finding out that your dad has a form of dementia

It was February 2012.
I had been waiting for what seemed like forever for the weekend my camp friend Ellie would visit me. She had flown in all the way from Washington, D.C., and I was more than excited. Since her flight got in around 11 am, I left school early to pick her up at the airport. (I was in eighth grade at the time). My mom couldn't get out of work, so my dad was going to drive me about 30 minutes to pick up Ellie. I sat in the car, filled with the good kind of nerves. I hadn't seen Ellie for about two months, and she was my best friend. My dad made an effort to point out many "landmarks" on the way there. He would occasionally slow down to say "That's a tobacco field, this town is known for its tobacco." I tried my hardest to seem interesting, but all I could think about was how amazing the weekend would be.

All of a sudden, my eyes flashed down to a small compartment under his car's radio. I noticed a pill bottle, the orange kind. Being the anxious and curious 13 year old that I was, I quickly and nonchalantly examined the bottle. I had recently seen a T.V. show where a man discovered his dad's disease by picking up the wrong bottle of medicine at the convenience store. It was an emotional scene, and I imagined what kind of disease I could possibly discover about my dad. Would it be depression? Would it be high blood sugar? Boy, did I want to know.

The name of the medicine was complex, but what medicine name wasn't? Without hesitation, I pulled out my blackberry and went to google as soon as my cell service could provide. I put in the medicine's long name and it brought me to the wikipedia page for "Benson's Syndrome."I had never heard of this before. Half of me was nosey and interested, the other half terrified of what I might discover. After reading for about three seconds, I spotted the words "dementia." That was it. Everyone knew dementia. The disease where old people forget things, and people say "oh he's old, he's a little bit 'off'".

How could this be? My dad was in his mid fifties, and he seemed to remember most things. Sure, he picked me up late from dance practice and sometimes called me by my sister's name, but he didn't have dementia!

I read on. I read about the visual processes being affected, the difficulty with numbers and words. I was fascinated and horrified. It was real- he had this illness. Why hadn't he told me? Why hadn't my mother told me? (Turns out I was the one to inform my mother, she hadn't even known yet...)

This was the beginning of my journey. I started here, naive and afraid.