Speaking during an ice storm to a National Academies of Science Committee on Research Priorities for Preventing and Treating Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias 

About a month ago, I received an invitation to give a 10-minute talk on January 17 to The National Academies Committee on Research Priorities for Preventing and Treating Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias. This two-day workshop was directed by Congress to “explore promising areas of research that may have the potential to catalyze scientific breakthroughs in the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD), identify barriers to the advancement of research, and investigate successes and failures experienced in other biomedical research fields to understand how lessons learned could be translated to the dementia research context.” I was assigned to give the leadoff presentation on the morning of the second day of the committee meeting titled “The Fundamental Importance of Early and Accurate Diagnosis.”  Because the meeting was in Washington, DC, and I live in Portland, Oregon, I had to be ready to talk at 5:30 AM.  I kept thinking that the organizers of this meeting had confused me with someone else. Why would they choose me to advise Congress? After a preparation meeting on Zoom on Monday, I was reassured that I could manage a talk, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to speak from memory (what memory – are you kidding?). I wrote down a detailed script complete with prompts to the staff to display various slides at the appropriate time. I felt much less nervous after that Monday meeting, Then, later that day, the snow started in earnest, followed soon by record low temperatures, high winds and freezing rain. All three of my adult children had a variety of weather-related mishaps: power outage, frozen pipes, fallen trees, and impassable iced-over neighborhood streets. Our son and his family had already lost power over the weekend, and with the worsening temperatures, they moved into our house on Monday. By Tuesday evening, there were almost 200,000 power outages in and around Portland. I was getting pretty nervous.  I emailed my contact at the National Academies of Science, alerting her to the possibility that my power could be gone by the time my talk was scheduled. I wouldn’t be able to do a Zoom video presentation. She gave me a cell phone access link. I knew that some of Portland cell towers were going out, so if that happened, she would arrange for someone to read the script I had sent. I had presentation nightmares throughout the night, but I woke up with the alarm at 5:10 and was delighted to see that the power was still on. My talk went off without any significant problems, and it seemed to be well-received judging by comments from the committee members. As I write this post on Thursday evening, January 18, another ice storm is blowing through Portland. Ah, the joys of winter!