Boxing Day

One Christmas while I was in medical school in Atlanta, Lois and I decided to visit London rather than return to the West Coast to visit our families.  It was a memorable week in many ways, but walking through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park early on a frosty Christmas morning was particularly special. I remember that time every Boxing Day while I decompress from the Christmas bustle and reflect on my love for family and other good things in life. 

My son Adam is an attorney, but his real avocational love is woodworking. In what little spare time he has, he builds hand-crafted furniture in the style of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, often using period-style tools including his self-built wooden, pedal-powered lathe. I’ve learned about the art of marquetry and the difference between turners, joiners, and cabinetmakers.  For Christmas this year, Adam gave me an exquisite, 4 x 2 ½” wooden tree ornament of my book, A Tattoo on my Brain.

My daughter Susannah has a PhD in public health, and she currently works for an NGO that helps low-income countries develop their own health care policies. For the last several years, Susannah has been my reference librarian sending me copies of scientific papers for my book and blog. Since I am no longer a faculty member and have a retired medical license, I don’t have access to my local medical libraries. Last summer, Susannah was reading a book review of Tattoo in Lancet Neurology when she noticed the really cool cover of that issue, an embroidery adapted from a drawing of a hippocampal slice by the Spanish neuroanatomist and pathologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, made 110 years ago. Susannah contacted the artist, Dr. Hannah K. Warming, who is a neuroscientist and artist at Oxford University. It turns out that she has created many embroideries and paintings based on brain histology and neuropathology.  Susannah bought this watercolor by Dr. Warming depicting cortical neurons, some of which are filled with intracellular tangles made up of abnormal hyperphosphorylated tau protein (seen as reddish brown), one of the two neuropathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. (The other hallmark is the beta-amyloid plaque.) Although my metaphor of a tattoo on my brain referred to the hemosiderin pigment left in my brain following the microhemorrhages of ARIA, it occurs to me now that these tau-containing neurons could be another type of microscopic tattoo.

My daughter Elizabeth is a high school theater and English teacher. She looks out for me as well. Like Adam, she lives in Portland so I see her and her two kids frequently. She knows I love good chocolate, but I have to be careful to avoid dairy due to relatively new lactose intolerance. Voilà. The best vegan chocolates in Portland! (Note that her 6-year-old daughter Emily did the label.)

Lois and I are coming up to our 50^th wedding anniversary this June. We have three wonderful children with spouses we love and five adorable grandchildren, all living in Oregon. I may have Alzheimer’s disease, but life is still pretty darn good.