For tomorrow

Posted on April 16, 2016 by livinginalimitedword

I can’t remember what started it, but last night Adam decided to start talking about the period of time when we first met. 18 years is a long time for me to try think back, especially when it comes to remembering people and the things that they said and didn’t say. For some reason, he still finds it hard to accept that I really don’t remember much of it. We had initially been introduced by one of his ex-girlfriends who I worked with at the time. It was some months later that we met in a nightclub and, well, let’s say our life together sprung from that point. He has told me many times, that in the time between those two meetings, he had watched my comings and goings from a rock bar we both frequented. For some reason, he has never been able to accept, that I have no memory of ever seeing him during that time, not even once. Last night he persisted but I couldn’t remember even the people he kept talking about. I know that I actually became quite abrupt with him, but I have no memory of the things he was speaking about. My life has been slowly vanishing for years now, I remember the important things, the major events, but things like parties, meetings in pubs and people I spent time talking to, even some I know were friends, all the details are now gone.

I guess that a good example is something like the festivals I attended. Outside of the headline act, I don’t remember who else was there to entertain. I just remember spending a day sat on the grass drinking warm cider. Even the performance of those headliners are now gone, no songs remembered no stage acts preserved, all gone. It has just become another day. As I said, I remember the day Adam and I truly met, how we walked from the club across the bridge and trying, trying so hard to get him to go away when I found out he was 20, 17 years younger than me and was something that wasn’t going to happen. The words no, or how it took us two hours to walk what normally took ten minutes, all those details are now gone. As are the dates, the time spent together, all gone. I remember going to Arran for a week, what we did there is a mixed blur of bonfires on the beach and walks on the hills, followed by evenings in the pub. What we talked about while there, is all gone, just the result on the night we returned to Glasgow, as that was the night we became engaged. I remember the words around that hour, but the rest is gone.

My entire life now is like that, just the structure, not the decoration, the frippery that makes life sing, it’s all missing. It is as though my life has become nothing other than events and feeling. Oh god, do I remember the feelings. In many ways, it is the feeling that trigger the memory of the event. I remember that feeling of being drawn to Adam, how within days I couldn’t bear being away from him, and when together, I couldn’t stand not touching him, that need to be as close as space and propriety would allow. I remember all that as clearly as I remember falling into the hollow pits of hell, the feeling as my heart was ripped from me, and of it being shredded and how death would have been a joy, the day my son died. My entire life is now all procession of feelings, feelings I appear unable to forget, but the details, the words, the people who surrounded me, they are either gone or fading, disappearing like ghosts as they drift slowly into the fog. And trust me, there is a lot of fog.

Losing your memory isn’t like there is a chosen date where everything is cut off, and with each day that passes, that date also moves on. There are no clean lines, there are no types of memory or categories that fade faster or slower. Things just go. For me, the first I lost were names and not just names from the past, but the names of people and places, I still really should have known. Just like the people, I all to often have forgotten their voices and their words, unless, those words held feeling. I remember many painful events from childhood on, but just a few of the good. I know there have to be more, no one could have a life with so much pain, without some balance of pleasure. Yet until twenty-five years ago, I can find little else. I know that it had to be there, I know as I can feel the gaps, I know that those gaps are there, and every gap I find, good or bad, it’s maddening and painful in its own way. Just as I can’t remember the things I am supposed to be doing today, I don’t remember most of my past. Today, yesterday or forty years ago, what isn’t there, hold a powerful pain. I may forget to eat, to have a shower or whatever, just as I now struggle to remember who attended our wedding or what speeches were read, or even by whom, or if any at all.

