A good friend of mine was killed in a chemical plant we were both working in. Outage work, industrial equipment repair. He was run over by a forklift carrying a large load. The unlicensed forklift driver crushed him and didn’t even know he’d hit someone.
I like to tell myself it was quick, but, it wasn’t. This was his last job. He’d just retired and come back on a contract assignment.
I’ll miss his crappy cigars and dry sense of humor.
@Hand-of-Hecate
Sad tale for sure. My wife and I just visited her brother living in Florida, a retired colonel in the USAF (also my branch of service) and he has second stage alzheimer's and she needed to be able to talk to him while he was still semi lucid. He remembers stuff 30 years ago fine but an hour ago, not so much. It is sad to see someone who got as far as colonel fall to such a situation as today. But alzheimer's doesn't care what rank you obtained, how rich you are, if you are living on the streets, it treats all the same.
@sonhouse saidMy Uncle, the man who taught me how to drive, is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Going down hill remarkably fast. It’s a terrible disease.
@Hand-of-Hecate
Sad tale for sure. My wife and I just visited her brother living in Florida, a retired colonel in the USAF (also my branch of service) and he has second stage alzheimer's and she needed to be able to talk to him while he was still semi lucid. He remembers stuff 30 years ago fine but an hour ago, not so much. It is sad to see someone who got as far as colon ...[text shortened]... what rank you obtained, how rich you are, if you are living on the streets, it treats all the same.
Used to be a boxer and served on the RAF. Can’t help but wonder if head trauma contributed to the issue.
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@hand-of-hecate saidSorry to read that; some next level relatives can be very influential in our lives.
My Uncle, the man who taught me how to drive, is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Going down hill remarkably fast. It’s a terrible disease.
Used to be a boxer and served on the RAF. Can’t help but wonder if head trauma contributed to the issue.
As for the Alzheimer’s; there are many brain consuming pathologies it seems, and I would think head trauma such as boxing would contribute.
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@hand-of-hecate saidWith my dad it started out, at about 95, slowly with him remembering, like someone said, what happened 70 or 80 years before or what he and my mother had to eat on their first date, or his WW2 army number but not what he'd had for breakfast. It's always amazed me as to why that happens. I may have looked that up at some point but as I too am getting older, I've forgotten. I think I'll look into it again.
My Uncle, the man who taught me how to drive, is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Going down hill remarkably fast. It’s a terrible disease.
Used to be a boxer and served on the RAF. Can’t help but wonder if head trauma contributed to the issue.
@great-big-stees saidI googled LiveScience:
With my dad it started out, at about 95, slowly with him remembering, like someone said, what happened 70 or 80 years before or what he and my mother had to eat on their first date, or his WW2 army number but not what he'd had for breakfast. It's always amazed me as to why that happens. I may have looked that up at some point but as I too am getting older, I've forgotten. I think I'll look into it again.
"Because short-term memories need to be recalled for a lesser amount of time than long-term memories, the ability of the brain to store short-term items is more limited. According to "Memory Loss & the Brain," a newsletter from the Memory Disorders Project at Rutgers University, short-term memory can store anywhere from five to nine items. New information can bump out other items from short-term memory. Long-term memory has much greater capacity and contains things such as facts, personal memories and the name of your third-grade teacher..."
Edit: It didn't really answer the question why... or does it...?
@Hand-of-Hecate
Newest research shows a possible connection to a tooth bacteria where it somehow crosses the blood brain barrier and actually causes alzheimers. At this point it has not been proven but all the work done previously to get rid of the amyloid and tau tangles in the brain have proved fruitless so the cause has to be something else. It has been shown there are 90 yo folks out there with those tangles but no sign of alzheimers so work goes on.
https://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20190125/gum-disease-bacteria-found-in-alzheimers-brains
@hand-of-hecate saidIt may well have? I knew of a man who suffered with TIA’s which are mini-strokes which were the result of him hitting his head on a bar in the roof of a far east taxi as it hit a curb. He’d been perfectly fine before his holiday then deteriorated very quickly over a few months ending up in a dementia ward.
My Uncle, the man who taught me how to drive, is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Going down hill remarkably fast. It’s a terrible disease.
Used to be a boxer and served on the RAF. Can’t help but wonder if head trauma contributed to the issue.
@sonhouse saidIsn’t your daughter in Brazil? Looks like that place is circling the drain. I’ve got a buddy actively trying to flee the country with his family.
@Hand-of-Hecate
Don't give up your day job.....