Are you bored to death of listening to the same old music from the same old bands and artists?  Would you like a breath of fresh air from your Northern neighbors in Canada?  I'd like to ImporTUNE you.  That's right, and I will, import tunes and bands from Canada and the U.K. to Bakersfield.  Bands like today's I ImporTUNE U featured band, Vancougar:

http://www.vancougar.ca/

Visit their site, sample their tunes (like Way It's Gon' Be), then let me know if you'll let them into your world.  Stay tuned: I ImporTUNE U!

I Get Forgetful: Diary of Donald Doyle, Alzheimer's Patient: Bruce L. Thiessen, Ph.D., Psychologist/BlogBook Author: Catharsis Fiction BlogBooks,  2007

Sunday, January 21, 2007

11: 46 pm

Well, lately I've been thinking that just because I've got this diagnosis doesn't mean I should become obsessed with myself and my disease.  It's not all about me. 

Where was I going with that thought?  Oh, yeah, I mean my wife, Cecilia, I really need to think about how this will impact her life.  I wrote a sort of Alzheimer's love song today called What's Left of Me, and I played it for her.  It made her cry, and I don't think it's because it was so bad.  I think it touched her, but it probably also made her realize that she would soon be losing me, or at least those aspects of me that she's come to depend on.  I also made her a nice dinner, her favorite.  I don't remember what it's called now, but it was good.  Part of it was a little overly cooked because I was distracted by something that came on television, but if she noticed, it didn't show. 

I'm going to try to be as positive as I can about this.  I can face this.  There was something somebody said once that was really inspirational to me.  Now, who was it, it was someone really famous like Norman Vincent Peale, and he said, something that started out like this "It's not the weight of the burden that matters..."  I'm not sure now how it ended, but I'll have to look it up.  It was really good.  My wife's calling on me right now, and I think the doorbell is ringing, so I'll have to take a little break and get back on the subject of famous speakers. 

Oh, there's something I need to write down, but I'm not sure it belongs in a diary, but my doctor said if I remember something important, to put it down in print in a place I will remember to look at.  There's the doorbell again.  I think my doctor said that he was going to call the pharmacy about a new prescription that is supposed to be ready on Monday.  I'll have to ask my wife if she had a chance to pick it up this morning on her break from work.  Well, that's it for now.  Oh, I also need to remember to listen to a song by Cat Stevens someone recommended to me about losing everything.  Moonshadow, that's what it's called.  I want to hear that song.  I'm going to get the door and then read some of the blogs over at bakersfield.com before I finally go to bed.  Need to sleep and not to toss and turn.  Note to self.

I Get Forgetful: Diary of Donald Doyle, Alzheimer's Patient: Bruce L. Thiessen, Ph.D., Psychologist/BlogBook Author: Catharsis Fiction BlogBooks,  2007

Entry Two: Fadin' Away
1/20/07 approximately 2:43 am

My wife, Cecillia doesn't know it, but I've been up half the night searching for my damn diary.  I finally found it right here under my pillow where I left it.  This can't be happening to me.  I know for a fact that Alzheimer's disease doesn't progress this rapidly.  I think I'm getting neurotic over the whole deal.  I immediately hit the panic button in my head when I did not immediately recall where I placed my diary, and I think my mind manufactured Alzheimer's symptoms that weren't there to begin with. 

I feel like cussing my head off, but I don't want to be remembered that way.  Who knows?  One day somebody may find this diary of mine and post it on the internet or something, and everyone will know my deepest thoughts and secrets, my fears about the disease, and my steadily declining mental state. 

Cecilia says we need to tell our children soon about this health crisis of mine.  I don't know why we have to tell them at all.  The doctor didn't even seem to know what he was talking about.  He said he was 99 per cent sure, but his voice didn't sound very confident at all.

Why am I so obsessed about something I probably don't even have.  It's just the lack of sleep and all the stress in my life that has made me appear to be suffering from something bigger than I'm suffering from.   I'm now looking back at what I've written.  It all seems to make perfect sense.  There's nothing here that even looks remotely abnormal. 

I dug out my guitar from the garage after about 20 years of not playing it, and wrote a song called Fading Away.  Just in case the doc's right, I don't want to lose all traces of memory for strumming the guitar and writing songs before giving it one last  shot.  I know I'm not the smoothest musician, but when I play music, it makes me forget about all of the bad news in my life and it transforms something very scary into something meaningful.  It may not have meaning to anybody else, but it does to me. 

Great, it's nearly 3 a.m.!  I'm going to appear even more out of it throughout the entire day, and my wife is going to make a big deal out of nothing.  Well, I guess I better put in at least a couple of hours of sleep before facing another day of incremental mental decline.  Hey, I kind of like the sound of that----incremental mental decline.  This all just seems like a cruel trick.  I hope I wake up and find out that it was all just a bad dream.

I Get Forgetful: Diary of Donald Doyle, Alzheimer's Patient: Bruce L. Thiessen, Ph.D., Psychologist/BlogBook Author: Catharsis Fiction BlogBooks,  2007 

1/18/07

Dear Diary:

Well, I finally went to the doctor today, at my wife, Cecilia's behest, only to discover some very bad news.  The doctor said I was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.  Over the past few months, my wife has noticed that I've been forgetting even more than I usually do.  I don't believe the doctor, because I don't think my condition is anything that can't be explained by stress.  But, just in case he's right, I've been doing a little research on the internet to see what I have to look forward to.

