X-Message-Number: 1262
Subject: CRYONICS American Cryonics News September 92 2/2
From:  (Edgar W. Swank)
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 92 07:23:21 PDT

AMERICAN CRYONICS NEWS  (Part 2 of 2)
[Reprinted from the September 92 Immortalist]
 
Lovely Lynne Lies Sleeping
by Dick Marsh
 
I watched her die for seven years as Alzheimer's Disease cruelly
ravaged her brain.  Then, in a single day, a seizure followed by a
stroke destroyed her utterly and, in the evening as I helplessly
watched, she finished the job of dying.  Her noisy breathing ceased,
and her face turned towards the wall.
 
She was gone.
 
She was my darling, my sweetheart, my wife, whom I adored--and she is
gone.
 
But hope has not gone with her.  As she lay dying, a crew of highly
trained cryonicists were in her hospital room in the San Francisco
branch of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, and minutes later a
very special cooperating M.D.  from another branch of Kaiser arrived
in the company of another of our crew.
 
The timing was superb.
 
Our sympathetic M.D.  was able to cut through hospital red tape and
arrange for my wife to be heparinized and quickly discharged.  In a
variety of cars, we all drove across the San Francisco Bay Bridge to
the Trans Time facility in Oakland, with Dr.  Paul Segall and the
friendly M.D.  administering CPR along the way.
 
By early morning, my wife was suspended and on dry ice, waiting for
eventual transfer to liquid nitrogen storage.  The suspension as a
whole was described by Paul as the best we have ever done.  So there
is yet hope that I will see her alive again, hear her once-lilting
laughter, be lifted by her buoyant enthusiasm, and marvel at the
intricacies of her formerly excellent mind now restored to its full
power and more.
 
But enough of "she" and "her."  Let's talk of "Lynne" and"Lynne's."
Lynne was baptized Mary Adelynne Reed.  At her own request "Adelynne"
was shortened to "Lynne," and that has become the name by which her
intimates call her.  (Thus, when a cheery voice on the phone asks for
"Mary," I am immediately suspicious lest this be someone pretending an
intimacy he--or she--has not earned, someone not truly in the know,
and my defenses go up against this intrusive huckster.)
 
My own special name for her was "Lynnsey."  She loved it when I began
calling her that, and she smiled shyly but with obvious pleasure when
I called her "Lovely Lynne."  She waslovely--in body, spirit, and
mind--even after advancing years and that most hideous of human
diseases--Alzheimer's--had been tearing away at her for seven or more
years.  More years than that, when you take into account little
peculiarities of behavior that were easy to ignore at first until the
little peculiarities finally grew into something so big and so obvious
that her physician diagnosed her condition as Alzheimer's.
 
Even now we don't know with absolute certainty that she had
Alzheimer's.  Only autopsy can determine beyond doubt the existence in
a patient of Alzheimer's, and you can be sure that I took every
possible step to prevent autopsy.  I was determined to maintain the
integrity of that precious brain and central nervous system, wherein
lies--presumably--the essence of a person--the memory, the mind, the
soul if you will.
 
To their everlasting credit, her physicians cooperated fully, spared
her brain, and thus gave us the maximum hope of enjoying again the
company of this splendid person who almost certainly died of
Alzheimer's:  Lovely Lynne, lovely in body, spirit, and mind.
 
Lovely in body even on her last day.  Slightly sagging skin, to be
sure--she was 70 after all--but she had long slender legs(for a short
person) and excellent bony structure in her face, like Ethel Barrymore
or Katherine Hepburn, so that she retained facial beauty to her last
day.
 
Lovely in spirit.  She had periodic attacks of unprovoked hostility,
like the typical Alzheimer's victim, but these were infrequent and
gentle towards the end, and I had only to wait and the anger would
soon fade into sweetness, reminding me why I married her (in addition
to her sexy body):  she was a good person, soft and warm and capable
of a visionary view of things.  Lovely in mind.  She had a trained and
active mind, a good mind, an educated mind.  Not a genius, perhaps,
but certainly several cuts above the average.  She had a B.A., an
M.A., a high school teaching credential, and a special credential
authorizing her to teach either gifted or retarded students.  Her
students loved here.  She was easy to love.
 
She had a dark side and could be moody and unreasonable.  But, as Jung
has pointed out, if you don't cast a shadow, you have no real, solid
existence.  Lynne existed.  She was there.
 
Then something dreadful happened to her mind.  She stopped being
there.  Early in her mental decline, she made a statement of piercing
poignancy, which I will never forget.  Stumbling to put a thought into
words, she made a statement of awful clarity.  "I'm not competent,"
she said.  It was heartbreaking, and it was true.  It was perhaps her
last coherent statement.  After that she steadily declined.  Her
speech became babble, recognizable words combined without recognizable
pattern.  Then, more and more, it became gibberish.  Just sounds, not
words.
 
But occasionally she would make a statement of crystalline clarity,
usually pertaining to a food preference.  Sometimes she would warm my
heart in a special way.  I visited her almost daily in the nursing
home, where I had been obliged to place her.  During my visits, I was
careful to tell her several times that I loved her.  Once in a while,
unexpectedly, she would surprise me by voluntarily saying "I love
you."
 
It was honey.  My eyes would fill with tears.
 
Meanwhile she had become totally incontinent.  She couldn't walk.  I
never saw her that she was not in her bed or her wheel chair.  Yet she
had spirit.  Sitting in her wheelchair, she would try to dance.
 
She was truly a lovely person.
 
Thank God for cryonics.  It gives me hope.  In spite of Lynne's years
of Alzheimer's and her last day, which brought a seizure and a massive
stroke, I have hop.
 
I may walk with her again, dance and talk and laugh with her again.
Tell her I love her again.
 
Until then, Lovely Lynne Lies Sleeping.

--
 (Edgar W. Swank)
SPECTROX SYSTEMS +1.408.252.1005  Silicon Valley, Ca


Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1262