Dedicated to my mother: Lori Cartaciano Title: The Effect of Alzheimer’s By: Louis Cartaciano Chris Lumsin is a 25 year old man trying to find out where he is in life. He lives with his two other friends in a relatively big apartment which they split the rent for. His life was about to become much more complicated than he had once thought it could be. Doctor Morton had called and said to come to the hospital immediately, something about his grandpa and it being urgent. He was in the middle of a date so he had to take a raincheck, he was really hitting it off with this girl but for his grandpa, he’d drop anything. The freshly red painted doors of the fairly new hospital swung open as the blonde boy ran inside scanning his new setting for any sign of Doctor Morton or his grandpa. There was no sign of either so he decided to sit, his leg was vibrating furiously and he was sweating profusely. Once Doctor Morton was in sight, Chris stood up almost immediately waiting nervously for the news. This all seemed to be happening in slow motion., Chris was having trouble staying balanced, but as soon as Doctor Morton reached out his hand to shake Chris’, everything seemed to be moving normally and he could see everything clearly again. As always Doctor Morton started with a polite greeting but Chris didn’t care for the sappy stuff he needed to cut to the chase, he needed to know what happened to his grandpa. It was rare for his grandpa to go to the hospital, he hated them, but due to his family history they needed him to come down for some testing. Recently the hospital has been checking medical records and testing anyone over 65 for this new disease as well as various other ones to be safe and make sure everyone got the treatment they needed. Chris’ grandpa’s tests were fairly easy as Dr. Morton was telling him, everything was seemingly fine, tested negative for scoliosis, cancer, any venereal diseases, and no minor diseases or viruses either the key word within this sentence is minor.. Only one test came back positive, and this did not mean anything positive. It
was the test for Alzheimer’s. This disease ran throughout his family but growing up Doctors always said that it wouldn’t affect him. Chris remembers that his grandpa had always been the healthiest one in his family. Even Chris’ generation with all these new vaccines and cures were not as healthy as his grandpa. His grandpa’s parents were a whole other story, they got sick all the time, any new disease that came, you already know that they got it. Some of the diseases were actually named after them because they were the only ones to have it. Chris always catches himself thinking of unrelated topics when in inappropriate situations, it’s a bad habit but no one will ever know about it because it’s inside of his head. “How could this be? His whole life has been nothing but positive is this some sort of karma? I just spoke to him a few weeks ago and he seemed perfectly fine.” Chris stated. “Sometimes it’s not very apparent in different people, the test that I had ran said that he was positive for it.” The doctor replied. “No that can’t be, he’s still pretty young, 70 isn’t that old all things considered. Can you recheck the test?” “It’s more common before 65 but still a possibility for him to have it. So 70 is a little bit over the age if you think about it. And there is no need to recheck the test.” “Is there anything that I can do about this?” “I’m sorry… but as of now, we know nothing about a cure.” “Well do you know anything I can do to slow it down? Like any treatments or pills or maybe even acupuncture to help him?” “They are much too dangerous to speak of, and some don’t work… if you really must know these, just research them on your own. I’m sorry, goodluck.” “Okay, thanks for trying to help.” and with that sentence Chris stormed out back to his apartment thinking about how weird it was that Doctor Morton hadn’t suggested anything to help against the symptoms. Once inside of his house he approached his desk and the assortment of pencils, pens and papers were all thrown onto the ground with just one swipe of his arm without
hesitation. The mess is nothing compared to how important finding a cure for his grandpa is. What replaces these items are his laptop, his mouse, and a piece of lined paper to write down his findings. His hands gliding up and down the keyboard searching up the disease, where it is within the brain, if it spreads, where in the brain the spreading occurs. When he was in a cognitive psychology class for a bit he learned about how brain diseases can spread throughout the brain badly damaging the body. No articles are mentioning a cure. His Grandpa hasn’t been showing signs of forgetting anything but his Alzheimer’s is still in early development, so says the doctor. Chris’ roommates are now getting very worried about his obsession with this disease. He hasn’t gone out of his room once, not even for work. The only time he comes out is for the occasional snack, some chips and a drink, usually an energy drink. When his roommates see him his hair is distraught and his eyes are blood red. He’s usually just in a tshirt and a bathrobe sipping coffee to stay awake. Time was precious to him, every second could mean a new cure. The only thing bad about searching up these symptoms is that Chris has never had any of them so he has no idea how someone could feel because of them. Would they be in excruciating pain? Would they not even feel it? Chris wouldn’t know, and