The Time Lock Experiments

THE TIME-LOCK EXPERIMENTS

BY FRED HOLLAND


THIS IS MY LAST GRASP ON SANITY. MY HOPE IS TO STAY HERE LONG ENOUGH TO CHRONICLE WHAT I HAVE DONE AND THE EFFECTS I HAVE OBSERVED. TRYING TO REMEMBER HAS BECOME A BURDEN AS THE PAST AND WHAT I THINK IS THE PRESENT HAVE BECOME SO BLURRED THAT IT IS DIFFICULT AT BEST TO DISTINGUISH ONE MOMENT FROM ANOUTHER.

I was twelve when I first saw it. I had heard the name “Alzheimer” and I knew it mostly happened to old people, but it was the type of thing that the unknown elderly got. I knew dementia was a mental condition but until that Thanksgiving I had no clue what it looked like. That was my first year in middle school. I was not a great student nor was I “bad”. I was the kind of kid happy to get a “B” average with an occasional “C” in the hard classes. It was 1987 and the whole family had come to our house for Thanksgiving. “Turkey Day” was usually an event reserved for a weekend visit to Gainesville, Texas at my grandparent’s house, but not this year. I had heard my mom and dad talk late at night about granddad and how things would be easier for grandma if we had every body over this year. They always waited till after bedtime to talk about the big issues. I guess they really believed they were keeping things from me, but I always found a way to catch the gist of what was being discussed. This year they were discussing granddad. I did not understand everything but I did understand there was a problem with his health so we were having the family at our place in Tyler. I loved going to Gainesville but every year it was the same thing, turkey and dressing. Yuk. But at our house it was always different as my mom was not much for tradition and this year was no exception. We would be having Mexican food that year as our Thanksgiving feast.

My grandparents were the last ones to arrive and just a little late at that. Lunch is at one in the afternoon and it was almost two when they drove up. Ah but good Mexican food (Tex-mex actually) is worth waiting for. We sat down after the exclamations of how concerned we all were and not a moment too soon as I was now starving. The first time was innocent enough. “Confused” I thought. Grandpa called me “Jerry”. “Isn’t it time for you to run along, Jerry?” he asked me. I thought it was a joke at first, then dad said “Dad, Jerry was my friend from across the street thirty years ago, remember?” “Yes, of coarse I remember.” Grandpa said with a snap “I’m not stupid!” Grandma’s eyes had a tear in them and she asked to be excused from the table. My mother and some of my aunts followed her out of the room. Then it was just us guys. “You ok?” my dad asked grandpa with that look one gets when something bad has happened. “Of coarse he’s ok!” I protested “It was just a joke.” Like most twelve year olds I thought I knew what I was talking about.

The rest of the day went without incident and everybody came back and we finally had our now cooling feast. Thank God for microwave ovens. On Sunday we got up and went to church witch was uneventful. The preacher did a typical Thanksgiving sermon. We went home and had leftovers. Tex-Mex does not make quite as good leftovers as some things but I’ll take it. All the relatives left early that morning so it was now up to us to clean up, after lunch, of coarse. I was given the task of cleaning the guest room where grandpa and grandma stayed. I was glad to take on the job as they were very neat people and left very little out of place. I took my time doing nothing so that I would not be put on dish detail. I started snooping around, like any kid would!” do who wanted to sound busy. Under the bed I found some pieces of paper that had some writing on them. It was as if I had found a treasure. The excitement of the unknown made the task seem some how worth it. It was a list. On one page was a list of the ordinary things that a person would do without thinking.
“PUT ON BLUE SLACKS”
“WHITE SHIRT”
“BLACK SHOES”
“HAVE BREAKFAST, EGGS NO SALT”
“I LIKE BLACK COFFEE, NO CREAM”
“SAY GOODBYE TO FAMILY”
“LEAVE FOR HOME AT 8AM”
“I LIVE IN GAINSVILLE”
“I DRIVE THE GREY BUICK REGAL”

On the other piece of paper were instructions on how to get to Gainsville from here and a hand drawn map. I took the papers to my dad and asked what he thought it meant. He sat with me and tried to explain that Grandpa had developed Alzheimer’s and that he was becoming very forgetful. “Will he die?” I asked. “Not for a good while yet.” My dad assured me. We spent the rest of the afternoon talking about scientist’ possibly creating a cure before too long. “Matt” he said “Why don’t you become a scientist and maybe you can find a cure.” That day I chose my path. Medical Research would be my destiny. Other kids would become teachers, lawyers, doctors and businessmen and women. They would become firemen, police officers and laborers. Before that November 25th I was more interested in science fiction than in real science. I guess science never seemed real to me, not until dad spoke as if a scientist could possibly answer the need and that I could be that scientist.

