Losing My Mind:
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A victim surveys the toll of Alzheimer'sREVIEW BY MARTIN BRADYAfter an early career as a newspaper reporter and political activist, Thomas DeBaggio began a successful business selling herb and vegetable plants. He was living a comfortable life and looking positively toward later middle age when, at age 57, he was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. Now, three years after his diagnosis, DeBaggio has written a deeply personal and illuminating account of the disease that is robbing him of his memory. This unusual volume functions as part memoir and part medical history, as DeBaggio looks back at his life growing up in suburban Virginia, and then shifts gears to relate his ongoing struggle to live productively despite the ever-growing ravages of his affliction. There's an understandably sobering mood to DeBaggio's narrative -- you can almost sense him grasping for the words -- as he discusses his increasing daily confusion, short-term memory loss and the disorientation of even a routine walk to the store, as all things familiar seem more distant to him in every way. He reveals his concern for the impact of his disease on his wife and son, relates certain unpleasantries in dealing with doctors, totes up the cost and side effects of drugs, and also cites relevant, sometimes less-than-encouraging "white papers" and journal articles on Alzheimer's from research organizations such as Johns Hopkins University and the National Institute on Aging. "Life has slowed as I watch Alzheimer's take over," he writes. "Even the simple tasks become laborious with a hesitating rhythm. No longer does my mind run me. I must wait for it to catch up before I know where I am." DeBaggio's reminiscences of life before Alzheimer's veer from the prosaic (he had a seemingly unremarkable middle-class upbringing) to more interesting episodes surrounding his involvement with '60s issues such as the Vietnam War and civil rights. Yet his struggle with his frighteningly debilitating condition -- especially at such a young age -- serves to underscore how blessed even the most average of lives can be when we are possessed of our basic faculties and can readily enjoy everyday pleasures. National Public Radio has already provided contemporaneous reports on DeBaggio's battle against Alzheimer's. His book, a poignant and often poetic testament to faith and courage in the face of diminishing hope, offers a valuable written record of the course of the disease, which afflicts some 12 million people in the U.S. and remains a confounding medical enigma with no cure. Losing My Mind is also a clarion call for compassion for the sick and dying. Martin Brady is a writer in Nashville.
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