The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat

I’m currently reading a fabulous book called “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat” by Oliver Sacks. It uses a case-study approach to document the lives of patients with various neurological disorders. I started reading it because one of the case studies is that of a patient called “witty, ticcy Ray” who suffers from Tourette’s syndrome. But all of the case studies are fascinating; Oliver Sacks has a beautiful, melodic way of writing and he does not underestimate the human cost of disease.

One of the chapters in the book tells the story of Natasha, a 90-year-old woman who came to his clinic. She explained that her symptoms first began to appear after her 88th birthday. The symptoms were a change in behaviour: she began to feel lively, more energetic and less inhibited and even started taking an interest in younger men.

Natasha enjoyed the change and only began to think she might be ill when her friends started to worry about her “inappropriate behaviour”. Only then did she start to question that something might be wrong, that the sudden euphoria she was experiencing might actually be disease. Then she struck a thought – it’s Cupid’s Disease! – and this is what she told Oliver Sacks.

Oliver Sacks had never heard of Cupid’s Disease so Natasha explained that 70 years ago she had worked in a brothel and contracted syphilis – lots of the girls had the disease and they called it Cupid’s Disease. Her husband saved her, took her out of the brothel and had the syphilis treated but this was before the days of penicillin so it was never properly destroyed.

Oliver Sacks tested her spinal fluid and, sure enough, she tested positive to neurosyphilis. Natasha didn’t want to have it treated, but she also didn’t want the disease to progress further. She liked the changes thus far and wanted to keep them, but was wary of having a good thing go too far. So the course of action was easy: treat the bug with antibiotics. The damage to her brain was already done and couldn’t be undone, but the spirochetes would be destroyed and unable to make any further changes.

Isn’t that a lovely story! It’s always refreshing to read about disease bringing some positive benefits.

Lately I’ve been thinking I’d like another child so that I can call him Rex. I really like the name. It’s fairly uncommon these days yet interesting and has a nice sound to it. It means King in Latin. My girlfriend says I should just get a dog and call him Rex. Ben doesn’t like the name much so you could say there are a few obstacles, not the least of which is my age. This week I downloaded an app called “PhotoAge”. It assesses a photograph of your face and spits out an estimated age. The first photo I used put me at 47 years old! So of course I tried subsequent photos and eventually got 27 years old. That was the accurate assessment, of course. Ben says I look younger than 37 and he promises me that he’s not making a “your bum does not look fat in that” kind of comment. I just asked Elizabeth how old I am and she says “4”.