities since I retired 7 years ago, I realize I must still have all my marbles and should stop scaring myself. From what I recall about that Nun’s study, the ones who behaved normally in spite of brain plaques had spent their lives more intellectually/socially active than the others—is that your recollection, too?

About Final Exit---I am so sorry that your family and your mother suffered like this. I know it’s easy to say that I would “self-deliver”, but actually doing it is another story. Suicide in the face of extreme pain during terminal illness is one thing, but in order to do it with a dementia diagnosis, one must still be fairly compos mentis to manage it—a real conundrum. I think that, like living in a legal doctor-assisted suicide state, the availability of a way out of the pain eases anxiety and gives a sense of control, even if it’s never used.

I’m sorry, too, that you were treated so badly by the medical establishment when you were only trying to do your best for your mother. My sister and parents were allowed to slip away without heroic treatment, and with all relatives on board, for which I am very grateful.

You are a wonderful addition to this forum, peebles, thank you for all your caring and informative posts.

@StowgateResident

This is good news--I hope the law passes--has it been through the House of Commons yet? I agree with your view on controlling our own lives and bodies and I admire you for leaving your remains for medical students.

I'm expecting a phone call from the "brain lab" soon to discuss the eligibility requirements and the testing program. Wouldn't it be funny if I'm ineligible for some reason after all this angst? My OH can't do the muscle lab thing because he's on blood thinners and can't do the brain lab study because of his pacemaker (no MRI's allowed)

So I completed my 16 hours fasting, had tuna salad lunch with a friend, came home and ate a GF mince pie then 5 oat biscuits :0(
What's wrong with me??
My weight has crept up to 73kgs :0@ unsurprisingly given the Xmas fare available.
Control? Ha!

I blame the cat 'cos he's eating more and doesn't answer back :0)

@Marybeth,

Thanks for your very kind words!

I believe the most predictive thing in the Nun's study was the complexity of their prose when they were quite young and writing something that was part of the application for the novitiate. But yes, I also believe there is some research that points to education and mental activity as being protective. At the same time, the idea that you can protect your brain by doing crossword puzzles does not turn out to be true. This shouldn't surprise anyone as those puzzles are pretty formulaic and don't require ongoing building of new synaptic connections. What does that is learning things that are new to you. Learning a language as an adult appears to also help a lot.

The other kind of brain deterioration, which I saw with my dad was deterioration of the limbic system. His intellectual powers stayed intact, but he became irrationally angry and even violent as he aged, picking fights with his children and wouldn't let anyone else near my mother who he became increasingly possessive about. That was much more damaging to my parents as a couple than the loss of my mother's intellectual abilities, because my father was doing many very irrational things but sounded so reasonable and sane when people tested his mental capacities that no one could get guardianship of my mother until he died, even though he was making terrible decisions for her.

So that complicates things, too.

It's really a tough thing and one that no one talks about, in public, including most of us who have gone through these nightmares with our parents. But my parents had me late in life, so they went through their late 80s and 90s when I was only in my 50s. Most boomers still have that ahead of them. So the topic won't be fully aired for another decade. And it will take so long to make the institutional changes we need, that I don't know if they will be there when the boomers hit their 80s.

GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT GROWING OLD

1) Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional..
2) Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.
3) When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while you're down there.
4) You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.
5) It's frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.
6) Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.

THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE:

1) You believe in Santa Claus.
2) You don't believe in Santa Claus.
3) You are Santa Claus.
4) You look like Santa Claus.


SUCCESS:

At age 4 success is . . . . Not piddling in your pants.
At age 12 success is . . . Having friends.
At age 17 success is . ... Having a driver's license.
At age 35 success is . . .. Having money.
At age 50 success is . .. . Having money.
At age 70 success is . .....Having a drivers license.
At age 75 success is . . . .Having friends.
At age 80 success is . . .. Not piddling in your pants.

Completed another clean 16 hour fast then ate tomato and basil soup and ATE the brown roll and butter that came with it. Naughty.
Later, whilst waiting for my Higgidy pie to cook (delicious but dratted carbs AGAIN) I inadvertently devoured 5 buttered GF oatcakes. INSANE.
Later, whilst watching TV a mince pie LEAPT into my startled mouth.
Daren't stand on the scales today :0@
(73.7kgs)
Next fast due Thursday.
Must. Be. Strong.
It's 0*C here, I blame the cold ( and no self control ) and anything else I can think of ...

I haven't read all 69 pages but I have read a few. Looks like this could be the place for me.

I was 67 last Saturday. I am retired, originally from the UK but now live in Spain. I am new to these forums.

I find most weight loss and IF forums, like those on Facebook, are made up of really young people who often weigh not much more than I would like to lose

Welcome @Carol A! Your last sentence made me chuckle - same here! X
Good Morning everyone x