One reason I love what I do for a living is the incredibly interesting stories on health that I hear from my many loyal customers. When I heard the following story I knew it was one I would pass along to others.  

The gentlemen who communicated this story with me has been using aggressive nutritional therapy at Nutrition World to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease with a loved one.  During one of our conversations about Alzheimer’s, I made a statement where I questioned how much a person who has memory loss due to a brain disease really knows and the following story from Jim changed how I will look at this forever.  

Jim had a brother named Tom who years ago suffered from serious Parkinson’s disease to a point where it was impossible to communicate with him.  Parkinson’s is a devastating illness where a part of the brain lacks a chemical that eventually causes death.  Tom and his family became so unable to communicate with Jim that most everyone gave up on attempting to talk to him.  Tom and his brother had grown up in India where they both had learned a rare tribal language called Khasi when they were young.  Jim and his brother had not spoken Khasi to each other in a long time however one day Jim spoke a sentence in Khasi and all of a sudden in amazement Tom replied back.  Jim tried again to converse with Tom and realized a miracle was occurring.  The language of Khasi was obviously being stored in a different part of the brain than English.   The following are two stories he related to me that I would like to share with you.  

One night my niece called me and told me that she was taking my brother to Portland Oregon in the car to spend the weekend.  My niece had told me that Tom seemed to be enjoying himself but obviously did not know who she was or where he was going.  I asked to talk to him on the phone and spoke to him in Khasi and I asked Tom if it was raining.  He instantly replied, “No its a beautiful night with a full moon”.  I than asked if his driver was scaring him to death with her driving and he immediately replied in Khasi, “no its my daughter driving and she is a very good driver.”  

On another occasion Tom was involved in an automobile accident where the car he was riding in ran off the road and rolled 5 times.   Fortunately Tom was not seriously hurt but was incredibly upset.  No one in the hospital could calm him or make sense of what he needed and they feared he may have a stroke.  The hospital called me at 2 in the morning and I asked Tom on the phone what was going on and he said, “I am starving and no one will give me anything to eat”.  As soon as I told him I would take care of it he completely relaxed.  The nurse said she had never seen any thing like this in her 27 years.  

Jim told me he talked to his brother all the time in their special language until his death and once in a while he would switch to English and instantly his brother would have a blank stare on his face and never understood a word of English the rest of his days.  

I remember being with my dad at Lifecare and seeing and passing so many seemingly lifeless bodies sitting in wheelchairs with blank stares and yet maybe many of these people really were like Tom and simply needed someone to speak their language.  

Till next time

ed