My wife was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer's on July 14 of 2008. I had a bad dream the night before we went to the Neurologist's as I knew that she was having issues with her memory for some time.
A short history of my wife's situation.
My wife went on disability back in 2002. She was diagnosed with Post-Polio Syndrome. She believed that she had polio as child (4 years old), but we are not sure as the medical records were lost in a fire in my mother-in-law's house. My mother-in-law is 83 and is in fairly good health. She is adopted and so I am having a difficult time trying to find out if anyone in her family had Early Onset.
My wife was very active. She worked in Hospital Administration for many years and also worked in Manhattan as a legal secretary. She was a writer and the most caring person I have ever known in my life. I married my best friend!
She has had memory problems in the last 3-4 years. (I should also mention that she takes medication for High Blood Pressure) Forgetting the word was usually the most common symptom. However, since early last year 2007 she wasn't able to write a check, pick me up at the bus since she could remember where the stop was, and would repeat herself more frequently. A doctor at the Englewood Medical Center in New Jersey attributed her memory problems to the post-polio and suggested that she use a CPAP device after 3 sleep studies indicated that she had sleep apnea. She tried to use the CPAP but kept taking it off in the middle of the night. Here primary care doctor, never suggested getting her tested for the memory problems and would not even speak with my step-daughter about it when she asked him. He never said a word to me. It was Dr. from Englewood who ordered an MRI last August to rule out dementia.
She had a MRI, an EEG and saw a Neurologist last fall. He proscribed Aricept and Keppra, but never mentioned AD to us. I took the results of the MRI, EEG and report back to Dr. at Englewood, who did not think it was Alzheimer's. He suggested she go to get evaluated for PTSD. Her primary care doctor said in a visit that it was in fact Alzheimer's. We went for a second opinion. The neurologist was here on Staten Island. He ordered a Pet Scan and neuro-psychological tests.
We went to see him on July 14th and he confirmed the diagnosis of Alzheimer's.
In early August my wife had not been feeling very well. She had a slight fever and a pain in her right side. I took her to see her Primary Care doctor and he said that she was constipated. He said that she should use a laxative for 2 weeks. On Sunday of that week, she slept quite late and seemed very disoriented when she woke up. She didn't remember that we were married and started to call her family. I was in a panic. She wanted to know what was wrong with her, and I mentioned that she was having memory problems, and she become quite upset. "What happened to me, what happened to me??" was all she kept saying.I didn't know what to do and since she was ill during the past week I decided to take her to the ER. She was admitted after several tests which included a EEG, and CT Scan. Up all night the in ER and we got a room at 5am. At 6:30 one of the doctor's came into her room and told me that on the basis of the CT Scan, they thought it might be Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus. This meant surgery. I was about to go out of my mind at this point. They had gotten all the reports from our primary care doctor and now they are telling me it is NPH and she would need surgery. She was discharged after our primary care doctor's associate conferred with the hospital staff. He said that it was not NPH. The next day, we meet with a PA at the neruologist's practice and she says that it is not NPH and that the hospital made an error.
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