frankly, doesn’t want to learn about it. After about a month of searching for cures to no avail Chris was about to give up. He was going to throw in the towel and just spend time with his grandpa without worrying about his disease, to just pretend that everything is okay. Chris recalled all of the memories with his grandpa, how he used to chase his grandpa around the park when he was younger and his grandpa would pretend to get caught to make Chris think he was fast. His grandpa was the one of the only people he could turn to for relationship advice and other topics, his parents were too awkward about it, his grandma was always inside knitting and he had no siblings to talk to. When Chris had his first “heartbreak” in first grade when a girl didn’t like him back his grandpa took him to see Star Wars in the movies and that made cheered Chris up and also made him try and force choke anyone who was mean to him for about a month. Chris remembered when he
got a splinter when playing around with his cousins in his backyard, it was a long nasty splinter and everyone crowded around him but he didn’t really seem to mind. His grandpa pulled out the splinter with some pliers and gave Chris a tic tac for him to keep him from crying. That was the first ever tic tac Chris had and since then whenever he has an orange tic tac it reminds him of that time. The most interesting memory Chris had was the story his grandpa used to tell him before he went to sleep, it went a little something like this, “Once upon a time in the city of Pewter there was a little bunny named Charles, Charles didn’t really have much money, as he was born the son of a tailor. He did not ever complain, because he knew that some people had it worse, he recalled one day, he was walking home from school and this baby boy was all abandoned in a haystack. He wondered, ‘Who would ever do this to a baby’ then the bunny Charles raised him, teaching him how to find his own food. The baby loved to eat carrots, the bunny told him, ‘Carrots are good for your eyes so keep eating them!’ The baby did not understand for he was much too young. The baby was once looking for food when a huge storm covered the city. Charles the bunny thought, ‘OH NO NOT THE BABY’ and he came out only to find that a king was there holding the baby covering it in a robe and saying ‘I thought I lost you, why did you crawl out of your carriage, you could have been hurt!’ and took him back to the kingdom. The bunny always wondered what became of the baby from then on but figured his life was good, being royalty and all. One day Charles was gathering food when he bumped into a strange man, ‘What are you doing here, nobody knows about my secret carrot route!’ ‘I’ve always been fond of carrots, I don’t know why, I just found this place, like I was taught to go here, it was instinct.’ The man replied. ‘My God, it’s you! The son of the King! I rescued you one night and raised you I taught you about this carrot patch! Oh how you’ve grown so much!’ The bunny rejoiced ‘I always have dreams about this furry creature helping me, I guess that that creature was you all along, weird, huh?” The prince then took the bunny into the castle with his father and they lived happily ever after, while eating carrots of course.” Chris loved this story even with all of its flaws. While reminiscing Chris almost missed one of the most urgent calls he
has gotten in weeks, he’s mainly gotten telemarketers whom he just hangs up on because he doesn’t like them. But this call was different, it was someone that he knew, Doctor Morton. Finally snapping back to reality Chris, still dazed, tried his best to keep a clear head when answering the phone and not overthinking and getting too sad or too happy for no reason. The signal was very bad Chris was in his basement that got a weak connection no matter where in the basement he stood. Chris didn’t hear much of the call just enough to conclude he was needed at the hospital and there may be some good news in story for him. Chris, started rushing to the hospital because of the urgent news, he had no idea whether to be glad or sad. The doctor says it’s good news but it may not find him well, thoughts are swirling through his head of what it might be. The hospital doors swung open and rushing inside is Chris, right in the middle of the room stands Doctor Morton, his head hung down and him rubbing the back of his neck. Chris could not focus on the room, it was spinning too much, he was getting dizzy, it was like when he was a child and would spin around until he was about to vomit, except ten times worse. He could only see a blue blur that he assumed were the walls of the hospital. A voice that seemed to have come out of nowhere echoed suddenly saying, “I’m sorry about what has happened.” “What happened, what is it, why’re you sorry? Is he okay, was he hurt? Did he… did he… pass…?” Chris asks taking no breaks between his words and clearly being out of breathe. He knew that his grandpa was in perfect health but being as tired as he was he couldn’t think straight and just assumed the worst had happened. Tension was building up as doctor Morton struggled to come up with the words to keep Chris from becoming mad. Why Chris would be mad is going to be revealed soon, as is a lot of other things. “It was all just a misunderstanding, I didn’t realize that he didn’t actually have Alzheimer’s. “ “I’m sorry, may you repeat that?” “I said I’m sorry, turns out that my diagnosis was incorrect, he doesn’t have Alzheimer’s.”