We don’t choose, we don’t mean to anger or hurt, we just don’t remember and none of what we have forgotten was by choice. All our lives are precious and what happens in them important to all involved, but ours are vanishing, ours are no longer there to supply the conversations of today. There is a frustration in knowing that life was so much more, in knowing that all the colour and vigour is gone. It’s a bit like being cheated out of life, what was the point when you can’t remember when you can’t share and laugh at what happened? What was the point of living it all, if it is no longer there? Why live today, if it will be forgotten tomorrow? But of course, we do, of course, we live, because the one thing that doesn’t seem to fade, that doesn’t vanish is the most important feeling of all, love.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 16/04/2014 – Self-inflicted

There are those days that just seem to pass without thought or true feeling, days when you don’t actually know, or care, what will happen next, as whatever happens will be right. It has felt for a while now as thought I would never have one of those days again as I have done nothing but worry about one thing after another, days where I have been chasing my tail and convinced that the only good point will be when I eventually manage to go to bed. I don’t know what made the true change, may be just at last having my mind settled over where my Mother is and how she is, but something changed yesterday and all those feelings of pressure left. I wasn’t any more able to keep up…..

I so need one

Posted on November 25, 2015 by livinginalimitedword

The thief of life is at it again. I am so lost and confused this week. I can’t even hold onto the day of the week, for more than a few minutes. It feels as though, I have spent the whole week checking the calendar, or double checking what I am doing and why. I can deal with pain, with spasms, all the different memory problems, with any of the medical symptoms of my gang of assailants, but frustration drives me up the wall. Yes, I know, that is the nature of frustration, but it’s just so frustrating. It doesn’t matter how many times, I stop, relax, then start again, it just reappears, which winds me up even more. This whole week has been that way. It doesn’t matter that I have had a good nights sleep. That I’m as close to rested as I get. That I’m happy and ready for another day. None of that matters when you can’t remember if this is Tuesday, Thursday or even the one in between, that I couldn’t remember the name of earlier. Frustration has already found its way in. My PRMS really has got this whole game of illness polished brighter than any diamond. It needs stress to thrive, all the stress that I have over the years strived to remove, item by item. I had taken it’s greatest triggers and smashed them into a fine powder. So what does it do, it removes even more of my memory, it truly is a devious and clever opponent, as frustration, creates it food source with ease.

Frustration and memory are the perfect combination. It’s rare for me to get frustrated by my body, well, occasionally, as yes I am human. But there is no competition between them, memory is the perfect trigger, and wins hands down. At times, it can be perfectly clear. Last night, I was watching “Eastenders” and I could with ease, remember small details, from an episode that I saw years ago. Two seconds later, I couldn’t remember the name of the character I was looking at, or their current storyline. How can one brain do that? How can it send me somewhere to do something, then decide to wipe all knowledge of why I moved at all? Why can it cut out huge sections of my own life, when I need them, just for them to be there later on? How can it steal my words from my mouth? Why doesn’t it tell me that I put lunch on to cook over an hour ago and that it’s now quietly burning? How can it leave me lost, confused and occasionally terrified, by the tiniest change in my own home? How can it be so contrary about why, what or when? How can it do all of these things and so much more? For someone who adores perfection and precision in everything, it is the cruellest trick my PRMS could have chosen, from the list of possibilities. But the cruellest bit, the bit that makes it frustrating, the fact I am 100% aware of it doing them all.

I don’t know just what has upset me this week. Things had actually been quite a bit better recently, which rightly or wrongly, I have been putting down to the fact my breathing has improved. Within a couple of weeks of having my nebuliser and the new inhalers, I couldn’t help but notice that especially, my speech improved. It might just have been coincidence, but I really don’t think so. I know that I have I said it before, months ago, that I was sure my brain wasn’t receiving enough oxygen all of the time. It was, though, just my opinion and I have nothing to prove it was my COPD, or even back it up, other than my experience. Not only has my speech been clearer, but those long gaps while I searched for the next word, have been more than halved. My mind has been less fuzzed and far quicker, I just generally felt more like myself. When you have a shopping list collections of illness to choose from, what is causing what, or has been the trigger for anything, is almost impossible to workout. Add in the fact that illness is phasic, the picture is even more confused. What I do know is this. Right now, my brain still doesn’t feel fuzzed like it was pre-nebuliser, foggy at times, yes, but not that almost audible fuzz. My thought processing is sharper and my speech clearer than pre-nebuliser. My memory has fallen apart again, so this time, I’m blaming either my PRMS, or my Fibro, but my money is on the PRMS.

