“When I first stumbled across Dr. Alzheimer in my brain, he was an occasional nuisance. He would empty a room full of memories here and there, and cause a couple of doors to stick, but I devised strategies to get around his tricks. Later, he became a frustrating pain...Now, he is a constant companion.”

These words, taken from Richard Taylor’s illuminating book, titled Alzheimer’s From the Inside Out, succinctly describe his journey along the twisting path of Alzheimer’s disease. Richard Taylor, Ph.D., is a retired psychologist. He has lived with dementia, probably of the Alzheimer’s type, for five years.

Taylor likens the time from when his daughter whispered into her mother’s ear, “There’s something wrong with Dad,” to the time, after a year of tests, he was told, “You have dementia, probably of the Alzheimer’s type,” to purgatory. A place in limbo.

After the diagnosis, he wonders if not knowing was better than knowing, for sure. He writes, “I have moved out of purgatory and back into the world of the living – but now, I must live with and in Alzheimer’s disease!”

“Alzheimer’s From the Inside Out” is a collection of essays written by a man whose intellect was his identity. He was a teacher. He was a quick-witted and informed friend and family man. He was even, perhaps, a bit intellectually intimidating to the average person. That was then.

This is now. The mind-robbing disease of dementia, probably of the Alzheimer’s type, has become a part of who Taylor is. Always the intellectual, Taylor decided that the only way to make any sense of this journey was to write about it. To chronicle the journey. The result of this decision is this remarkable journal.

In “What Is It Like to Have Alzheimer’s Disease?” Taylor writes, “Right now, I feel as if I am sitting in my grandmother’s living room, looking at the world through her lace curtains. From time to time, a gentle wind blows the curtains and changes the patterns through which I see the world. There are large knots in the curtains and I cannot see through them.”

Other essays in the section titled “From the Inside Out,” include “My Shirt Is Broken,” “Am I Half Empty or Half Full?,” and Am I My Brain? Or Is My Brain Me?,”

With these essays, Taylor gives us an up-close view of his struggle to understand himself and where he was in the scheme of reality. It’s fascinating, it’s frightening, it’s sorrowful. His struggle reminds me of my dad after his brain surgery. During one of his few lucid moments, Dad said to me, “My universe is getting so small.”

While reading Taylor’s book, the reader feels the shrinking of his universe.

I was my dad’s caregiver. I tried very hard to figure out what was going on in his head, so I could go with it and help him feel safe. I felt that I often succeeded. I’m painfully aware that, at times, I failed. If I ever had the feeling that I did succeed on a regular basis, Taylor’s section titled “From the Outside In,” threw cold water on that delusion.