Day 15 - remembering and forgetting

My Facebook timeline reminded me that this time last year I was writing my Lent blog about forgetting.  God forgetting our sins.  And me having a really bad memory  :)

I think I might tell you about my memory and what has been going on of late - just in case, like with the depression, it strikes a chord and is helpful to someone out there who is reading this.

I've always had a poor memory - I suppose some people just have better memories than others and I've always been aware that I have no grasp of dates and details etc.   I've never been too bad at peoples names, but places and events vanish into thin air with alacrity.   When I had children at the age of 35 I proceeded to have five years of little sleep - and that isn't great for your mental health or your memory.  It is definitely when depression started to take hold, but possibly too where my memory began to get worse.  I didn't notice it much, as I didn't have a massive amount of important stuff to remember.   And people put  down any flaky episodes  to  ' baby brain'  when you have little children.   When the last of the three boys went up to nursery  (which is mercifully just across the road from our house) there were many occasions when I completely forgot to pick Ben up at the end of the day.  If it hadn't been for the fact that school finished fifteen minutes after the nursery and I was at the gates for the other two there would have been calls to grandma wondering where Id got to !!  The nursery staff must have wondered what was the matter with me - although sometimes I just pretended to be running late rather than admitting Id completely forgotten Id got a child in nursery!

Over the intervening years I have learned ( a bit) to write everything down, ask people to remind me, have a calendar beside my bed ....... a few techniques to try to keep myself on track.  And by and large it has worked reasonably well.  Ive forgotten little things loads of times but not too many really important things.    And then about six months ago I noticed a significant change.   I started to lose peoples names.  People I knew well.  Sometimes celebrities - I remember talking to someone about a film in which Meryl Streep had been the lead.  And although I could clearly see her face and I knew that I knew who she was her name just wouldnt come.   And I couldnt remember it till the next day when it suddenly came back to me.    Things like that are a bit scary.

Then one day I was out with the boys at Oxford Island - a bird sanctuary place good for dog walking.  We had been out and about and we jumped back int the car to go home.  The car park exit road was a one way track which led out onto the road..... but when I got to the junction to turn onto the road I couldnt for the life of me remember which side I should be driving on.   It wasnt until I saw a car coming towards me on the same side I was on that I knew I was on the wrong side.   Mild panic.  Not good.

So that's when I went to the doctors.

I didnt tell her that I had not been able , momentarily , to remember which side of the road to drive on ( I was terrified of losing my licence which would have thrown my life into chaos ) but I told her the rest.  She hummed and hawed and did a load of blood tests.  They all came back fine except for thyroid which was borderline.  It had been borderline for years.   She said she would boost my thyroxin levels before taking steps to refer me to a memory clinic.  So I started on the pills and began to research alzheimers and memory loss - all of which is in equal parts terrifying and fascinating.

The good news is that the pills do seem to have made a difference.  Since I started taking them I have had barely any episodes of blanking out ( although someone did ask me my postcode the other day and I couldn't remember it for a few seconds - and even after Id told her what I thought was the right thing I wasn't entirely sure )  I certainly haven't forgotten anything important like how to drive.   I don't notice any other effects of taking small amounts of thyroxine ( I had hoped it might give me lots of energy and raise my metabolic rate and make me lose weight and.... and...., 😊 )  I suspect I shall be on this low dose for the rest of my life.  And I suspect my memory will always be less than brilliant.  But as long as I am able to function and work and drive and live a useful life then that is great.  I have some insight into the whole matter of losing ones memory and it is scary and bewildering and annoying.  We should pray and give thanks for our mental faculties and not take them for granted.  We are truly blessed to be able to remember and to be able to forget.  God holds everything in perfect balance.  Alzheimers is the scourge of our age and I am so excited every time I hear of a medical or scientific breakthrough which might lead to a treatment or a cure.  I'm sure there will be one pretty soon.  In the meantime I am trying to get a sensible amount of sleep - because that is crucial - and I should probably up my levels of Omega 3. And worship more.  And speak in tongues  😊