Chemo Brain…the Likely Culprit.

I just wanted to update you quickly after my appointment with my neurologist yesterday. While it’s quite cathartic to write humorous posts to deal with difficult situations, I felt I needed to stop being the clown and remove the mask.

The jury is still out on what’s causing my memory problems. It’s looking like chemo brain is the most likely explanation for my memory troubles and my neurologist has recommended eating lots of green leafy veggies, a multi-vitamin high in vitamin B but I also need to have a brain MRI and a neuro-psych assessment.

In case you haven’t had a neuro-psych assessment, it’s where a psychologist asks you a whole heap of questions like: what’s the name of the Prime Minister, count backwards by 7 and what’s the day of the week. Fortunately, they don’t ask you where you left your car keys or what you did with that school note last week. That said, some times even the day of the week could be problematic. Unless you’re Einstein, I’d say most of us don’t like the idea of someone tinkering around inside our heads.

Even if there is a medical justification for my memory troubles, I still don’t want to get the questions wrong. I have my pride and can still hear the humiliation of an entire classroom of kids laughing in my face. Growing up doesn’t erase the horrors of being picked  on at school and most of us have copped it at one time or another.

While I’ve done these tests before and can recall at least some of the questions, I’m trying to stop myself from rehearsing the answers:100, 93, 86, 79…

As much as I don’t want to make a mistake, it would be an even bigger mistake to cover-up my weaknesses. I’d ultimately only be cheating myself.

Meanwhile, I’m taking comfort that my writing is still going well and that I’m playing my violin and these are both mentally, if not physically, complex tasks. There’s still some sort of activity going on upstairs.

By the way, the brain MRI will check for the deadly brain virus with the long name I mentioned in my last post. Apparently, it’s statistically very unlikely: about 1 in 50,000. However, these days stats don’t appease my concerns. The chances of having dermatomyositis were much less at 100,000 to 1 and I struck the jackpot there. Once you have one statistically rare disease, the odds mean nothing.

The neurologist has also ordered some additional blood tests.

Meanwhile, while I’m waiting to get these tests underway, I’m self-medicating. Once you’ve been through chemo, a few bits of chocolate are absolutely harmless.

To read my post about cyberchondria click here: https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/terminal-cyberchondria-yes-please/

xx Rowena