What Chemo-Brain has Done to Me

Chemo-brain. Some doctors dismiss it as nothing, and those that recognize it is a problem seem to be unable to do anything about it. If you're alive, you're not in pain, and you can keep food down then everything else is just something to cope with not resolve. The cognitive difficulties most often reported are in the storage and retrieval of memories, facts, words, numbers. It can effect both long term and short term memories as old doors are locked and the keys lost, and new doors cannot be unlocked at all. Ask me my social security number and I'll probably blank out for a minute trying to remember it. Ask me my phone number and it might take me a couple of minutes. Ask me my cell phone number and all you'll get is a helpless and frustrated stare.

Of all the side effects of treatment, chemo-brain probably ranks number one for me, and it's because my identity and self-worth are entirely wrapped up with my intellect. It's pathetic and even considered by some to be a vice, but it is the truth. All my life I have thought of myself as intelligent. My parents and my brothers are crazy smart and even though I had to work harder and could never achieve what came so easily to them I still felt I could hold my own. I loved being the smart kid. I loved knowing the answer, knowing more, asking questions, and sharing what I knew with others. I have come to realize that this arrogance is probably what made me such an unpopular kid, but that's a different story.

My entire person was built on a foundation that I was smart. I might not have been pretty, athletic, or fun, but at least I was smart. So when chemo started chipping away at my brain it also chipped away at my being. I was losing myself and what was worse was that nobody seemed to notice or care. I'd lose my train of thought or use the wrong word and people would laugh and tease me. I'd struggle to remember something I was certain I knew and people couldn't understand why I became so frustrated and angry. Even those closest to me told me I was making too much out of it, that I wasn't "stupid."

But I knew I was losing it, losing things, losing knowledge. I knew my head wasn't working right, and that nobody else seemed to register it threw me. Perhaps I was delusional all along. If nobody has noticed that I became slower, more forgetful, and more everything, then maybe I wasn't that smart to begin with.

Yet, I refuse to believe that. I guess I still hold strongly to the delusion that I once was pretty smart, and it pains me that people don't see it. It pains me that they laugh at my mistakes without knowing that it's more than just a mistake, that just a couple of years ago I never would have made such a mistake. Writing these posts pains me because I cannot put into words exactly what I mean and I know I was once able to do so with ease.

America

As I was flipping channels I saw this guy being interviewed about the attacks in India and how they seem to be targeting Americans. It was his opinion that people who go overseas and act American are just asking for trouble. This pissed me off. I know the rest of the world is very unhappy with us. I know that wearing something with an American flag on it or a Western Washington University sweatshirt is like wearing a neon sign. Rationally I know that Americans should try to tone down the American pride thing (deemed as arrogance elsewhere in the world) but it still burns me up inside that we can't go outside our country and say, "Hi I'm an American, but I really like your country, so what do you say we have a bite to eat?" Of course there would be trouble with translation books and whatnot....why haven't they invented implants that automatically translate foreign languages?

O Canada!

I have survived yet another trip to the Great White North. I don't know why I keep going back there, except that it's probably the only foreign country that I'm ever going to visit. The last trip up to Canada we ended up in hours of traffic due to a mobile home fire. The mobile home was on a giant truck and thus took up several lanes of traffic. The trip prior to that Peter and I nearly died on a 100 year old wooden roller coaster of death. (A long story.)

So why go back?

Nothing better to do, and someone else paid for it.

I'm just glad to be back in "the States" where French translations are not mandatory, road signs all say miles not kilometers, and America isn't a dirty word.

My Mom Would Have Cried Too

I cry about as much as it rains in Seattle. It's not all about saddness for whenever I am overwhelmed with any emotion it usually results in tears. I cry for our troops, for animals abused, for the suffering of people, and I've even shed a tear for trees. I also cry when I hear the National Anthem, when military planes fly overhead, and when I laugh really hard.

It is no surprise then that on Election Night I cried every time they declared a state for Barak Obama. When that moment finally arrived and Obama was officially elected President, I couldn't stop the tears despite all efforts to try. And for once, Peter didn't tease me. The sheer magnitude of that night was breath-taking, and in my world it called for tears.

The crying comes from my Mom. She didn't wear her heart on her sleeve, she held it out to show all the world. She cried over the National Anthem too, as well as the Preamble to the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address. She cried for the Little Rock Nine, for Martin Luher King, for Malcolm X, and even for Jesse Jackson when he didn't win the nomination to run for President.

When she was a little girl she was friends with a black girl and didn't understand why her mom wouldn't let her in the house. She loved sports so as a teen her best friends tended to be athletes, and some of them happened to be black. She lived in a racist little town in Eastern Washinton and one day she was spotted talking and laughing with a black boy. Her father beat her. Proper white girls didn't associate with Negros she was told, but that didn't stop her. She wanted to march on Washington D.C., but she only made it to Spokane, Washington. Still, it was one of the most memorable experiences of her life.

On Election Night she would have held my hand and cried right along with me. For an African American man with such grace and dignity and hope to be elected President of the United States of America would have filled her heart with joy and her eyes with tears.

So as that moment happened, and I was crying for my country with more pride then I have ever felt, a part of me was crying for my mom because she didn't live to see it. A part of me cried for me because I did live long enough to see it.

30

I'm 30. There was a time when that was considered a long shot so I should feel greatful. What I actually feel is the same way many women feel when they turn 30...old. I don't know why that is. Why is 30 such a tragic age? My only conclusion is that it just is. I'm 30 now so that means I no longer get the shocked look when I tell people I have cancer. Cancer at 30 sucks and is still 10 years below the 'normal' margins, but it's not so far fetched as cancer at 25. I have a CT scan this week, and an MRI later in the month. I'm worried. I'm always worried but this time I just have this feeling that things aren't right. I'm so tired. I feel that melange that I carried with me before my diagnosis and during chemo. Maybe it's just the stress of Peter maybe losing his job and our health insurance. Maybe it's my ulcer acting up again. So many maybes. I'll know more by the middle of next week. Dr. Lee doesn't like to let people wait through the weekend for results, but there was a mix-up in scheduling. It's gonna be a long weekend.