Alzheimer's

I was watching TV the other day, and an ad came on for the Alzheimer’s Association, or some other such Alzheimer’s group. They were trying to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s disease, and they mentioned that they’d been at the forefront of every major discovery, but they were still working to find a cure. This all seemed well and good to me, but it got me thinking... Why? Why would you want to cure Alzheimer’s disease? I realize this is probably an unpopular position to take, but let me lay this out to you.

Alzheimer’s affects old people. I’m not saying old people deserve to die, but it’s not a disease that’s killing off the youth. At some point, everyone dies; better an octogenarian that’s led a full life than some child with bright eyes and dreams that have yet to be crushed. At least crush the child’s dreams before you kill it. But I have a harder time accepting Alzheimer’s as a horrible epidemic since it basically is only affecting people who are about to die anyway.

Even more importantly, Alzheimer’s patients seem like a relatively happy bunch. Nana is sitting in the old folk’s home, blissfully unaware of just how much her life sucks right now. Her children visit, they spend the entire time telling her about every horrible thing that’s happened in her life (“You’re in a home Nana,” “We had to sell that house Nana,” “John isn’t coming Nana, he’s been dead for 40 years,” etc.). It doesn’t matter, because Nana will forget all this 5 minutes down the road, and these idiotic family members will tell her again. Just lie to Nana and she’ll be happy! “John’s parking the car Nana, he’ll be here in a minute.” Nana will be happy, and she won’t remember in 5 minutes anyway, so no harm, no foul. Nana can sit around happily ignorant of all the horrible things that have happened in her life and die happily at a ripe old age.

So it seems that the people who really care about Alzheimer’s research aren’t necessarily people who are afraid they’ll get it; it’s people who are afraid their loved ones will get it, and they don’t want to be inconvenienced by a forgetful parent. This is just about the most selfish reason I can imagine for wanting to eradicate a disease. These people don’t give a shit about humanity, all they care about is wanting to avoid uncomfortable situations. Fuck them.

If I ever get Alzheimer’s, let me be. Stick me in the home if you must, and if you don’t feel like visiting me, don’t worry, I won’t know anyway. If you do feel like swinging by and watching me deteriorate, feel free to lie to me. Tell me that my mother is still alive, even though she’d be like 120 years old. Tell me that my wife, husband, life partner, whatever, is coming to visit, and s/he’s bringing Natalie Portman and a sea otter along. Who cares? I’ll be delightfully oblivious of every retarded thing I’ve ever done (like writing a diatribe about how Alzheimer’s isn’t that bad). I know everyone has some stories in their past they’d rather forget; if I never have to remember being bitchslapped in front of my girlfriend again, I’ll die happy. But that’s a story for another day. If I remember.

Now where’s John?