I started writing this column on my bike this morning.
I also planned a week’s vacation, mulled over a scary dream, set my call list for the day, worried about my checking account, and reminisced about high school. (Who sicced that psych teacher on me, anyway?) In 10 miles and about one hour I unraveled more tangles in my busy little mind than I might in a three-hour conversation with a shrink (or my sister). A brain dump like that is therapeutic.
It’s also ironic. The reason I’m biking at all is because of Doug Hill. Many of you may know Doug, who was a copywriter at places like Frankel and Flair and DraftWorldwide before being diagnosed with Frontal Lobe Dementia three years ago. This rare disease causes the frontal lobe of the brain to deteriorate. It alters personality, changes a person’s ability to feel and express emotion, takes away his judgment. There’s no cure, and no way to slow the decline. It’s similar to Alzheimer’s disease but strikes at a younger age — usually 50 to 60 — and affects a different part of the brain. Doug was 38 when he was diagnosed. It’s not his memory that’s disappearing, but his personality, his well-known wit, and his love of life.
Like a derailleur shifting gears, Doug’s brain has slipped from the higher powers of copywriting, comedy, and fatherhood to the machinations of walking and swallowing.
It began as a slow, mysterious slide. He seemed moody and vacant. Then he shaved off his eyebrows, told his toddler son to touch the hot stove, and left babbling voicemails for his wife.
I ran into Doug at Frankel several years back, and said hi. He gave me a dark look. I thought at the time that he didn’t want co-workers to think he talked to reporters. Now I realize he was probably confused to see me out of context, that it was one too many things to deal with, since he could only concentrate on one thing at a time.
The last time I saw Doug, he had just gotten home from a week of tests at the National Institutes of Health. “I heard you had a busy week in Washington,” I said.
“I’ll say!” he replied. “First there was breakfast, and then we had lunch, and later there was dinner.”
He named everyone in the family photos on his fireplace mantel and showed me all the closets in his house. That was two summers ago.
Last fall, Doug moved to an assisted-living facility because his wife, Julie, could no longer take care of him at home. He’s not sure what her name is; sometimes he hangs up on his seven-year-old son. Doug is now 41.
Julie and I worked together at Advertising Age. These days, she produces documentaries and is training for the Mrs. T’s triathlon in Chicago this month. She bikes more than I do — in between swimming, running, working, traveling, and parenting. I imagine she thinks longer and harder than I do, too.
Two old friends from Ad Age and I are tag-teaming to do the race alongside Julie. Adrienne Ward Fawcett is coming in from New Jersey to swim a mile in Lake Michigan; Kate Fitzgerald is trekking in from Arizona to handle the 10K run. (You guessed it: I’m tackling the 26-mile bike portion.) We’re doing the race as a show of support for Julie and a fundraiser for Doug, whose housing and care costs $43,000 a year — all out-of-pocket expense, since insurance doesn’t cover it.
We’re calling ourselves Team Up Hill — another irony, since the triathlon course is prairie flat and the only one struggling uphill is Julie. There’s a Team Up Hill bank account collecting donations to be used entirely for Doug’s care. If you’d like to help, you can send a check to:
“Team Up Hill”
c/o Adrienne Fawcett
2 Kings Court
Pennington, NJ 08534
Wish us luck. Wish the Hills well. And next time you work out, appreciate where your mind takes you.
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