On Burning a Saucepan

A new book out on dementia* says that a lot of forgetfulness is actually inattentiveness. I’m doing three things at once, or two things in quick succession or, on one particular morning, obsessing about an online payment that didn’t go through the first time and seemed to be taking ages to go through the second time. Eggs boiling in a saucepan on the hob were forgotten until I heard a loud crack from the direction of the kitchen and found the two eggs had exploded out of the blackened saucepan.

Once I’d cleared up the mess, I forced myself to consider that this is JUST THE KIND OF THING THAT OLD PEOPLE DO… not just old but getting past the point where they can safely live on their own. No matter that I might have done the same thing long ago as a young mother with a babe in one arm and a noisy vacuum cleaner in the other, or as a middle-aged woman worked in one room whilst getting a meal together in another. The fact that the saucepan survived did something to reduce the sense of calamity, but should I take this as a sign of cognitive impairment and monitor myself for incipient signs of dementia?

The answer must be Yes, of course I should monitor myself. And No, I’m only in my mid-70s and there are no other signs. But hey, what about forgetting so-and-so’s name the other day? What about that scheduled Zoom meeting I forgot because I didn’t look in my diary? What if I didn’t write To Do lists and keep a diary? And perhaps I don’t know what else I’ve forgotten because no-one’s told me. Panic!

Then I calmed myself down and recalled what I’d done the day before The Eggs incident...

· Remembered to take a Lateral Flow Test before visiting a friend in a Residential Care home, aka Old People’s Home

· Remembered to take a mask, remembered to put it on and then

· Remembered the four numbers of the inter-floor keypads in the Home (though I had written them down)

Followed by

· Parking in town and managing a digital display meter

And

· Meeting a friend for lunch in the right place at the right time (and remembering her name!)

And then remembering to

· Call in on the partner of the dementia patient I'd visited in the Old People’s Home to give him an update

Before

· Collecting something I’d ordered from Argos on my way home.

So that’s OK then. Except for that niggling doubt that this is how dementia starts… slowly creeping up with little signs that I’ll ignore at first, make excuses for, refuse to think about. I could vow to record any other lapses…. but will I do it? According to Richard Restak’s book, it’s when you look for your keys and find them in the fridge that it’s time to worry about your memory.

Trying to be objective about this, if I’m going to be one of the 1-in-6 people over 80 with dementia in the UK, there’s little I can do about it. From what I can see, the slide is gradual and not necessarily unpleasant – more a limiting of horizons, not-noticing so much of the world, a gentle fall into oblivion. I can see that the sufferer has moments of anxiety and disorientation at the beginning, but I also observe that much depends on the degree of stability already inside that person. My calmest friend quietly and gracefully relaxed into dementia; my anxious friend fights and flees from it.

No doubt it is an outsider view that evokes so much panic: observing, hearing, counting the gradual decline of all that made my friend recognisably him or her, and feeling such loss of the person I knew. Then that becomes a fear of losing myself in the future. Will there be a Chris who misses her known self or - a notion not unfamiliar to Buddhists and psychotherapists – will my sense of self simply shift and melt away as the ego weakens? There might even be gains to be had from the experience of dementia (currently unimaginable), and yet it is a rare occurrence in life that doesn’t have an upside.

Whatever these unknowns, it is clearly time to face the possibility that a burnt saucepan may have a meaning beyond a distracted mind.

*The Complete Guide to Memory: The Science of Strengthening Your Mind by Dr Richard Restak.