I’m terrified of the pheonomenon known as “chemo brain”
The loss of short term (and in some cases, longer term) memory
I can’t go to grad school if I can’t hold things in my brain, if I can’t memorize drugs, actions, classifications, reactions, indications, contraindications.
I’m not even sure I’ll be able to do the job I currently have, because I already have to do this as an ICU nurse, let alone learning NEW drugs for anesthesia.
So, I’ve started to try to help my stupid brain.
When I was 16, I read Shakespeare’s sonnet 116 and in three or four reads, memorized the whole thing. I still remember 90% of it to this day.
But now I’m trying to work on remembering another one, to go over it and over it until it’s in my brain (Sonnet 122)
I’ve been stuck on the first three lines for about a week.
Thy gift, thy tables are within my brain
full charactered, with lasting memory
and shall above that idle rank remain
and I just noticed I screwed up “which” with “and” but it’s been a week and it’s tough.
My husband is dusting off the chess board, too. In 20 years, I’ve beat him only once (the bastard.)
This is all in hopes of trying to keep my brain from being “lost.”
As a nurse, and as someone who has suffered PTSD, I think it’s possible that a lot of the memory loss reported by chemo patients could be trauma…the walking around the house, thinking about “things” that are going on, and listening to the internal voices that are scared and worried, that distract from what you are actually doing. Like…where the hell did I put my keys? That’s a short term memory deficit right there. So we’ll see what happens. I’ll report back and tell you how “together” my brain is.