From: 23x11.5c@gmail.com   
      
   This Is Your Dad's Brain on Drugs   
   ADAIR LARA on January 5, 1999   
      
      
   A COUPLE OF years back, I wrote about how my dad had suddenly stopped knowing   
   how to make coffee or date the letters he wrote. He had started pacing the   
   halls at night.   
      
   He finally landed in a nursing home, diapered and in a wheelchair, and was   
   trying to light his cigarette with his shoes. He was 74, and his chart said   
   "senile dementia, uncomplicated type." But he had been sent off his rocker not   
   by senility but by a    
   baby tranquilizer called Tranzene prescribed to him by his doctor, a   
   tranquilizer that had built up in his system and was turning him into a statue.   
      
   When it wore off, he was fine -- angry, scared, still old, but fine. He went   
   home to his apartment -- an apartment I had started to clear of lamps and   
   boxer shorts, guitars and cans of rolling tobacco, thinking he would never   
   need it again.   
      
   People who work with the elderly are saints. They work hard, they're often   
   underpaid, they toil in obscurity to help a part of the population nobody else   
   has much interest in.   
      
   But too few questions are asked. When a 40-year-old comes into a hospital not   
   knowing how he got there, people try to find out why he's confused.   
      
   When the person who comes in confused is older than 70, they think, oh --   
   senile. Drugs are not the problem, they're the solution. When my dad awoke,   
   furious to find himself locked in a nursing home, offering to take on all   
   comers with a piece of metal    
   he'd torn off his wheelchair, they wanted to give him Haldol to quiet him back   
   down.   
      
   MARTY SOHL HAD a similar experience. Her dad is Jerry Sohl, a science-fiction   
   writer who also wrote many "Star Trek" and "Twilight Zone" episodes. He's now   
   84 years old, and in pretty good health. Recently, though, he had begun to   
   behave oddly. Suddenly    
   he didn't always recognize Marty's mother. He even thought he saw his own   
   mother walking around the house. He was not convinced that Marty's mom was   
   really his wife, although they've been married for more than 50 years. He   
   could not write or remember how    
   to work his computer. He was often dizzy. His doctors were very concerned   
   about him, setting up a CT scan and all kinds of other tests.   
      
   "But they were doubtful that anything could be done," Marty told me. "They   
   were pretty sure that he was on his way out, suffering from mini-strokes that   
   were causing dementia."   
      
   Marty wasn't so sure. She gave a pharmacist friend of hers a list of all the   
   drugs her dad was taking. He looked them up and found that one of the eye   
   drops prescribed by his ophthalmologist could cause her dad's very symptoms,   
   in fewer than 2 percent of    
   those taking them.   
      
   "My father, of course, being a good patient, refused to stop taking them,"   
   said Marty.   
      
   She called the ophthalmologist. He was positive that the eye drops weren't the   
   cause. Only a tiny percentage of people react that way, after all. And Jerry's   
   ocular pressure could build to a dangerous level without the drops. But he   
   agreed to have him    
   lay off them for a few weeks.   
      
   THAT was on a monday. By Wednesday Jerry recognized Marty's mom every time he   
   saw her. By Saturday, his mother had left the house. He is writing again.   
      
   As is my dad, long since back living on his own. Not long ago, after reading   
   the obituary page, he remarked, "All the newspaper knows about these oldsters   
   they feature on the obituary page is that their hearts were still quivering at   
   90. They have no way    
   of knowing the actual day of their deaths. There is more to life than clouding   
   a mirror."   
      
   My dad is not as sharp as he was. Neither is Marty's dad. But they are back in   
   their own lives, doing more than clouding a mirror.   
      
   Don't say no to drugs. Just ask questions.   
      
   http://m.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/This-Is-Your-Dad-s-Bra   
   n-on-Drugs-2953519.php   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)