I told the doctor that I have no problem understanding conversations, or carrying on conversations, although my wife tells me I do repeat the same story over and over again.  I think she's exaggerating.  He said it's not unusual that a person in this early stage can carry on with conversations, without a hitch.  The doc asked me if I can plan common household tasks, and Cecilia had to admit that this was not a problem for me.  I even plan and prepare dinner once in awhile, and I don't mean KFC.  Yes, I have had some problems with driving. 

In fact, I wouldn't have said anything at all to Cecilia except that she was expecting me to pick her up after work one day, and I got lost trying to find her place of employment.  This is when she demanded that I see a doctor, even though this was a new job and I had only dropped her off and picked her up a few times.

I assured the doctor that in most cases, I have no problem navigating through familiar surroundings without any help.  These surroundings were not familiar to me.

Anyway, although I'm retired, I do teach a few agriculture courses at the university, and so far, none of my students have complained about me.  They ask content-related questiosn, but never question my ability to reason or to base my instruction upon sound logic.  Sure, I've been called an absent-minded professor before, but I've had those sorts of comments for years.

I'm told that eventually I won't recognize people's faces or names, people like Cecilia, and my very own children, and this really scares me.  But I'm going to get a second opinion because I think my wife and my doctor are both the exaggerating kind that jump to conclusions. 

I'm just looking over what I've written and I see nothing out of the ordinary.  Doctors these days are so hysterical.  I can read, write, speak and think without a problem.  Why do people have to make problems out of nothing! 

The situation in Iraq isn't that bad?!  Politicians do it.  Teachers do it.  Preachers do it.  Even psychologists do it, as I reluctantly admitted in the comments section of a recent blog.  It was one of the defense mechanisms identified by Freud as a self-protective measure that is self-implemented in an attempt to protect the ego (in Freud's theory, another world for the self) from a threat it is not prepared to handle. 

Coochie requested a song about denial, under the comments section here:
http://people.bakersfield.c...

I hate to turn down a request, so I won't on this occasion.  I wrote this song for the band, Speaker Freaks, and it addresses this very issue.  The song may bring up some issues for you that you may be unprepared to take on.  That is what denial is for, so help yourself to it, but remember, denial can only serve you for so long, eventually, it catches up to every one of us.  So enjoy it while you can!

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., THIS ONE'S FOR YOU!

It Only Hurts When I Cry
Dr BLT
words and music by Dr BLT ©2006/2007

It only hurts when I cry
on the day when the bullet
sent tears to my eyes
no, don't you pity my heart 'cause
it only hurts when I cry




it only hurts when I scream
a tragic nightmare
collides with a dream
no, don't you pity my heart
'cause
it only hurts when I scream

in Birmingham
they burned the bones of children
I was a child
so sheltered from their screams
in ghetto streets
they took their lives
in freedom rides
but you stood up, cried out
I HAVE A DREAM!

on the streps of the Lincoln Memorial
you gave
the speech that would lead to an early grave
' said:
"Justice too long delayed is denied,"
on April 4th of '68 in Memphis
you died...you died

it only hurts when I cry
it only hurts when I cry
it only hurts when I...

There are countless victims, and most don't even know they are victims.  As children, they were forced to attend churches that practiced religious abuse.  This was accomplished by hiring and then supporting hell, fire, and brimstone ministers who interpreted scripture according to their own authoritarian, domineering, controlling personalities. 

Refusing to respect the varying levels of sensitivity among their members, these ministers used subjective guilt and shame to impose unrealistic expectations upon members of their congregation, and to manipulate them into believing that they were worthless. 

I have attended such churches.  They exist.  Religious abuse is real.  The sad thing about such churches, and the sad thing about victims of religious abuse is that trust if profoundly violated.  This broken trust prevents church members from seeking legitimate spiritual support from churches that emphasize God's grace and God's love----churches that seek to heal and not to add insult to injury.  The violation of trust that comes with religious abuse is often generalized to other areas of the victim's life, and has a profound impact on a person's ability to function in interpersonal and marital relationships. 

If you are a victim of religious abuse, the first step is to acknowledge the abuse.  Then inform yourself on the subject via web sites like this one:
http://www.spiritwatch.org/...

You may need to seek professional help to work through these issues, or at least participate in a support group for other victims of this form of abuse.  Jesus already died on the cross on your behalf.  Why should you be paying for a debt you don't owe in the form of mental torture delivered from the pulpit to the pew?

Is this New Years Day like an unopened bottle of champagne, full of repressed possibilities?  Is this just Another New Years Day, or are you going to make this one special.  I'll share two of my New Years resolutions.  One is to continually improve on my songwriting, singing, guitar-playing and recording skills.  The second is to become even more humble than I already am :)

Are you prepared to deliver more than empty promises this year?  Will you make your resolutions stick?

This post is reserved for you.  Open the bottle, spill the champagne, and share your New Years resolutions below.