Drowning in goo

That fall, for the first time since he was big enough to hold a gun, Tommy sat deer-hunting season out, complaining that his legs hurt. Sunday mornings when they left for church, he automatically walked to the passenger door — afraid to drive.

With a family history of dementia, he was more susceptible to early onset than most. It took 18 months of medical tests and second opinions before specialists in Salem and at UVa pinpointed the problem: Tommy had West Nile virus, likely contracted from the mosquitoes swarming in their backyard fruit trees.As his wife watches and smiles in their den, Tommy Rhodes tries to read the newspaper upside down. (Click image to enlarge)

The West Nile was followed by a life-threatening blood infection called sepsis and subsequent bouts with e. coli and a drug-resistant staph infection. The stress of it all knocked his decline into overdrive.

Tommy’s form of dementia, called neurodegenerative frontal lobe brain disease, strikes the front of the brain, the hub of intelligent thought.
A sticky plaque invades the brain cells and blocks them from conveying information to one another.

As the brain shrinks, its neurons literally drown in goo.

Doctors aren’t sure why exactly, but Tommy’s disease differs from Alzheimer’s in that he can do some things many other advanced-dementia patients can’t — spell words and sort socks, for instance.

And respond like this when his wife informs him that he’s just put his shoes on the wrong feet:

“These are my feet.”

But there are stark similarities to Alzheimer’s, too. The disease is degenerative. No cure has been found.

The average life span from onset is seven years. Tommy’s had it for six.