THE FORGETTING
Understanding Alzheimer’s:
A Biography of a Disease
DAVID SHENK
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
Published by Flamingo 2003
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2002
First published in the US by Doubleday 2001
Copyright © David Shenk 2001
David Shenk asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Several of the names and identifying characteristics
of the individuals depicted in this book have been changed to protect their privacy.
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Source ISBN: 9780006532088
Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007439669 Version: 2016-09-09
For Lucy
CONTENTS
3. The God Who Forgot and the Man Who Could Not
7. Fumbling for the Name of My Wife
9. National Institute of Alzheimer’s
10. Ten Thousand Feet, at Ten O’Clock at Night
13. We Hope to Radio Back to Earth Images of Beauty Never Seen
Resources for Patients and Families
LEAR: Does any here know me? This is not Lear.
Does Lear walk thus, speak thus? Where are his eyes? Either his notion weakens, his discernings Are lethargied—Ha! Waking? ’Tis not so. Who is it that can tell me who I am?
FOOL: Lear’s shadow.
—William Shakespeare, King Lear
“When I was younger,” Mark Twain quipped near the end of his life, “I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened.”
At age seventy-two, Twain’s memory and wit were intact.