On the surface, my memory problems sound like nothing in the great scheme of things. It’s only when you actually take a few moments and think of the realities of their effect, that part of my frustration becomes even more understandable. Every time I forget something that is in another room, means I have to make another trip to fetch it. Every trip, planned or not, seeps away at my energy reserves, increases the fatigue levels in my arm muscles and frequently triggers spasms in my intercostal muscles. It also means that pressure is being put onto my hands, which increases the chance that my thumb and knuckle joint will dislocate, either then or later. Yesterday alone, I was forced into making 8 more trips than I really should have needed to complete. On Monday, it was more than double that. When you open up that picture and look inside, my agitation and frustration, starts to make more sense. The more frustrated I get by it, the more I seem to forget. For new readers, please don’t suggest any of those so-called memory aids, been there, done that, doesn’t work. Yesterday afternoon, I had to clip my nap as I really couldn’t put off having a shower. My shower was probably the only thing that went smoothly yesterday, and actually, took less time than expected. Because of how I was feeling, I headed back to my bed just to try and spend half an hour totally relaxed, but not asleep. My plan backfired, despite my having sat here, double checking, that I really did have half an hour to spare when I got up, I discovered that I had got the time totally wrong. I hadn’t just looked at the time on my PC, I double checked it by the alarm clock in the bedroom. Somehow my brain had done what it so often does, it had tricked me. My relaxation was wiped out totally, my frustration and stress levels shot through the roof. I stopped trusting myself with time a long time ago, but when Adam isn’t here to confirm things for me, this is what happens. If all of that isn’t enough, I started my day by going through just half of my morning medications. I used my nebuliser and inhalers but totally forgot, for two hours, until my pain levels were rising, to take all of my tablets, every single one.

If my brain would just hold onto what it is supposed to be doing, this week, would have been a totally different story. I know we are only one Wednesday, yes, I checked. But I have been more tired than I should be and I have spent so much time just cursing myself, over time wasted and unavoidable confusion. My frustration values, clearly have been high, but there really isn’t anything I can do about it and it’s worrying. As I said early, frustration breeds stress, and stress breeds any problem you can think of that my health has ever done. I can see that the rest of this week is just going to be one long battle with the whole thing. I have frequently joked, “Who needs a brain”, well this week, that joke has run out. All I want right now, is even half of one, as long as it’s the half that seems to be missing.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 25/11/2013 – The hospital and back

I have been home now for a couple of hours now, just trying to catch up on all that hasn’t been done. I have to say the whole trip……

It’s messy

Posted on November 20, 2015 by livinginalimitedword

I knew that I would pay for it, but not quite as quickly or dramatical as I did. By 1 pm, I was in pain, real pain, my guts were telling me that it didn’t want all that stuff, I had given it. It might have been tasty, but by then, that, was forgotten, and my emergency visit to the loo, made my memory of it, even less lovely. It’s always the same if I eat too much all at one time, or within a very few hours. My insides for over a year now has worked on the principle that it has only so much space, so, what goes in, has to be balanced by the same amount out. No problem there you might think. Wrong. My insides now work about ten times slower than anyone else’s I have ever known. From mouth to gone, takes 14 days, relieved once every two days, the final one, is normally 12 hours of a dull ache, with the odd spell of intense reminders that it doesn’t work in a straight line. But I had overloaded the system on the entry side, pain, pain, pain, then run, or, however, you translate that on wheels. Just to prove that I really don’t learn, later, I did it all over again. Cramming in four slices of streaky bacon and two fried eggs, at the time of day, that I would normally, slowly, eat a small bowl of nuts. It, didn’t like that much either. No run to the loo, just discomfort right through the remainder of the day. Oh! I love life!

