I'll first introduce myself.  I am a 68-year-old retired woman, the daughter of a mother whose cause of death was "Alzheimer's Disease" at age 83.  With that knowledge, and knowing that I could be screened for the presence of Alzheimer's by means of a PET scan, I elected to become informed.  That was three years ago, that I was told the scan showed that I had the beginnings of the disease.

My primary care physician has been very attentive and supportive in my efforts to head it off by all means available, and I have been taking Aricept and Namenda, almost from the start of my diagnosis. 

At first, I took only Aricept, and I got off to a bad start with it.  The first night, I took my pills and went to bed.  I had a heart-poundingly terrifying nightmare, in which I walked to a nearby (actually existing) shopping mall, alone, just for an errand.  It was daytime, and not so far that I could not easily make the round trip afoot.  When I was finished, I walked between the shops to exit  through an area between the mall and the street, that was disturbed by ongoing street improvements.  But, I went that way, intentionally, knowing about the confused environment, but prepared to make my way through.  However, I soon became disoriented (and I had not experienced that feeling in my "real" life), and my surroundings morphed into unreal locations, though still bearing some semblance of familiarity, in ways.  Even though I wandered through one morphed scene, turning into another differently morphed scene, after another, I felt like there was hope that I would soon find my way through the mazes I was encountering.

In one scene, I found myself inside a recently completed new building of several stories.  It was ultra-modern, and all the walls were curved - no square areas at all.  While in an elevator lobby, I observed the strange fact that every surface of every floor, wall, oor, etc. was upholstered or covered with lime-green plush carpeting, or heavy velvet.  After gaining my composure, after being so visually abused, I finally found an underground and wavy (still lime-green upholstered and carpeted) tunnel, that allowed me exit - but found myself in an enormous open expanse of bare desolation!  No buildings or people, only several widely-spaced large pieces of earth-moving equipment.  Only one was operating, but it did not become a danger to me.  Still, I was abandoned to solitude.  I was reminded of the science-fiction movie "Dune" - lots of dirt and sand.  And, the area was bound by high, upright mountain cliffs.  What was I to do?  This was really getting scary! 

I don't remember how I escaped to higher ground, back to an occupied though still unfamiliar area, but I did.  Now, my problem was, which way was home?  Suddenly, a man was at my side.  He was very polite, but soon it was obvious that he wanted to "help" me too much, shall I say.  I rebuffed his attentions and escaped him, only to find myself in a "New York after the workers leave for their suburban homes in the evening."  The streets were almost empty.  I wandered and wandered, becoming more desperate, until I reached the "outskirts" of town.  A large factory had just shut down for the day, and all the blue collars (though uniformed in white coveralls, including white hardhats in hand) were grabbing places on an open-topped fast-moving train, much on the order of the Himalayan Express at our recently-closed Bell's Amusement Park.  I thought, "Here's my chance!" and one of the women grabbed my hand and insisted that I hurry aboard with her.  Once onboard, I asked her where we were headed.  She said, "Oh, this thing won't stop before we get to Chelsea."  No, this wasn't my salvation, as I had hoped!