Kristina wrote:Hi
What a great idea to have a U.K./London meet up! I found out my 4/4 a week ago and must admit I am struggling, especially today for some reason[emoji17].
I am currently working in Iraq, luckily I have wonderful colleagues around me, but it’s still tough to be so far away from home. The U.K. is not really home, I am originally Swedish but have lived abroad for over 30 years. Anyway! Love to catch up any way possible. My email address is
kristina.sandstrom@gmail.com
Hi again Kristina,
I'm the senior support person who replied to your post last week, along with our health coach intern Emma. Your idea of "working abroad" is more adventurous than my son's idea of working in Portugal! Kudos to you for helping a country that has been ravaged by wars and massive humanitarian needs for what may be close to your whole life!
As for struggling today, let me reassure you that it's perfectly normal to have a rollercoaster of emotional reactions after a sudden jolt like this. Your brain is quite literally trying to integrate this new piece of news into the whole sense of self you have. It does get better; so feel free to give yourself permission to ride the waves for a while. When you're feeling most down, it can help to remind yourself of your strengths: you are multi-lingual; you have an open personality that seeks out new challenges; you adapt to challenging circumstances and are not afraid of situations that might be risk-averse to most; you have a high level of education (anything more than high school is great for your brain). I'm sure you can add to this list.
Also, please remind yourself that you are the same person you were before you heard this news. The neurologist I saw as part of a clinical trial said yesterday that about 50 million people probably have amyloid plaques in their brain, and many of them will never develop Alzheimer's. Even better, he said that at almost 68, my cognition has not changed an iota in the three years since I started screening for the trial--and I have not led a pristine healthy life!
So enjoy this current adventure, and trust that you and science will have a rock-solid prevention plan to get you through a long and exciting life.
And here's some tips to help you connect with others:
1. Using quotes of others sends them an email notification of your post. Without quotes, they may not see what you wrote. You can quote anyone by going to their post and clicking on the single quotation mark in the upper right corner.
2. You may not want your personal email open for anyone who uses this site or searches Google for "Iraq Apoe 4"
You can edit your post by clicking on the pencil in the upper right corner of your post to remove your email.
3. Most of our members use Private Messages to communicate with others without sharing emails to set up meet-ups. Here's a link to how to do that:
Using Private Messages.
4. To "search: for members in the U.K. and reach out to them using Private Messages, use this function:
Search the Site for Information
5. To subscribe to this particular topic on UK meet-ups, so that you will always get an email notification if someone else posts, even if they don't quote you specifically, use the "wrench" tool icon just under the topic heading in the upper left of the page, just above the text box. Click on the wrench and then on "subscribe".
Keep posting Kristina! You are our first Iraq-based member--celebrate that today!
