Agency

 

 

"Interface"
Art Markers on Paris Paper for Pens
Canon G7x Mark II
Snapseed

The "journey" to get a hearing aid included having to get a brain MRI. It was prescribed because I am more deaf on one side than the other. Sometimes, this condition indicates the presence of a tumor sitting on the hearing apparatus in one's head.  I've never had a head MRI done before and so having my skull locked with a vice-like-grip in a head cage was a stimulating experience. But even with the acute limits to movement, the narrow tube that I laid in, and the banging of the magnets, I managed to fall asleep several times during the scan.. Hah..  The results came the next day.. The images showed a normal brain with very little "white matter hyperintensities" and no tumors.. The presence of white matter is thought to presage stroke, dementia and / or Alzheimer's. From the NIH: "[White Matter Hyperintensities] are radiographic markers of small cerebral vessel disease and an important predictor of the life-long risk of stroke, cognitive impairment, and functional disability." I know I have some cognitive deficits tho..    For example: Recalling celebrity names is a lost art. I am a fairly fastidious note-taker now where once I could keep all the myriad details of sprawling software development projects in my head. Sometimes I walk into rooms and don't remember why I'm there, and so I have to stand there until it comes to me... And - I find that if I don't speak with someone regularly I am in danger of repeating myself.  The whole brain scan adventure got me to thinking about how to deal with things should the slope of decline becomes more steep.. maybe even to the point of having to be warehoused until death. I am hoping that I have enough of my wits about me should things proceed to that juncture to procure some fentanyl, go somewhere out of the way, and quietly end this life. I used to tell myself that I'd do this to spare my family the burden (financial and emotional) of tending to a profoundly impaired old geezer that doesn't even recognize them any more.  That's kind of a convenient lie, though.. Taking agency about when and how to end this life spares me from a grim ending - the horror of being housed in a facility like some broken artifact until this busted up body gives up the habit of ongoing respiration. ~