This week I had a cognitive functioning test. Dr. Jane and I decided to do this after I had a couple of memory scares. The worst scare was when I noticed a plant was missing. It was a small plant that had not been doing all that well but it was very disturbing to realize it was gone. Since my cat, Boo, is the only other being in this apartment I was a little freaked out. Why would someone come in and take a weak plant and nothing else? Had Boo knocked it over while I was on vacation and the cat sitter cleaned it up? No. This had me pretty upset for about four days until I found a bowl in the cupboard. Not just any bowl. It was the one blue fiesta ware bowl that I had been using to catch excess water underneath the missing plant. It was obvious that I had at some point thrown out the plant and cleaned the bowl.
I don’t know if there are other things I have forgotten because I live alone with Boo. Boo only gets upset when I forget to feed her. She doesn’t care about anything else.
I realized a while ago that I have FOA – fear of Alzheimer’s disease. My fear is not based on anything other than the fear of losing my brain. There is no history of Alzheimer’s in my family. I am just very attached to my brain.
I know this is as common fear, but I have become somewhat hyper vigilant, maybe even a little obsessive.
This is all due to the fact that I have long felt that my brain was the only thing I really had going for me. Thanks to genetics I am a large woman with a propensity to use food to manage my emotions. I grew up tall and heavy with curly hair during an era when skinny women with long straight hair were considered the beauty standard. Think Marcia Brady and you will have a good portion of the girls with whom I went to high school.
It was apparent pretty early that my brains were the only thing that I had to count on. I have had to count on my brains when my looks/weight/gap teeth/scars all got in my way. When I interviewed for a company where I eventually worked for thirteen years, I was not hired until I showed my business school grades. The manager who was interviewing almost did not hire me because of my size. She had the notion that large people were lazy.
I did have about fifteen minutes in the mid to late 80s when I was pretty cute. Some may even say I was hot. I had lost a ton of weight and was working out to the point of exercise anorexia. It was at this point in my life that it became apparent that my intelligence far outweighed my common sense and I behaved pretty badly for a while. I really don’t regret any of it. Hell, I relished every moment of all the attention I got, but that lasted for a short while and I am very glad that I didn’t lose too many brain cells in the process. However, those years may have done some damage as evidenced in my current memory problems.
In the way that some women worry about losing their looks and resort to plastic surgery and botox, I worry about my brain. I understand their need to hang on to their looks, because society and the media have led them to believe that without their looks they do not have anything to offer. In the same way, society and the media led me to believe that since I didn’t have the looks, I had better find another way to survive. This is not to say that beauty and brains do not go together. They do. But as superficial as the world can be, beauty is what attracts and intelligence can be intimidating. But intelligence is all I have. Please don’t send me emails or make comments about how you find me pretty or whatever. Anyone who really knows and loves me has gotten to the point that they can see who I am. The world at large, though, tends to judge based on looks so I have worked hard to make sure that I have the intelligence to compensate.
Hence, that is why I fear losing my brain. The test showed some areas where I am doing quite well and other areas where I am at a deficit. It pretty much verified what I have known all along. My brain does not remember what I was doing one minute ago so I tend to lose myself in knitting patterns. I can’t memorize music for the life of me and can’t improvise because I can’t remember what I just did. I walk into rooms and wonder why I am there. I forget someone’s name within moments of hearing it. It’s not attention deficit disorder. I can maintain attention. I just can’t remember shit from one minute to the next. Hell, when I turned fifty, whatever part of my brain knew my right from my left threw that information out and I am constantly looking at other people in yoga class to figure out which way I am supposed to turn. When someone is in the car with me and giving directions, it is best if they point rather than tell me to turn right or left. It just doesn’t compute otherwise.
The good news is that I am not losing my mind. I am pretty much still intact even though I am sure that twenty years of alcohol abuse did do some damage. I now have a baseline to compare against in the future. It was worth it to have the test done. It eased my anxiety a bit and I can go on my merry way and continue to forget things. Too bad they don’t have botox for the brain, though. I would jump on that in a heartbeat.
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