I guess, that, today, has to be back to normal, routine, has to reign. I go through this kickbacks every now and then. It’s not so much a “Why me?”, as that’s a truly stupid reason, it’s more “Give me a break”. Health is relentless, days fold into each other, and time never seems to be on our side. In some ways, it is the next step on, from the picture grid on the “sticky post” on the first page of my blog. The final picture in the grid is someone lying asleep in bed, beside a table, that is full of drugs, the step on from that would be where I am now. To put it into a picture, I think would be impossible. You would be looking at a thousand different faces, each showing a different expression. It isn’t just boredom or frustration with life; it’s not depression or giving up; nor is it anger or grief; even confusion and annoyance doesn’ t cover it; as it a touch of all of them all; with a huge measure, of just wanting to scream “Let me out of here!” Most of the time, life is fine, more than fine, but then this pop’s up, gnawing away at you until you just explode inside. Despite the fact that humans are creatures of habit, we are also worn down by it. I think I can give you a glimpse of it, from your own memories. If you think back to when you were a child, and you were off school, as it was the summer holidays. It has been raining for a couple of days and all you want, is to go out, with your friends, but your mum, wouldn’t let you. Remember how that felt. Mum was the enemy, the weather, an even bigger one, and life just wasn’t fair on every level. Then to just make things worse, you asked for fish-finger for lunch, what you got was a burger. It is all those pent up childhood emotions, on steroids and multiplied by a thousand, but not aimed at the petty, it’s aimed at the essential. I’m right now screaming for freedom, not just from my home, but from everything about my life.

If I had made it all the way through the past 8 years without feeling this at all, then, I would be a truly exceptional person. The fact, that I have been here before, means that I know that it passes. For a few days, I am going to be unsettled, fidgety and desperate to do something, anything, that I haven’t done in the past 8 years. Logically, that is impossible. Right now, logic isn’t my friend, if it was, I wouldn’t have eaten what I did yesterday, I knew what would happen, but I still had to do it, just as I had to get out of my chair and walk the other day. The driving emotion was different, but the actual base feeling was identical. No one wants to feel that their life is actually a prison, far worse than it would have been if they had been physically locked up, as you can’t argue with iron bars. My bars are different, maybe not made of iron, and yes, every single one of them, is invisible, but in so many ways, far worse and I did nothing wrong. When feelings like this appear, it makes every part of life difficult, in some ways, because they are just feeling, even harder. They aren’t things that talking about, will make better. Talking is about finding solutions, but there are no solutions to feelings, their just there, annoying you constantly. Experience tells me, that all I have to do is be patient and they will calm down, become fussy and eventually forgotten.

I don’t know if it is because of my health, or if it just the way that human brains work, but, I’ve noticed that I forget quickly. If, it wasn’t for this blog, there are so many feelings and sensations that I have gone through, that I wouldn’t remember. Often when I read a back post, I find myself somewhat alienated from it, as though I am reading someone else’s words. Clearly there is recognition of whatever it was, but the words, the finer points and the small details, I will have forgotten. Just as I recognise how I’m feeling, if you had asked me to describe it a month ago, it would have been vague, somewhat beige and lifeless. Have I forgotten, or is it just my mind protecting me from the worst of everything, just holding a mark, rather than a scar?

