The 62-year-old Mirror columnist was told she had the illness a year ago after suffering months of brain fog and anxiety. Fiona is now undergoing trials for a revolutionary new drug which scientists hope could slow or even reverse the illness for millions of sufferers in the years to come.
“It’s something I might have thought I’d get at 80”, she says. “But I was still only 61 years old. “I felt more angry than anything else because this disease has already impacted my life in so many ways; my poor mum was crippled with it, then my dad, my grandparents, my uncle. It just keeps coming back for us.”
And yet Fiona, who is mum to Nat, aged 24, and Mackenzie, 21, has decided she can no longer hide from public view and the world of work which she adores. Fiona jokes and laughs the way she has throughout the two decades I’ve known her. But behind the smiles there seems a subdued sense of anxiety - something which emerged in the months after Covid and first gave concern for her health.
The menopause specialists suggested Fiona seek further help to explain why she was struggling to remember things and after months of cognitive tests and then a lumbar puncture to assess spinal fluid came the diagnosis she had dreaded. “I just felt sick”, says Martin. “We both sat in silence. There was no funny line to make this go away. Nothing smart to say. Nothing. And then the doctor said he’d leave us in the room alone for a bit to digest it all. We just looked at each other and said: ‘S**t. What are we going to do?”
To qualify for the trial Fiona had to undergo tests to prove her Alzheimer’s was still at the mild stages. She was quizzed on such things as; which month is it, which season, subtract 7 from 100, then from 93, and 86 and so on and so on.
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Source: IrishMirror - 🏆 4. / 98 Read more »