The rest of the school year was kind of ordinary. I took classes, hung out with friends and tried to get noticed by girls. I spoke to the science teacher about Alzheimer’s after school a couple of times. He loaned me a book from his library on “Brain Disorders”. It was very hard for me to read but it gave me a starting point. I became fascinated not only with the disorder but with the brain itself, with all the functions it controls with electrical and chemical signals. Don’t get me wrong, I mean, I was also interested in all the things teen-age boys think are important. But in the back of my mind was a growing fascination with the brain.

I had been watching my grandfather slowly lose different mental functions. By the time I was half way through my second year in college he could not recognize anyone. We would talk about grandpa’s condition whenever I came home for visits. The descriptions went from “not doing well” to “not really there”. Ironically, it was the “not really there” statement that would be the key to my understanding later on. I guess the most difficult times for me were the times when grandpa would “drift”. One moment we would be discussing the political climate and then he would be asking me to pull over so he could photograph the Rockies as we sat in the retirement home two miles from my parents house in Tyler. It almost sounds like an Abbott and Costello routine. Abbott was the straight guy and Costello was the “confused” sidekick. It was safe to laugh at TV; it was not real so the idea of someone being that confused seemed funny. Now it almost seems cruel or at least thoughtless to make light of such a condition. For a while I was so sensitive that I even wrote to one of the local stations about their lack of compassion for those who suffer such an affliction. No changes were made to the stations schedule so I followed my mother’s advice. “If you don’t like what is on, change the channel, but quit complaining.”

By the time I got thru High school I was pulling straight A’s and was on the honor roll. I have my dad and granddad to thank for that. It is amazing what a vision can do for one’s motivation. When I knew why I was in school and why it was important for my grades to be good enough to get into a good college then the effort was less of a burden. It was more than my “dream” to go to college; it was the way to achieve my purpose in life.

The monitor blurred. Not just the screen but the whole thing. I have been doing this long enough now to recognize when the batteries are getting low. It starts with small areas of what I am looking at. It is as if what I see is being some how slurred. Like water spilled on a hand written page that causes the ink to run is the small patch of vision in front of me. It is not an optical problem, I learned that early on. My timing with the object that is “blurring” is starting to change. In this case it is starting with the monitor and only for a few seconds at a time. I have about ten minutes or so before I run out of portable power. I’ll need to plug my device into an outlet to recharge. Even with technological advancements it still takes a few hours to fully recharge four little double ‘A’ batteries. It is the only time I get to rest anymore so I am almost glad when the batteries get low.

I got my doctorate in medical science in 2006 and thought I was going to save the world. I got a job in research with a drug company that expressed interest in developing drugs for Alzheimer’s sufferers. I learned along the way that often a direct path is not always available. I had to produce the results in the direction that the company supervisors set for me and as long as I did that, they were willing to allow me to pursue my own ideas.

It was thought by department heads that increased blood flow to the brain would ease the symptoms of the disease. You should know that department heads usually means a room of lawyers, accountants and some marketing executives who concern themselves with “repeat” sales. Most of us in research and development disagreed with the direction the company took. “To treat the symptom and not deal with the cause is immoral.” One of the guys used to complain to non-management personnel like me. Of course he never refused his pay check. It seems he had an even bigger disagreement with being unemployed. Myself, I had bigger fish to fry, so I could put up with corporate profiteering. Don’t get me wrong. I believe the drug industry as a whole do a great job of developing cures or at least symptom relief. The company I worked for had their share of success in dealing with some of the diseases that cause dementia but Alzheimer’s had them stumped. With Parkinsons we knew that the dementia was one of the secondary symptoms and did not occur in all victims. It was the result of a degenerative disorder within the brain that in some patients affected cognitive abilities. We knew that Parkinsons was the first cause but with Alzheimer’s the first or root cause was a mystery, so the symptoms were targeted.

On my own time I could use the lab equipment for my own research, as long as I agreed to give any findings to the company. I was not looking for a name nor was I trying to get my studies published. I wanted to understand Alzheimer’s witch meant looking beyond the symptoms to the nature of the dysfunction itself. I also had to shelve all the preconceived notions I had about the brain, its functions and the all the corresponding parts of the brain. To look at something anew when one is convinced of ones knowledge is difficult at best. But all my knowledge was not giving me the results I wanted so I was faced with either giving up or altering my knowledge. At one point giving up had seemed very attractive. I kept running in circles and for a time thought the answer was beyond all reason.