Today, well today, is going to be about bringing back the lighter brighter me. It’s going to be about adding the colour, the depth and the vigour, I’ve wallowed too long. We all have to wallow at times, but as long as we can call a halt, turn it around and push it back in its box, there is nothing to worry about. My fatigue and pain levels are high, so it’s going to have to be a gentle kick up the backside, but it has to be a kick hard enough, to push me in the right direction. I believe totally, that every part of our health can be and is, to some extent, under our control. In some ways, the last few days prove that I have stopped doing what I should and I’m paying for it. Mental or physical, we play a role in just how bad or good things are. I know all about relaxation, posture and mood, each plays a role. I dropped them all a few days ago and it time to pick them up again, it’s time to work on putting things right. That’s the problem with wallowing, as much as we need to do it, it’s hard work fixing the mess that the mud makes. It won’t be instant, but the wet-wipes are now out.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 20/11/2013 – More on the list

Yesterday’s surprise of getting an earlier appointment wasn’t the only one, not long after I completed my post the phone rang and it was a call I had been waiting 4 or 5 weeks for. I have called the practise…..

When it’s gone, it’s gone

Posted on September 24, 2015 by livinginalimitedword

Since the weekend, I had been heading towards Wednesday with a clear plan for the day, a plan that was to start being put into action at 11 am. Adam knew all about it, but even though he doesn’t have the slightest reason for it, his memory is often almost as bad as mine. He came home for his lunch as usual at 12:20 and said nothing about it at all. So my error wasn’t touched upon and I carried on totally oblivious. In fact, there had been one huge reminder earlier in the day when the postman arrived bearing a parcel for me. Adam had ordered a new pack of Psyllium for me, in error, as I had enough to make at least 3 more batches of pancakes. Adam had even opened the parcel for me, so he too had received the same reminder, but even that didn’t remind either of us of the fact that I was supposed to be making the first batch of them from my chair. I didn’t actually remember at all about them until the time came that I should have been removing my daily one to defrosted, then I remembered there weren’t any left. How bad does two peoples memories have to be, to go through all that and still forget? So there I was an hour and a half behind on what I already knew was going to be a tough exercise to carry out. An hour and a half in which it should have been sitting quietly expanding as the yeast grew.

The parcel wasn’t the only thing to arrive in the post yesterday, I also received a letter from the hospital. I am to attend the dermatology department in four weeks time. It is actually the second appointment they have sent out to me, we had to change the first one which was for two weeks time as it was set for the late afternoon. We had to change it due to our knowledge of the NHS transport system. The original one was for 3:45 pm, we wouldn’t have been home until late evening at the earliest, making it a very long day for me. We have been unlucky enough in the past to have been not returned home until after 8 pm following a slightly earlier appointment than that. But worst case scenario, I might have had to spend the night, something the internal transport organiser warned us has happened in the recent past. The effect of a day like that is unbelievable for people with conditions like mine. Even the last one was still showing its impact several days later and with my health on the wain, I am not going to do anything that will upset it more than I have to. The new appointment may be further away, but at least I will be home that day. To me, though, this just shows how bad the entire system has become. My doctor, and we, are reasonably sure that the mole isn’t something to worry about, but if it turns out to be malignant, the outcome thanks to their system, well I don’t even want to go there.

I suppose that it is something that all of us who are ill have to learn to live with, but I actually wish I could turn the clock back for one reason and one reason only. From about 4 months after I became housebound, I cut all contact with the NHS. I had woken up to the ultimate truth, that they couldn’t do a single thing for me. I had had enough of being sent here there and everywhere for nothing. Test, examinations and wasteful conversations, all without anything other than the tiniest change, that usually changed nothing, drove me to just call a halt to it all. For 4 nearly 5 glorious years, I never saw a single doctor. I spoke occasionally to my GP, to tweak my meds, but other than that, I kept them all away from me. I knew without a doubt that my health was still slowly moving downwards, but it was livable. If I could turn the clock back, knowing what I do now, I wouldn’t have gone to the hospital when I first did regarding my breathing and intestinal issues. In fact, I really don’t know what it was that made me go when I did. At the time, little happened other than a lot of tests and the diagnosis of COPD, plus a couple of new meds. In all honesty, I probably could have waited until this year, as the two visits I have had this year were the ones that started to bring solutions. It has been my experience that once doctors get hold of you, they don’t let go and normally just waste your time and theirs in the main. If there is something that I long for now more than anything else, is the return of that peace. Just now, my life feels so full of medical people, that it almost like they are hiding in the shadows of my vision just waiting to jump out and say hello. Which is probably why I have chosen not to mention to any of them a new symptom that has appeared.

