The Scariest Thing is Deciding the Truth For Oneself - A Review of A Good and Happy Child

A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Like most people, I have a list of things I’m afraid of. I’m afraid of syringes and IV needles, because of a traumatising experience I had the first time I was hospitalised for dengue (this was during the nineties; they required a lot more blood tests then than they do now). I’m also afraid of falling: this is distinct from a fear of heights, because I’m usually okay with heights as long as I’m relatively sure I won’t fall. I also have a deep-seated fear of being alone: not in the sense of being physically alone, but in the sense that I will have no one to turn to when I need them.

Another personal, deep-seated fear—one which I’m sure I share with a great many other people—is the fear of losing my mind. When I first found out that Alzheimer’s disease was genetically heritable the first thing I did was check my family’s history, to see if there was a chance I’d wind up with the same problem. The check revealed a tendency towards hypertension, diabetes, kidney and bladder stones, and cancer, but—thankfully—none towards Alzheimer’s. I know that having a history of cancer on both sides of the family should be cause for concern, but cancer can be cured, if caught early enough—it can be “beaten”, as so many of those who recuperate from cancer often say. I have not heard of anyone who has “beaten” Alzheimer’s: only stories of people who learn to cope as they lose their loved ones slowly, one small piece at a time. To me, that is terrifying to me beyond belief, whether I am the loved one losing someone else to the disease, or I am the one sick with Alzheimer’s and losing everything around me.

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