“So… he has something worse than Alzheimer’s?” “Umm, not exactly...” “And what exactly does that mean, Doctor Morton?” “It turns out that it was actually Asthma, not Alzheimer’s.” “Doctor! Those sound nothing alike! And we already knew he had that! Are you even qualified to be a doctor where’s your degree? I want you to show me it. I need your credentials” “I’m very sorry but there is no need for that. Just stay calm, it’s a common mistake and happens a lot surely you know that.” “Yeah I’m sure anyone could make the same mistake, if they were visually impaired!” “Chris that is no way to speak to a medical professional.” “At least he’s okay. You know, I don’t even believe that you are a medical professional and I will not apologize for my demeaning tone because you clearly deserve it, have a good day, sir.” And with that Chris stormed out faster than he had entered. The whole time walking back Chris thought about how dumb one must be in order for a misdiagnosis to happen, Chris thought that surely if he were a doctor he wouldn’t make the same mistake, this got him thinking, what if he was a doctor? But he brushed away the idea because he had no idea what kind of doctor he would be. This idea kept popping into his head until he remembered all of the studying of the brain that he has done. This combined with the little shock he got from his grandfather’s potential Alzheimer’s was enough to motivate him to go to medical school. It would be a long journey but it would be worth it, he could help countless people who are going through rough patches in their lives. He would fix many broken families, being a doctor is very strenuous but Chris thinks he can do it. Returning back home from the hospital had Chris thinking about life. Now Chris isn’t struggling to find out who he is, he knows what he wants to do, he wants to become a doctor and help other people out who have gone through the same things he went through in just about a week. The feeling of someone so close to him being affected by something that was basically
incurable was one of the most powerful things he had felt. His first four years of college breezed through fast, that research he had done while looking for a cure came in handy, when his professors asked questions, he knew the answers. The next four years went by exactly the same. Soon Chris was a highly trained professional and a great neurosurgeon. Fast forward to a few years later… A cure has been developed for the Alzheimer’s disease and it was all thanks to Chris, well, not exactly, the cure is thanks to everyone who donated and funded for Alzheimer’s research. By doing their part Chris and other doctors were finally able to find a cure. All of the donations helped out, whether it was only two dollars or as much as five hundred dollars.
Louis Carlo Enriquez Cartaciano lives in Edison, New Jersey. He currently resides in a regular house with his parents, Lori and Carlo, and his older brother Carlo, who attend Rutgers University. His brother is studying computer science and his father is a computer programmer so it was rather odd for him to take up writing instead of what the family “tradition” is but nonetheless, his family is still proud of his work as an author. Louis participates in runs for charity as well as volunteers to clean up a beach yearly, he is a young brilliant man with an intention to change the world for the better. His novel was inspired when he watched a video about a youtuber whose grandfather had Alzheimer’s and the youtuber seemed like he was going through a tough time. He originally wanted his story to be about cancer but later changed the topic since it would not be light hearted and probably would’ve had a more serious ending. He mentioned that the cancer story would’ve been more relatable to him because his great aunt died of pancreatic cancer when he was just a young boy. In a recent interview that he had he stated that this was his 7th story in his collection and though he liked writing poetry better than stories and essays, this story was a blast to write about. The main character of the story was originally named Jimmy O’neal until Louis found out that one of his peers had that very name and had to change it to not offend anyone. Doctor Morton’s name came from the name Horton
from one of Dr. Suess’ books, combined Doctor and Horton but change the “H” to an “M” and you get Dr. Morton, the irresponsible doctor of the story. Louis decided that the grandpa would have no name so the reader could come up with it on their own, personally I believe that grandpa John Lumsin would make the most sense. Chris is actually based a little off of Louis himself, in the story it is brought to light that Chris took psychology, when Louis was younger he wanted to become a psychologist. Chris’ struggle with what he wants to do in life also represents how Louis feels. Louis also stated that the splinter story with the tic tac was a real experience he went through except it was his great aunt not his grandpa who did it. The story about the bunny is a story Louis typed to one of his friends just for fun. He used to write for leisure but now he is doing whole novels just like this one.