“I hadn’t expected to discuss my grandmother’s Alzheimer’s with [the doctor]. I was hoping to hear some explanation as to why, apart from her memory, my grandmother’s overall health seemed so mysteriously improved. Her lupus, for instance, had all but disappeared from her blood work.

“‘Well, there is a theory,’ he said, ‘that people with Alzheimer’s heal themselves of their diseases. Because they forget they have them.’”
—excerpted from “A Memory Magically Interrupted” heard on the Modern Love podcast