After our initial visit with the doctor at the Alzheimer Institute he scheduled Scott to come back and have a brain scan so they could see exactly what was happening. After the initial visit in which he was described by the doctor as an "anomaly" because he did really well.on the test they give. When my mother took the initial test she got only one of the questions right and Scott answered most of them correct. This made the doctor think he had frontal lobe dementia and the test would confirm that. When I got home I looked up what frontal lobe dementia was and knew he didn't have that type. The PET scan would tell us more. I cannot speak more highly of this facility and the people who work there. They are so kind to Scott and also to me. Sometimes they are so kind that I almost cry! We did the PET scan in the morning at 9 a.m. and then came back in the afternoon at 2 p.m. where we met with Dr. Weidman to go over the results. He brought the pictures up on his computer and showed us various views of the inside of his brain. Scott had been injected with a dye a half an hour before the scan began. The first thing he looked at was the frontal lobe of the brain. A good picture is white and a problem with the brain comes up as a dark gray. There was no gray in his front lobe area so that ruled out the doctors' initial idea. Then he brought up the back of the brain and it was almost all a very dark gray which meant he had the typical form of Alzheimer's which the majority of people get. What does that mean? It means that Scott is an "ANOMALY" because he has a great ability to recall historic events and people from his past but he needs to be shown how to start the lawn mower, or where the bedroom is each evening when he is ready to go to bed. The doctor thinks he is in the beginning stages and he certainly knows much more about this than I do but when I have read the various descriptions of the stages I feel like he is is much further along. We shall see what is ahead but sometimes knowledge is power and knowing now gives me a sense of peace that I have not experienced for a long time.
After our initial visit with the doctor at the Alzheimer Institute he scheduled Scott to come back and have a brain scan so they could see exactly what was happening. After the initial visit in which he was described by the doctor as an "anomaly" because he did really well.on the test they give. When my mother took the initial test she got only one of the questions right and Scott answered most of them correct. This made the doctor think he had frontal lobe dementia and the test would confirm that. When I got home I looked up what frontal lobe dementia was and knew he didn't have that type. The PET scan would tell us more. I cannot speak more highly of this facility and the people who work there. They are so kind to Scott and also to me. Sometimes they are so kind that I almost cry! We did the PET scan in the morning at 9 a.m. and then came back in the afternoon at 2 p.m. where we met with Dr. Weidman to go over the results. He brought the pictures up on his computer and showed us various views of the inside of his brain. Scott had been injected with a dye a half an hour before the scan began. The first thing he looked at was the frontal lobe of the brain. A good picture is white and a problem with the brain comes up as a dark gray. There was no gray in his front lobe area so that ruled out the doctors' initial idea. Then he brought up the back of the brain and it was almost all a very dark gray which meant he had the typical form of Alzheimer's which the majority of people get. What does that mean? It means that Scott is an "ANOMALY" because he has a great ability to recall historic events and people from his past but he needs to be shown how to start the lawn mower, or where the bedroom is each evening when he is ready to go to bed. The doctor thinks he is in the beginning stages and he certainly knows much more about this than I do but when I have read the various descriptions of the stages I feel like he is is much further along. We shall see what is ahead but sometimes knowledge is power and knowing now gives me a sense of peace that I have not experienced for a long time.
No comments:
Post a Comment