Actually, it’s not totally new, more an advancement of one. I know for a fact that I have mentioned at least once that I have lost all feeling in the center of my face from time to time. I can’t put a number on how many times I have felt it, I just know it has been happening on and off for a couple of years. At first it was just numbness and tingling. It filled a very clear triangle from midway down my nose, out to about a centimeter below and wider than the edges of my mouth. Over time, the numbness stretched into totally nothing, as though they had been cut free of me and there was a gaping hole in their place. Whichever version it was, it never lasted more than maybe 20 minutes and always returned to normal afterwards. Like so many sensations that my PRMS can create, it was annoying and occasionally a touch distressing, but it wasn’t really doing me any harm. About two months ago, I found myself occasionally being certain that I was dribbling from the right-hand side of my mouth, but when I checked it was perfectly dry. It would hang around for a while then like always vanish. For about the same length of time, the numbness and tingling was also more frequent, but I thought little of it, in the bigger picture of life, it was unimportant. Last week, suddenly I was having one version of sensation or another several times a day, it was clear rise and was the first time that I started to feel the same sensation starting to spread outside of the triangle.

On Sunday night, I woke up just before midnight, I had a headache from hell again and a high pitched squeal that filled my head, not like tinnitus which I have had for years, this filled my head, not my ears. I felt as though I had some kind of helmet on that was causing an even pressure over my entire head and yes, the entire triangle was gone, there was nothing but the hole. I was feeling terrible and I was reasonably sure that once again, my oxygen levels were low, but I had left my meter in the living room, so I couldn’t check. Oddly, for most people, but not for me, I was more worried about my missing face, than the possible fact I was missing oxygen from my body. This time, it had gone further, it wasn’t just the surface of my skin, but it went on inside my outer face, as though a large area had been gouged out. I got up with some difficulty and the steering of my wheelchair was so bad that the clattering brought Adam out of the living room to see if I was OK. I told him I wasn’t feeling right, but all I wanted was a cigarette and to sit for a while in the dark of the kitchen. Once my face felt more like my own, I went back to bed and thought little more of it. That was until the next day. The sensation as though I were dribbling is now permanent, it hasn’t gone at all since, and other things have slowly been joining in and spreading.

This morning, I woke to find that almost my entire right side of my face is now mildly numb like it is coming out of a local anesthetic. My eye itself and the bridge of my nose haven’t joined in yet, but it is clearly there right up to my cheekbone and around the outer edge of my eye, temple and a third of the way over my brow. It has also now left just my face, it’s right out to my ear and had gone below my jaw line and now goes under my chin and into the top of my neck. For the first time since Monday night, I am also experiencing numbness inside my mouth and around my gums, just again on the right. Clearly something major is happening to the nerves in my face, but I can’t think of a single reason why I should mention it to my Doctor. I know, just as when I lost my left hand, there is nothing they can do about it, but there is still this feeling that I should tell them. I guess, there is still this little part of me that hopes they will actually be of use in a crisis, despite it never happening before. There is like for so many other things in my life, nothing anyone can do other than wait and see what happens next. If I am lucky, it will settle down and return to normal, if not it will continue until it reaches its final planned result.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 24/09/2013 – Chronic illness break down

I keep waking with terrible pain in my left heel, I know that that sounds really minor and stupid on the scale of things I live with, but it’s something I don’t totally understand. The pain can vary as to which……

Memory milestones

Posted on March 11, 2013 by livinginalimitedword

With Adam on holiday this week I guess I am going to have to get used to him snoring loud enough to bring the walls down on the settee for the next 7 days. I have tried to make him go to bed but with no result, he sort of opened his eyes and snored, so I guess he wasn’t actually awake. I didn’t actually see him last night as he arrived home about half an hour after I went to bed, I woke slightly as he opened the front door, but I think we all do that automatically, then drifted straight back into sleep.

