Me: My cognitive stuff is all messed up today. You know… my spatial shit?
Husband: You sound like an intellectual thug… “my spatial shit”.
That was a conversation we had the other day when I was having issues reaching out to grab things (like a glass of water), and finding my hand grasping at nothing, as the water is several inches from where my hand ended up. While I’m still having issues with that (and walking into doorways), I find myself a little more perturbed by the memory/attention/processing part of having MS-related cognitive issues. The National MS Society website is one that is bookmarked on our computer’s toolbar – I’ve found it to be a great quick reference for new symptoms that I experience. At the same time, it worries me a little as I read it is “slightly more likely in progressive MS”. One more thing to put in my notebook of questions to ask the MD and neurologist at my visits next week.
- Changes can occur at any time — even as a first symptom of MS — but are more common later in the disease.
- Cognitive function correlates with number of lesions and lesion area on MRI, as well as brain atrophy.
- Cognitive dysfunction can occur with any disease course, but is slightly more likely in progressive MS.
- Being in an exacerbation is a risk factor for cognitive dysfunction.
- Cognitive changes generally progress slowly but are unlikely to improve dramatically once they have begun.
I’d mentioned in my previous post how I can’t seem to get through a television show without pausing several times to do something else. I actually paused mid-show to write this post, and now I can’t decide to finish this post or go back to the show. While Grimm is not exactly quality television, this is highly unusual for me. I’m generally quite content to pick one thing and do it for hours without interruption. Concentration has never been an issue before. But I paused, started this post, opened up the budget in Excel to see if I forgot to pay any medical bills this week, went and checked on my rising rolls in the kitchen, then came back to this post.
Sun dried tomato and olive rolls
Another good example of this is the complete cosmic space muffin performance I pulled this morning whilst cooking! My husband and I love to cook. We actually keep a punk rock cooking blog that doesn’t have a high volume of traffic, it’s just a place for us to post our recipes and share with friends and family (and if you’re interested, you can find it here: Cooking To Die For). We had some sun dried tomatoes left over and had just bought a live basil plant, so I had the brilliant idea of trying to make sun dried tomato, olive and basil rolls. I’m not usually the baker, my husband is, and I’d never made any type of roll from scratch, so it seemed like a fun challenge while I’m at home with all of this time on my hands. I made the dough yesterday to rise overnight and then thought I’d finish the rolls today. I had a hard time sleeping last night, so I actually found myself lying awake, planning out the process, step-by-step, as I had no recipe to follow – I was just making it up. This morning when I went to make the rolls, I’d even looked at the basil plant several times where it sat atop the refrigerator… and yet, somehow, I totally forgot to add the basil and the cheese. I think the rolls are going to be delicious still, but it’s a very weird thing for me. I usually go over things multiple times, I’m a little OCD like that.
It’s just little things like this that most people would probably never even notice. I’m not even sure my husband would find it odd. But I know myself very well, and I know these little mistakes are very unlike me. The bummer part is that the Nat’l MS Society page says, “Cognitive changes generally progress slowly but are unlikely to improve dramatically once they have begun.” I knew in my age I would probably end up being the old lady down the street with the blue and pink hair and too many cats that has Christmas and Halloween decorations up year round and all the neighbourhood kids think she’s a witch. Now I’ll be that old lady with the helpful additions of walking into walls and not remembering what she was doing two minutes ago. The kids are going to be traumatized. 😛
M.S. - It's Weird 