Going into chemo I had been told about a little thing called chemo brain…  Honestly I thought there probably wasn’t much validity to it.  My husband hadn’t experienced anything like it during his treatments & I assumed others likely felt that way due to exhaustion or the stress of chemo & well, cancer.  Admittedly, I was wrong.

I am no genius, but consider myself to be a generally intelligent person & will admit I don’t have the greatest tolerance for stupidity.  I mean it only in a humorous way when I joke that there could be an island for stupid people to live together in harmony.  With that analogy in mind, chemo brain appears to have purchased me a direct ticket to stupid-island.  I’m told however that chemo brain does eventually subside, so I’m hoping it’s not a one way ticket & I can eventually work my way back to the mainland with my fellow smarties.

In the meantime, I am sometimes just plain dumb & I find it extremely frustrating.  Take dinner for example, I’m going through the motions & making a dish I’ve made a million times before, but I’m suddenly  completely lost!  I can’t seem to stay on track, I’ll be cruising along just fine then out of nowhere I’m clueless & don’t know what I’m doing… It’s a mess & seriously can make the simplest task so challenging.

It’s a wonder I haven’t left the house accidentally without a wig, hat or scarf.  I’ve come close a few times I’ll admit, but felt the breeze on my bald head on my way to the car & realized something was missing.  I’ve also come close to leaving the house without eyebrows as well & once almost with just one of them drawn on!!  I’ve even almost left without my glasses, which really has to show you what a “fog” chemo can put you in so to speak.  My vision is terrible without my glasses, I can’t see two feet in front of me, so the fact that I would even attempt to walk out of my house without them makes literally no sense but I’ve almost done it on two occasions.

Then there is the memory & by that I mean, what memory?  My long term memory remains pretty well intact, however my short term is gone, completely gone.  I have conversations with people & forget them completely.  And appointments are such a challenge especially when you have so many of them.  I swear if I don’t write it down, plug it into the calendar on my phone & set a reminder, then there’s not a chance I’ll remember.  I’ve forgotten & missed appointments & when I do remember I sometimes get the time or day wrong, I am a complete mess!  It’s embarrassing, extremely frustrating & so out of character for me!

The challenge of trying to remember where I put something has been terrible!  I’ll remember that I put something away, but of course not where I put it.  I’ll also put something in a really “good” or “special” place so I’ll be sure to remember exactly where it is.  I must be tremendous at finding these “special” hiding places because once I do, the item is gone forever.  I should really start logging where I put things, maybe get an inventory going on my entire house.  I’ve spent literally hours, maybe even days cumulatively over the last few months searching, just searching for various items that chemo brain has me misplacing.

I’ve been making coffee for roughly 20 years of my life now & it’s never been an issue but oh my, the errors I’ve made recently…  Most frequently I fail to turn on the coffee pot once I’ve gotten everything else ready.  I regularly fill the carafe with water where the coffee should end up, rather than the reservoir where it actually goes in order to make the coffee.  And last, I forget to change out the grounds & realize it when I see the faint color of my coffee.  My beloved coffee often takes more than one attempt pretty frequently through chemo brain.

And from there, well… I put crackers in the refrigerator & cheese in the pantry.  I can’t recall if I thought about calling someone to tell them something or if I actually did.  I pour apple juice in my husband’s glass & soda in my son’s sippy cup.  I order the wrong things or forget to order items at the drive through, I know what I meant but have no idea what I said & sometimes mom or dad end up missing our food.  I’ve misplaced our family room television remote in the laundry, the garage, the junk drawer, pantry, my purse, etc.  When I want to use the remote to adjust the volume, change the channel, fast forward, anything… I pick up the remote & instead of doing what I intend to do, I hit the power button.  I turn it off, I don’t know why, but I do it all the time.  Maybe God is telling me to watch less TV or subconsciously I know its garbage, either way it’s just plain strange.  I’ve thrown away silverware & actual china plates (my hubby finds them in the garbage).  I go downstairs when I mean to go up, & up when I mean to go down.  I drive in the wrong direction & miss my turns.  I forget what I’m talking about mid-sentence, the list goes on & on…

Basically I’m a chemo brain mess!  It’s frustrating yes, but I can’t help but find a little humor in it all.  The increase in my stupidity has certainly lead to some laughable moments for myself & my loved ones.

It’s been about a month now since my final chemo treatment & I do feel like the fog is slowly lifting.  I’m getting plenty of rest & eating right so here’s hoping the chemo brain continues to subside so I can go back to multitasking & feeling more like my old self again!

My chemo-brain face