My memory used to be one of my better assets and I fought to maintain it after my craniotomy and learnt to keep a diary, a book on daily events, to jog my mind or remember appointments etc. I got a role where I had to write daily reports and my routine of writing up a diary was really handy to remember.
Then I required a 3rd, a 4th, a 5th and a 6th neurosurgery and with each my decline got worse and worse. I still ‘try’ to take notes (but only when I remember HaHa). I jokingly tell my wife “There’s nothing wrong with my memory…” then look at her and say “…who are you again?” and it is a joke, today. But we both know my memory is shocking. To make light of it I tell her its an age thing, she must be passing it on to me, (she’s older than me. MUCH older ) and I get a SLAP.
I am annoyed about it all, but I think that’s more annoyance with self. Having had the skills and then to lose them has been a hard pill to swallow, but it’s a reality I’ve had to accept and some days that acceptance is easier than others.
This could be something called prosopagnosia – the inability to recognise faces – and with people you know, the blanks get filled in when you hear them speak, or if they have specific features that you recognise, for example if someone you know has a moustache or a beard or always wears a head scarf etc.
All day every day mate, more so when I am busy ,I find my self doing something different and after a bout 10 mins I’ll remember again what I was doing. Some days it feels like I am walking around in circles all day, if I have a plan in place and work slowly, things turn out good, my meds can be quiet painful forgetting to take them so I use a Webster pack And using a diary day/planner that helps , and not to worry about it too much things could be worse drinking plenty of water also helps a lot.
There is a lovely book called The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks (the same doctor as behind the book and film Awakenings). The book is a collection of short stories about different patients of Dr Sacks’. The eponymous Man was a distinguished music professor at a school or college in NY. While his visual gnosis (recognition) was severely hampered, he carried on every other aspect of life to a great age. Indeed, I believe Dr Sacks himself had prosopagnosia, at least in his later years. You’re not alone if you do have this condition.
yeah, that is something that I deal with. It’s usually my …
(oh shoot, let me go back and reread so I remember what I was going to say…)
Yeah, like when I want to look up something on Google.com and I open up one of those “tab things” and I can’t remember what I was going to search for.
If I got $5 for every time I lost something important and had to have everyone in the family help me find it - car keys, phone, ear buds, I could buy new ones for almost every time.
Seriously, if anyone has any ideas (besides for a man purse) where I could keep all of that stuff in one place, I’d love to hear it.
I forgot names of simple things like a fork in my hand. It was so frustrating to the point of me losing my temper smashing things because of the frustration. Ive got much better over time with simple things but the rest I just laugh it off or make a joke about it.xx
) and I get a SLAP.