Chemo Brain

Many people regularly ask me how I'm doing. I can say for the most part I'm doing GREAT! However, one lingering side affect that can be frustrating and embarrassing is chemo brain. Chemo brain you ask? Here is a list of symptoms chemo brain can have on cancer survivors:

• forgetting things that they usually have no trouble recalling-- memory lapses
• trouble concentrating--they can't focus on the task at hand
• trouble remembering details like names, dates, and sometimes larger events
• trouble multi-tasking, like answering the phone while cooking, without losing track of one of them-- less ability to do more than one thing at a time
• taking longer to finish things --slower thinking and processing
• trouble remembering common words--can't finish a sentence because you can't find the right words
• short-term memory problems
• feeling of mental fogginess
• trouble with verbal memory, such as remembering a conversation
• trouble with visual memory, such as recalling an image or list of words

and here are some interesting articles:

• Post-chemotherapy cognitive impairment
• Researching 'chemo brain'
• Chemo affects brain function for years: study

For me chemo brain is really up and down. I find I HAVE to keep my brain active or else it goes to mush and if I'm tired/fatigued in anyway it gets worse.

Since December I feel like its been really bad. I can get up to do something and then all of a sudden stand in a room wondering what the heck I was going to do (I mean completely blank - no idea - nothing) and multi-tasking can be nearly impossible at times (cooking and helping kids with homework lately has not been a good mix!). Forgetful. It's not uncommon to see yellow sticky notes around my house and I have to write EVERYTHING down and even that's not a guarantee that I'll remember. So I feel like I've become even more obsessive in thought because I'm so worried I'll forget. No matter how many times I go over a lesson plan when I go to teach I can't remember it, I have to have my material in front of me and then trying to express myself is humiliating as the right words just can't seem to come to mind. I need to reteach myself doctrine too as it seems I just can't remember the simplest things I've known all my life. The list goes on but this gives you an idea of what I mean when I say I'm struggling with chemo brain right now.

You might find me on facebook playing word games or playing Brain Academy on the Wii or reading....anything to keep my brain working! I'm not complaining its a fact and a side affect I have to deal with. Plus I'd much rather have it then be buried 6 feet under! I know that eventually it'll go away it'll just take time.