Saturday, May 1, 2010

 

That was quick!

    One of my Upcoming Attractions listed in the immediately previous post has already been covered, much more thoroughly and interestingly than I could have accomplished.
     I'm an unashamed geek when it comes to information, so one of my favorite sites has always been Mona Johnson's The Tangled Neuron. Granted, I haven't been there in quite awhile. My only excuse is that I haven't been anywhere on the web in quite awhile. After publishing my Upcoming Attractions post I decided to wander over to Mona's site and see what she had to say about the newly "advertised" report mentioned in bullet 7 of my immediately previous post. I was sure she'd have something. Mona is nothing if not up-to-the-minute on cognitive research and typically has more information and more links to more information than anyone else. Turns out, she attended the webcast of the NIH State-of-the-Science Conference in which the report was discussed and has written several posts about the report and other matters covered in the conference. Below are links to all the posts she's written so far, all of which should be considered necessary reading by anyone interested in all manner of cognitive decline [Sometimes I think it would be better to refer to this area of interest and study as "cognitive aberration", since "decline" often allows people to presuppose behaviors that a subject may not be exhibiting...or that people who wouldn't be considered in "cognitive decline" do exhibit; this concern, by the way, is a topic that was also covered in the conference and about which Mona reports. Then, again, "aberration" has its own cross to bear...]. The first link below directs you to her post that covers what I was planning to write about; by the way, read the comments to her posts, as well. They often contain auxiliary information pertinent to the posts:    I've also decided to begin my usual "Honorable Links" (labeled, in this journal, "Honorable Sites") section over there on the left. The first link listed is Mona's site. Thanks, Mona, for doing what you do. You are the only one doing it in exactly the way you do it, and doing it exactly to my taste. Long may you blog!
    Later.

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Friday, April 30, 2010

 

Upcoming Attractions

    As has been my habit in previous sections of this journal, this post is more a reminder to myself than a teaser to readers of subjects for upcoming posts (not listed in any particular order; numbers are for identification convenience, only):
  1. A review of the book but this is my mother! by Cynthia Loucks;
  2. A review of the book When I Married My Mother: A Daughter's Search for What Really Matters - and How She Found It Caring for Mama Jo by Jo Maeder [Am I the only person who's getting sick of subtitles, especially indefinitely strung out subtitles???];
  3. A review of the soon to be published book Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence by Gail Sheehy;
  4. Review of the book Life with Pop: Lessons on Caring for an Aging Parent by Janis Abrams Spring, PhD and Michael Spring;
  5. A review and personal analysis of the recently published AARP sponsored survey of caregivers in the United States;
  6. I know a couple of people who reside in ASL's; one a fairly long time friend and continuing member of the book club to which I belong, the other a second cousin with whom I have recently reestablished contact; both of them are nonagenarians. I'm hoping to interview them about the circumstances of their moves and their experiences of living in a ASL. If those interviews go well, I'm hoping to do more.
  7. Commentary on a recently published Medscape article about a review of the existent research on life-style measures thought to help prevent or delay the onset of cognitive decline.
  8. Read and comment on The Myth of Alzheimer's by Peter Whitehouse and Daniel George.
    So, there you have it; a list of reminders to myself of the subjects of some future posts. As I enter posts on the above mentioned topics, I'll link the above bullets to the posts.
    Later.

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This is where I'm continuing.

    It's been so long since I've written anything that pertains to the aftermath of The Mom & Me Journals dot Net that most of my former followers probably think, despite my best intentions immediately following the death of my mother, I finally had to come to grips with the seeming inevitability of my mother's death fashioning an end to the journals. Certainly, our lived together life is over. What else is there to write about? "Poor Gail", I imagine some readers having thought, if anyone besides me thought about it at all, "she just can't let her mother go. Oh well, she'll get it eventually." Then, as weeks piled into months and postings seemed to stop, probably a few figured, "Ah, she's got it, now. It's over."
    And, of course, "it" is. Setting up a grieving journal, In Sane Grief, was a part of my attempt to continue without continuing. Not long after I started that journal, though, I discovered that as I became more involved in a grief support group, I also became less possessed of the desire to talk or write about my experience of grief with anyone other than the members of the group. I alluded to this development a bit in the most recent post published at that site. Now, several months after having written that post, although I remain an active member of my grief support cadre (yes, we can legitimately refer to ourselves as a cadre; we don't just grieve, we have become a tightly knit community of people living with deep grief with a peculiar identity which allows us to extend our support and insights into our larger communities; an unusual development, yes, for a grief support group but, well, I guess I got lucky) I am discovering a desire to write about my experience of deep grief (not to be confused with complicated grief, even though, in my experience, what might be termed "common grief" can be quite complicated). I may write about that at the afore-linked grief journal. My experience of grieving has become so intertwined with the rest of my life, though, that I may post about it here. I'm not yet sure. Either way, I'll let you know if posts exclusive to my experience of grief begin to pile up "over there".
    My interest in ancienthood and caring for our ancients has not waned, though. Neither has my interest in my mother's and my experience of mutual companionship over the last years of her life, nor my new curiosity about how our companionship changed me and what sort of person I am, now. For me, interest and curiosity always imply writing. My fingers may not have done much writing, lately, but my brain has. I'm feeling, now, that it's about time to transfer the activity of writing to the keyboard.
    I decided it would be easier to write this part of my life out in a separate journal. No doubt, as I write, I'll be reminded of prior thoughts in pre-mom's-death posts. But, you know, I want a clean sheet of paper, which, if I bothered to analyze the desire, is probably "a good thing", or evidence of me "moving on", which would relieve many who know me, I'm sure...or you know, indicative of some other such common sociological nonsense. Whatever. This is my clean sheet of paper.
    Later.

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