THE HEARTBREAK OF EARLY ONSET ALZHEIMER'S.

• Author: Pratt, Kenneth
• Position: MEDICINE & HEALTH

"THIS IS AN IMAGE of a brain that had a stroke. This is an image of a brain with Alzheimer's, and this is your MRI image," the specialist said as he laid my wife Cathy's MRI image on the table before us. He continued, "You have what's known as Early Onset Alzheimer's." We were both numb with disbelief as we sat in a conference room at St. Vincent Hospital in Portland, Ore., Oct. 12,2012.

I knew something was wrong when Cathy, my wife of 16 years and a well-known realtor in our community, called the house one day and said in a panic that she was lost, even though she was on Evans Street in our hometown, a street she took to her office every day for years--but she had pulled over on her way home because she had forgotten how to get to our house. She did not know where she was and had to read the street signs to identify her location to me. I did not understand how she could be "lost" on Evans Street. That day is when I knew something was going on with her beyond just making mistakes in her contracts, our bills, and leaving the burners on.

The doctor was not done giving us bad news. "Unfortunately, this type of Alzheimer's is more aggressive than elderly Alzheimer's, and the medicines to help slow down the progression ... you have to be 50 years old to take due to FDA regulations, but there are medications we can prescribe to help you focus better, and that's the best we can do until you're 50."

Cathy was 45 years old the day she was diagnosed. Life changed that day, and we knew it while driving back home to face the two youngest of our five children who still lived at home. Our daughter was 15 and our son was 12.1 personally did not want to tell them until I had a grasp of my own emotions, but they could see the heaviness of our mood and knew something was wrong. So, we sat them down and told them what the doctor had said. Neither really knew what that disease was or how it would affect our home. In truth, neither did Cathy or I.

That same night, the very day Cathy was diagnosed, our neighbor Carol, an elderly lady who had been our neighbor for 12 years, came banging in through the front door with her walker looking for her husband. Carol had Alzheimer's, but we had never seen her act like that in our entire time as her neighbor until that day, and every day after oddly enough. That night, it seemed almost a cruel reminder that "this" is what we had to look forward to. The future suddenly appeared pretty dim.

Cathy's next appointment with her...