Over the past year, and especially over the past few months I have been having real issues with my short-term memory. Not just walking into a room and forgetting why I’m there but being told something and immediately forgetting – or ordering the exact same thing on Amazon 3 times in the space of a few days .. THREE gaming headsets for my son – simply because if FORGOT I had ordered it. Not my finest moment.
My very best friend has been in hospital so we chat on the phone most days and via messenger – and there have been countless times that she has said – “I told you yesterday or an hour ago or you told me yesterday or an hour ago. Its so bad that my doctor’s surgery has the receptionist ring me the day of my appointments so that I don’t forget to come again.
Now before anyone says write it on the calendar, and in your phone, I do, I have and G reminds me before work, don’t forget blaa blaa ….. and 20 mins later its gone – and not just I need to concentrate and I will find it – I mean gone gone NOTHING no recollection at all …..its actually quite scary.
Here’s another example – Kieran wanted a friend round and the done thing is the mum’s text or call to make sure its all okay etc – so I had been texting this mum and it was all arranged and a few hours later a lady appeared at my door and there was a boy behind her….”hello?” I had no idea who this woman was or why she might be here, I just looked at her blank faced for what seemed like an age before she said – its so and so, here for Kieran, at which point the penny dropped, I blamed lack of sleep, and made a joke. But if I’m honest I was embarrassed.
I’ve also been exhausted and by this I mean in involuntarily fall asleep at a drop of a hat (something I berate my hubby for doing), I struggle to get up in the morning as if I’ve not slept at all, I then do school run, return home and I’m normally asleep by 10.30, G comes home for lunch and says I’m always very deeply asleep, I then have 5 different alarms to make sure I wake up in time for school run – BUT even then I have slept through a fair few times. Thankfully my 13 year old is there to pick my 7 year old up and the walk home is nice and easy so the kids don’t mind in the slightest. Whereas me, I hate it – I hate the feeling of not having the energy to get up and pee so just holding it for hours on end, I hate putting EVERYTHING off because I know it will exhaust me.
Lets say I go to bed a 8pm on Friday night, if G lets me sleep I will sleep till 4 or 5 Saturday or even later, at which point if I wake I make myself have something to drink and go for a pee and often go back to sleep till Sunday midday so 34 hours from Friday to Sunday and that’s the NORM.
So I spoke to my GP about this Dr Hannah (who is soo nice), G was with me for my first appointment about this and she did this memory test thingi on me and it is done on a score, and I dont recall my score (ironic huh?) but she said that it showed that there may be reason for further investigation –
She suggested some blood tests. A few days later I went to the docs for the blood tests and as per usual they had issues trying to find a vein (I will have a post about this very soon) … they goy half a bottle and said they would send it but I needed to book back in for another nurse to try a few days later …..which I forgot to do.
I then go for my results – only to be told I cant have results with out having had me tests DOH
So we try and get the bloods again- lots of try’s later and the send me off to the hospital to get them done there.
RESULTS Take 2
Back to see Dr Hannah and they are “all over the place”… I have low ferritin and low iron and very low vit D all of which in theory could cause “brain fog” and tiredness and seeing as though I have a full house I’m hopeful that we have found the reason, and a fixable one. AAAnd because its me its never simple, all my medications have to go down the PEG so have to be liquid or crushable (some tablets cannot be crushed (im sure there is a very good reason why not- but tbh I have no idea ) anywho… the doc has had to order in these meds especially as I ma going to have to start on a very high dose of a few of them.
The last time I had iron tablets they gave me a terrible upset stomach and I had to stop and I was given a iron infusion and as I am due to have a few surgeries soon that may be happening this time soon if I cant tolerate them again – but lets wait and see.
One last thing – its might be possible that the memory issues are related to my radiotherapy due to the area of the head/brain that was in the “field” but we are going to look at that as a last resort.
