Weekly Photo Challenge: Tiny

Here’s a picture of a tomato.  It’s tiny: cherry tomatoes are like that.  So is my brain, I imagine, and there is the possibility it may get smaller.

Reading Kate Shrewsday’s blog today, about a genetic group volunteering to help in the search for an Alzheimer’s cure, I left the following comment:

I have always been glad my Dad died at 64 of lung cancer, because I’m certain he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

As I wrote it, I had a thought:

It has suddenly occurred to me that if I’m right, there’s a possibility I could get it too! Can you believe I never thought of that in ten years??

I really didn’t.  It never once entered my head, even though I know it’s hereditary and I have always remembered Alan Alda’s performance as a doctor with Alzheimer’s in ER.  There was Meredith’s mom in Grey’s Anatomy.  C.J.’s dad in The West Wing.  I have no excuse not to think of it, given the number of worthy American dramas I watch.

I wonder if it never occurred to me because of the human capacity to know that we will die one day, yet not quite believe it will happen?  We certainly don’t believe we’ll get a serious illness: if we go at all, we’ll be going in our sleep.  Other people die; the chance that I will is tiny, given what an important person I am: I know at least three people who will miss me.  I can’t do that to them; I’m not that selfish.

I don’t know if my Dad did have Alzheimer’s: I diagnosed him after years of medical tv-watching; my education might be missing a few crucial details, like knowledge.  I’m not worried enough to get tested.  Besides, a doctor is going to listen to my reasons and laugh me out of the surgery (I know from House there are mean doctors, too).

My brain is rather more cherry tomato than I’d like: seeds of ideas inside, going nowhere, a pretty addition to my salad days but now shrivelling away in a corner of the kitchen.

Becoming a housewife?  My Mum thought I was out of my tiny mind. 

I don’t regret it: how else would I be able to blog three times a day?  When my mind begins to go, I’ll know there’s a tiny piece of me in the ether that will never die. 

Unless the WordPress prompters catch up with me. 

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