I thought yesterday that I would be clever when I was making my dinner, I have long ago stopped trying to cook anything on the hob, unless I stand over it every second I seem to boil everything dry and destroy what was supposed to be my dinner, but as the oven is a more forgiving method, I have been using it a lot. Unless you leave something in there for hours the results are usually edible. For some reason I had a desire for a sausage sandwich, really an odd choice for me as I rarely eat meat, as they were frozen I thought that putting them in the oven made a lot of sense, so I set them on some tin foil and popped them in, returning to my PC. I became aware of the great smell of sausages and thought I should just go and give them a check, but as I turned into the hall I noticed that everywhere was filled with smoke. Yet again the logic box in my mind had switched itself off, I hadn’t twisted up the edges of the foil, I had just laid the sausages on flat foil, with the weight and heat, a perfect channel had formed to the edge. Stupid I know as the fat was dripping on to the bottom of the oven turning instantly into smoke. Luckily the sausages themselves were not burnt, in fact they were perfect, but this morning I can still smell sausages and the smell makes me want to have more, and there are none.

It seems I am on a string of silly little accidents, all being caused as I am acting in an over confident manner, I have found before that always leads to disasters, but it is so tiring double checking every single little thing you do. Not only is it tiring, it is usually pointless because I just don’t notice things second or even third time round on the mental check list. Silly little accidents are the things that worry me as I can’t help seeing them as warnings of the future, if I can make a minor mess now, I guess that I will turn them into major ones in the future. How long will it be before those sausages will be burnt to a pile of ash, only being discovered when Adam comes home from work? OK that is an exaggeration but I am sure you know what I am meaning.

One of the tests that I have now gone through several times is when they give you a set of problems to solve and memory tests, each time I have had the test there has always been a reduction in my ability to complete them, but not once have they been able to answer what to me should be a simple question, how long until I won’t be able to look after myself? I don’t expect any type of exact answer to that, but if you have a set of results, it is easy to plot them on a chart and then project the results into the future, they must have some idea from that alone. I know it might speed up, or slow down, but all I want is some sort of idea, at least then I would be able to make some plans for the future. It isn’t only my silly accidents that have me asking questions today, as earlier this morning while Adam was actually awake, I responded to something that was said on the news. The presenter had named a famous radio One DJ, but Adam had missed it and wanted to know what I was talking about. In less than 30 seconds I had forgotten the DJ’s name, which not only did the TV presenter said, I said it as well and I still can’t remember. That is the fastest memory loss I ever remember having. Seconds after actually hearing and saying something myself, I had and still have, no memory of it other than to say I did say the name. Like most things in life if I have caught something happening once the likely hood is that it has happened before.

I hate not being in control of my thoughts, there is something really scary about it, I suppose we all grow up knowing that if there is one person that you can trust, that is yourself, then to find that you can’t even do that, well, what then? Well meaning people when you say you are having memory problems always come up with suggestions of writing lists, keeping notes and so on, but that wouldn’t deal with the really difficulties of memory. Things to do in any given day is one thing, knowing what you yourself are talking about is something completely different, yet both just appear under the same umbrella. If you have never been terrified because something has been moved, or found yourself unable to talk at all as your mind is off in a spin somewhere, well you have never had memory problems. There is no answer to these things, I know that, no one can do anything apart from once again give me that look of “I’m sorry” followed by the silence of ‘I don’t know what to say now’. You get use to those, but they don’t get any easier to see, because once again that point of condemned has been reached. Me, well I just chalk it up as another step along the road, a milestone that clearly they all knew was there, but not once had I been told was even there, and I have now passed it. I bet you that as I am falling asleep this afternoon or maybe tonight I will suddenly remember who that DJ was.