What The Heck Was I Going To Title This Post?

About a year ago (or was it two?), I started to notice a marked decline in my memory.  Prior to this, I would forget things and didn’t give it much thought.  I would write it off as being busy, having a lot on my mind, ADD, yadda yadda.  You know how it is.  You go to the grocery store to buy milk and buy everything but the milk.  You enter a room to retrieve something and once you get there, you can’t remember what you went to get.  You look for your eyeglasses for a half-hour before you realize they are on your face (or is that just me?)  Or my personal favorite, WHILE DRINKING FROM YOUR CUP OF COFFEE,  you tell yourself, “Crap!  I went to the kitchen to make my coffee and I forgot to make it (sip)!”  After a while, these things really started to irritate me.  I was so frustrated with myself and told myself that I really need to focus more.

But a year ago (or was it two?), things got noticeably worse and I started to feel less frustrated with myself and more scared.  I first noticed it during a fire department drill when my Chief told me that I had told someone to do something and they disregarded my command.  I answered to him that I didn’t remember telling that person to do that.  He said that I did and I repeated that I didn’t remember.  Not wanting to fight, he dropped the issue.  I honestly had ZERO recollection of ever giving that other person the command.  I was upset that my chief was so determined that I said something that I couldn’t remember.  My chief has a great memory.  If he said he heard me say it, I must have said it BUT I COULDN’T REMEMBER IT AT ALL.  This scared me.  I mulled it over for about 3 days before it all came back to me.  I DID give the command and my command was disregarded.  Since that incident, there were a number of similar incidents.  He would give me a direction or a suggestion and I would agree with it and then completely forget about that conversation.  Understandably, it would upset him.  He thought I was arguing with him that the conversation never occurred.  On the contrary, I 100% believed him that the conversation occurred and I 100% had NO recollection of the conversation.  I was getting very frightened.  When my husband asked me one day, “When was Freud born?” and I couldn’t answer it, I freaked out.  I had been studying Freud for 7 years.  How the heck could I have forgotten that?  I couldn’t even give an estimated guess and when I finally did, I was off by about 70 years.  What the hell was happening to me??

Knowing that Lupus can affect the brain, I expressed my concern about my memory lapses to my Rheumatologist.  I told him that I was constantly forgetting things.  I forgot important conversations, dates, things on my to-do list, and I was having a terrible time recalling simple words.  I explained how I sat in the kitchen for about 3 minutes trying to remember the word “pork.”  I kept saying, “It’s not chicken, not beef.  It’s white meat.  What the hell is it?”  Finally, my son said, “Pork, Mom!”  I felt so embarrassed.  In fact, I wrote another post about my memory problems here (and yes, I just remembered that I have written about this before).  My doc sent me for an MRI and it came back clean.  Of course, I was thrilled that the MRI came back okay but it didn’t relieve my fears.  After all, I AM forgetting so much regardless of what the MRI shows.  Now it just means that there isn’t an easy explanation for it.  It also doesn’t help me to know that the plaques and tangles that are indicative of Alzheimer’s can’t be seen in MRI’s AND that those plaques and tangles actually can begin to develop in the late 20′s to early 30′s.  So while we are all going about our daily lives thinking our memory loss is due to being busy, it could very well be early stages of Alzheimer’s!!  Yes, sometimes ignorance is total bliss!!

Well, my memory has not gotten any better.  I actually thought for a couple days last week that it was getting better but it has gotten worse.  For example:

• If it isn’t written down, I won’t remember it.
• I thought I had OCD because every single day when I leave my house, I either run back inside or turn my truck around and drive back home to check to see if I unplugged the curling iron.  I only need to check once but I have NEVER left the house confident that I unplugged the curling iron.  As hard as I try, I just can’t remember unplugging the damn thing.  I talked with my professor about this and she thinks that it is a problem with attention and mindfulness, not OCD.  That made me feel a lot better and since she told me that, I now verbalize out loud, “I am unplugging the curling iron now.”  When I leave the house, I still don’t remember unplugging the curling iron but I do remember saying that I unplugged the curling iron so I don’t need to turn around and check again.
• My husband puts my daily pills in a little cup for me to take every morning.  I often go to take my meds and find the cup empty then have to call my husband to ask if he put the pills in the cup because I don’t remember taking them.
• Yesterday, for a period of 5 minutes, I could not, for the life of me remember if my son’s birthday was on the 8th or the 28th of January.  Then I started to wonder if January was the correct month.  After 5 minutes, the 28th started to sound more familiar to me so I started to believe that was the correct date.  (Yes, he was born on January 28th and thankfully, I didn’t need to get on Facebook to verify if that was the correct date like I thought I would have to do.  Although typing that now, I am doubting myself again).
• Yesterday morning, I went Christmas shopping.  I was going to get my MIL a gift card for Joann Fabrics.  I went to TJ Maxx and found something in the jewelry case that I liked for her and spent a full 15 minutes holding the item in my hand, pondering if that was a better gift.  I decided it was and was thrilled with my purchase.  As I was pulling out of the parking lot, I said to myself, “Shit!  I forgot to get my MIL her gift!  Wait?  Didn’t I just get her something?  Yes.  I got her the jewelry.  Didn’t I?”

I really don’t know what is going on with me but something is definitely wrong with my memory.  My doc said he doesn’t think natural supplements work to improve it and although I tried Luminosity.com, I never remember to go to the site.  I am trying to be more mindful.  I am trying to rely LESS on lists because I know that by leaning on that crutch, I am not exercising my brain enough.  Why would it have to remember if I write everything down for it?  But I am so scared to forget something!

How about you?  Have you had any memory problems or do you have any ideas for improving memory?  If so, leave a comment now before you forget!  =)

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