One of my best friends is my pocket healer, who I met in my first guild, even though we've never met. But the person who's probably most caused me to think about my own life is someone not from my guild, but from a forum I post on, where there's a massive thread for all of the people who play WoW to talk about it without bugging everyone else. :D I've talked about my friend here before--you see, Bill has Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease.

He started playing WoW as part of his therapy. Bill has good days and bad days--sometimes, he'll be able to quest or understand instructions easily; other times, he logs off or switches to just grinding out of frustration, and you have to rephrase things a few different ways to help him understand. But he never gives up--he just keeps pushing. He's told me that he has post-its all over his monitor with tips we've given him. Bill's goal was to get his main character to max level before Cata, and just recently he met that goal. You've never seen such a string of congratulations in our thread for someone dinging 80. :D

Alzheimer's, especially EOAD, is one of the scariest things I can imagine happening to me. Bill is my example for how to live with such a terrifying condition: he does it with grace, strength, and--above all--humor.

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