Losing my mind

[Sailorsong]

Most if not all have had those little hick ups in their thought processing that I refer to as brain fog. Things like calling something by the wrong name ( dishwasher instead of refrigerator), Or the constant forgetting of items while at the store shopping ( even when you brought a list with you). You get the idea. :)

But I swear things are getting really bad in my brain. Last week when I went shopping as I was going up and down the aisles I realized I had forgotten to pick up some dinner rolls. I took no more then 2 steps in the direction I needed to go to get some rolls when I had no idea what it was I was going after. I spent the next hour going up and down aisle after aisle looking at everything on the shelves but could not remember what it was I was looking for. It was a full 3 days later that I finally remembered the dinner rolls. That thought must have taken a really long detour getting through my mind. :)

But what happened today when I went shopping was really scary. When I got to the store there was an open slot ( can't think of what it is called where you park your car) just 2 slots from the door. This was ideal because I would be able to find my car very easily.  Well when I finished my shopping I went out to the parking lot and stopped right next to my car. I knew where I had parked my car but what I saw in front of me was not my car.  I mean I was looking directly at my car but I didn't recognize it at all. Needless to say I was starting into a complete panic mode at that point. Quickly I grabbed my remote and started click the unlock button and looking all over the place for lights to be flashing. While it probably didn't last that long before I slowly started to recognize my car it seemed like forever.

Dennis

[jensequitur]

>  You must have really freaked out for a while when you didn't recognized your husband.

You know, it was weird - I didn't know who it was, but my brain somehow knew it was okay.  Like the recognition part of my brain wasn't working, but the rest of the brain was working.

Sometimes I've found that while my short-term memory isn't working, the memory will go ahead and get stored in the long-term memory, and I can access it later.  Like you with the car - you looked at it and it didn't look like your car.  An hour later it did.  I've had memories I couldn't access, but hours later I remembered what it was I was trying to think of.  Like those dinner rolls!

[addicted2harleys]

I wish someone would climb into my bed.  :)   :)   ;)

Just kidding!!

Well, maybe just a lil serious!

Ha!

Okay, anyways!  Hehe.  Last week when I had to take my daughter to the nightmare neuro, we passed a DQ.  There isn't one in my town dangit!   I suggested we stop there cause i LOVE blizzards.  But what I said was "I want a pop cycle".  My mom and daughter laughed at me.  In my mind I was saying Blizzard but what came out was pop cycle.  I tried correcting myself and pop cycle kept coming out.  It was the weirdest thing.  

Then, over the weekend my mom and daughter were going to go get pizza.  I told my daughter to tell gramma to stop and get me a two liter of soda.  When they got back, my mom handed me a pack of cigarettes.  I was confused.  My daughter told me that that was what I told her to tell gramma.  Okaaayyy.  The weird thing was that I remember saying two liter of soda.  

Hmmmm
Addi

[Sailorsong]

Jen,

  You must have really freaked out for a while when you didn't recognized your husband. At least I won't have to worry about that happening to me since I never have any one climbing into bed with me. LOL

  I have all of the usual problems with talking because of forgetting in mid sentence what I was saying, or what word I was going to say. In fact it was because of one of those instances that my current Neuro decided that maybe I really do have MS.

  I think what really freaked me out was that even when I came to realize I was looking at my car I still didn't recognize my car. Things went sort of like this. Wow the antenna on the car looks like mine, oh and it has a GPS mounted on top of the dash just like mine, and the stuff in the back looks just like the stuff in my car...And the lights flash  when I hit the remote...It must be my car but it doesn't look like my car..

   Luckily after stopping at another store when I came back out my car was totally recognizable to me. ( about 1 hour later). So I guess it takes about 1 hour to re-wire my brain.

Dennis

[crwriter]

Oh Geesh, reading what has been written here is scary.  I have always had problems with verbal memory retrieval, but today was in the store and could not think of what I should have bought instead of what I bought. (woulda saved an additional dollar.)  Okay - I should have bought the other brand is what I was looking for in my mind.  It's worse with ms.  I am going to go to a bigger hospital and get a 3.0 MRI to see what is happening.  The MRI I had before was a 1.5.  I know I have had this for almost 20 years now, and have gone undiagnosed.

Mass General here I come.

[jensequitur]

Did I ever tell you about the time I woke up to find a strange man getting into my bed?  It was my husband, but for a second or two I didn't know who he was.  

I've had some really bizarre moments.  Recognition of familiar faces or objects can go right out the window - like the connection between the memory of the object/face and the rest of the brain isn't working.  It may be a frontal lobe thing.  I've failed to recognize people that I know well, and I've called other people by the wrong name, even though I knew who they were.  For a while, I had problems putting sentences together, because I couldn't follow from one minute to the next what we were talking about - or remember the word that I needed.

This may make you feel better, though.  They find that MS-style cognitive impairment is not at all like the impairment you get from Alzheimer's.  Short-term memory loss is common, as well as problems with recognition and multi-tasking.  But your essential functions should remain unchanged.

[BOK2Bjan]

wish I couldn't relate.  I have a lot of similar problems - word finding, knowing what I want to say but only being able to describe it.  I am also suffering from aphasia that is getting worse.  My last MRI showed the already there atrophy on both hemispheres but a new increase in just the left.  Together rwith location and clinical symptoms, it was thought to be a rare disease and even rarer in adults - Rasmussen Encephalitis.  The memory loss is explainable with MS alone - it's the one sided atrophy and loss of function that side drives.  I just got out of the hospital due to a 7.4 hemoglobin and a neuro study to look into this - but no answers yet.

Do not feel alone - nor feel feer about something beyond your MS.  It is never pleasant to lose our faculties, but coping strategies can be learned.  I wish you the best.

Jan