Memory

I want to share a sample of an exercise from my writing class, still a work in progress. The assignment was to write something about telephone numbers, but Janet intends the topics she provides to act as springboards to get people thinking rather than as specific instructions.

For most of my life, I have been something of a math wiz. In junior high school, I won the 9th grade award for best mathematics student. I went on to major in mathematics as an undergraduate and earned a PhD in statistics when I returned to school at age 30.

Memorizing numbers was always easy for me. A new acquaintance made on Sabbath morning could tell me a phone number, and I would remember it until after Sabbath when I could write it down and call.

That strength has made its loss over this past year and a half particularly frustrating. Dr. DeAngelis told me some time ago that she was not surprised by this problem because the tumor was located in a section of the brain that controls short term memory. Simple activities like paying bills have become arduous tasks. Between the time I look at the bill and the time I start to write the check, I have already forgotten the amount due. Often I copy the number incorrectly. In truth, frustrating does not even begin to describe it. Barry is happy to do these tasks, but I persevere because I know that many months of working with Heidi have done all that they can do. Additional improvements will require continuous work.

I am 61 years old, and when I speak of (perhaps bemoan is better) this, everyone I know over 60 says the same thing: “I also have trouble remembering things.”  Even Barry, my husband of 40 years and a truly wonderful guy, says this.

But believe me, it is not the same. What happened to me is as if I went from zero to sixty (or perhaps from sixty to zero) in a few seconds. This is not the slow decline of aging but the rapid decline of illness. It is simply not the same.

I appreciate that people want to be reassuring, not in the Bill Clinton sappy “I feel your pain” sort of way but in a sincere and real way. At the same time, they want to believe that a mass in their own brains would not be so bad. I can’t blame them for that. I just wish I could believe it, too.

We are up in Sharon and have plans with one daughter’s family tonight and the other’s tomorrow. I do not need all my faculties in full gear to know how fortunate I am to have that.

Love,

Rebecca