Who am I?

Welcome to “Photos from a Dying Alzheimer’s Brain - A Journey of Faith and Hope.” This site contains photos taken by me, a 70 year old male, beginning 2022 to the present. They were taken during a time when I had been experiencing different Alzheimer’s symptoms. This site will also share thoughts and experiences I have had as I encountered and experienced Alzheimer’s disease. I hope this site will be helpful to at least one person who visits the website. I also hope a photo or two will “gladden your heart,” enliven your soul” or “please your eye.” My history will probably have gaps and maybe even some misremembering on my part. My apologies up front. But what can you expect from someone with Alzheimer’s? My memory worsens week by week. That fact is something I try to embrace and make the best of it, along with a number of other things.

About five years back I learned my brain was dying at a much faster rate than expected for people my age. It was also shrinking faster than expected for people my age. The question was why?

This journey really started on my 60th birthday, ten years ago. I was experiencing things that didn’t seem normal to me. For example, while leaving and entering rooms I was beginning to bump into door frames. I felt a little off balance on a regular basis. My brain would become somewhat cloudy or fuzzy. I began having a difficult time finding words for sentences and my thinking began to slow down, etc. It was not noticeable to those around me, and it was not every day, but it was often enough to cause me concern.

I assumed the most likely cause of these symptoms was neurological. I found the name of a neuropsychologist and set an appointment to have a neuro-psychological exam performed. He performed the exam and said there was nothing wrong with me. He told me I was an overworked and stressed out attorney and that I should slow down. All of that was true, but it did not help me find the cause of my symptoms. The things I was experiencing became more frequent and, more intense, and new ones came on board. I was finally concerned enough to seek out the assistance of a different neuropsychologist. The second one practiced at the University of Utah Medical School. I asked him to do another neuorpsych exam and see where I stood relative to the baseline data from the exam I had taken earlier. I had also had an MRI which discovered that I had a “significant” amount of white matter in my brain, that is, more than was expected for someone my age. As I understand it, white matter is dead brain. (It’s probably a little more complicated then that, but that is what I took away from the doctor’s explanation. )

My new neuropsychologist met with me after the second neuro-psych exam and told me, that based on the first test results, the latest testing and MRI, my cognitive functions were quickly becoming depleted. He recommended that I work with a vascular neurologist at the University of Utah medical school to see what they could find out and maybe discuss ways to slow down what was happening to my brain.

This photo was taken in 2026 at the Bear River Management Area. I had been watching this eagle for almost two hours without it making a move. Then the red-winged blackbird showed up and gave me an interesting shot of it bombarding the eagle. If I had not patiently waited, I never would have gotten this shot. We all need to be patient as we navigate this disease. We also need to be like the red-winged blackbird and go after the eagles in our lives, no matter how big or fierce they may appear.