Marion Agnew

September brings the equinox and autumn. It's also World Alzheimer's Month.   By accident (or a grand design of which I'm unaware), two of my Alzheimer's-related publications have come out this month. Here, read my review at Minola Review of Four Umbrellas: A Couple's Journey Into Young-Onset Alzheimer's.  It's an exceptional book by June Hutton & Tony Wanless, in which Tony shares insights into his experience of dementia. Here's an excerpt from my review: We all have a near-inexhaustible capacity to fool ourselves. No one wants to acknowledge their own mental confusion. No one wants to see dementia in the face that is resting on the pillow next to theirs. It took great courage to write this book. We should all read it. Statistics suggest that if you don't know someone with dementia now, you will soon.  Luckily, people -- generous, motivated, creative people -- with lived experience, people who love someone with dementia, and perhaps have cared f...

I'm enjoying a hit-or-miss kind of September. Lots of hits of family and new experiences; lots of misses of being in my "upstairs office," doing work at the computer. I'll be back sometime later this month. Until then, enjoy. Rocks under water

So I’ve been thinking about looking deeply into things. Pulling back the curtain. Showing what happens behind the scenes. Incident 1: When I was at the dentist early this summer, he poked and drilled while I sat benumbed and reclined. Then he brought me upright in the chair and handed me a mirror. He was excited to show me the series of cracks in my back molars (and several other teeth), the stains everywhere, and the big hole he’d created and was about to fill. Yay! Because I’m a compliant person, most of the time, I looked in the mirror he was holding, but I really didn’t care. I know I didn’t muster enough enthusiasm to please him, but then again, a. No one could (he was pretty enthusiastic), b. I’ve been disappointing dentists and dental hygienists longer than he’s been alive so I’m used to it, and c. Basically, making a dentist happy is not my emotional labour to perform. Consider the hydrangea, if that's what this is: it neither toils nor spins. It knows for whom it performs ...