It was a preacher that helped me the most in changing my direction and I’m not sure he meant to. I was an active member of the Community Church in a suburb of Dallas. I enjoyed his sermons, even the hard ones. If you are a regular church attendee where the preacher is really good, you know what I mean. I would help do things at the building when I had time so I got to know the preacher fairly well. One Saturday I had volunteered to mow the lawn and after I had finished went inside to cool off and get some cold water. “How’s it going Matt?” asked James Hannover, our preacher. He really wasn’t so concerned about how things were going as much as that phrase had become the standard non committal conversation starter for decades. If I did not want to talk or was busy then nothing was lost and if I wanted to talk I could invite him to sit and visit. I remember as a kid seeing some actress who had a more direct approach. “Can we talk?” she was famous for saying. I like our way better as it felt less like I was being confronted and more like an invitation to visit. Not all preachers, pastors or priests have a hidden agenda. Jim usually just liked to visit. He seemed interested in me, in who I am and I was interested in him. He had a fresh outlook on faith and a man’s relationship to God. That day we would talk about a great many subjects. I had the opportunity to tell him about what I was working on and some of the frustration and excitement that came with a project like Alzheimer’s. As the conversation went along Jim would tell me something that made all the difference in my approach to my work. I asked him about his years of Biblical study and how does he keep from saying the same thing over and over. He told me that he tried to avoid applying his Biblical knowledge to his studies but rather he tried to look at the Bible with “fresh eyes”, as he put it, so that he would not miss out on the truth that God would have him learn. “Without fresh eyes I would only know what I know and that is not enough.” “I need to know what God knows and that requires a fresh look at a very old book.” That was it. I had been running in circles because the disease does not operate on the known rules of the brain. I needed to look at the brain, its function and Alzheimer’s with “fresh eyes”. My knowledge was proving to be inadequate and I was about to get an educational booster shot.

I was enthusiastic about the possibilities again. It felt like I could make a difference again. The only problem was I did not know how to look with fresh eyes. Approaching a subject on witch I had become somewhat an expert with “fresh eyes” was needed but it was also quite a bit more difficult than I could imagine. Most of my colleagues were still banging their heads against the same wall over and over, yet criticizing me for suggesting that the answer was not in the direction we had been going. So I found myself working after hours, alone. The problem with working alone on a new project or an old project from a different perspective is that one ends up chasing a lot of “phantoms”. Ideas that have no real merit are more difficult to recognize when working alone since you have no one to double check them. I also find that I need to hear my own ideas mirrored back to me from a second or third person. I spent at least three years chasing variations of old theories that had been disproved long ago. I thought I was being original but the truth was I had been clinging to what I knew just like everyone else. One’s life seems to be filled with turning points, regardless of education or vocation. Some people change direction at the turning point while others ignore it and keep moving on in the direction they had been going. The people in the second group are often the dogmatic ones who scoff at the individuals who have learned to change direction at the turning point. I have been scoffed at and I have looked down on others whose knowledge did not follow my own.

Once an intern made a suggestion based, I thought, on ignorance. He asked if I had checked the output of the endocrine system. I was put off by this nineteen year old, first year students brash suggestion. “No” I said “We already know all about the glandular system”. “It has been well documented that the endocrine system of Alzheimer’s patients is usually quite healthy.” Boy I really put him in his place, or so I thought. Later that evening I found myself devouring a cheap hamburger and mulling over the day when it hit me. I had become one of my peers. A rut entrenched know-it-all who was threatened by an original thought. That kid was not trying to do anything to me or my position; he simply looked at the problem with “fresh eyes”. I had begun to think that I had covered all the bases and there really was no answer. What I know about anything is not nearly as critical as what I don’t know and I had quit asking hard questions. Maybe it was that asking hard questions requires a level of honesty joined with a passion for discovery that I was unwilling to obtain. I don’t know. There, I said it! I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. Socrates said that the beginning of all knowledge is the realization that we (I) know nothing. Now I could begin to see with the “fresh eyes” the preacher had told me about. It was not just about a different point of view but a departure from the “known” to gain knowledge.

So, here I am at the "jumping off point" of medical science. My mind is screaming "I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it!" The real question is am I actually willing to honestly leave the path that has led to nowhere. It would be easier if I were the only one on this path, but I'm not. Every scientist in every research lab in every country is on this path. "Just deal with the symptoms" is the montra. But the truth is we don't really understand the symptoms, much less the disease. So how do I attack that witch not only do I not understand, but cannot understand. It would seem that my "jumping off point" was quite a way from the cliff. Sure, I can jump, but I will land on the same ground I am on. The path I choose must take me closer to the edge so that I can jump off.

How offten do I have to go through this? The realization that the obstacle that is so forbidding will tell me the next step, if I am willing to listen. So I have to abandon all the research that other, more capable, scientist have done and start anew. It is easier to say than it is to do. I need to find someone who has the disease in the beginning stages that can help me understand the symptoms. And I also need someone who has died as a result of the diease recently. A morbid notion to be sure, but that is what it will take to ignore the past and find my own path.

Doesn't that sound arrogant? "My own path" as if I were some great scientist or brilliant doctor. I think that perhaps it takes a bit off arrogance to suggest something new can be found where so many have searched before. But I have to believe that an answer can be found. Even if it takes a realative new guy like me to find it.