Some days chicken, some days feathers.
I’m struggling with my short term memory. Struggling hard some days, like yesterday.
My cousin called me when I was asleep in my chair Monday night and left me a message that he was in Arizona on his retirement tour and wanted to set up a meeting/schedule/time to meet.
I listened to it Monday night when I woke from my nap and in fact made a contact out of it (new phone). I wrote about the call in my Tuesday journal entry and noted that I would call him later (I wrote the journal entry at 0200 which is my quite normal time) when I knew he was up.
By the time I go going with the active part of my day I completely spaced it out until this morning (Wednesday).
I’m almost 70. Dementia or Alzheimers is always on my mind, but I don’t think this is part and parcel of that condition.
It is a symptom of Narcolepsy which I have. That part of it has to do with lack of REM sleep most nights. The stunning part is that I DO remember things routinely after a couple of days. My short term memory is the only part that is affected. I seem to store things in mid-term memory and that works fine.
I’ve been diagnosed with Narcolepsy for near 30 years, so I have things I do to help me get by in normal situations. I have my email stacked so that I can readily review yesterday and things I need to attend to. I write sticky notes and post stuff on a whiteboard (where my cousin is now listed).
I feel that part of the problem is the way I am hard wired. Due to the Narcolepsy I am really not very functional in the late afternoon or early evening. I not only sleep, I get just stupid and unable to perform even simple tasks for a few hours. It’s aggravating and annoying but I’ve gotten used to my schedule and work around it fairly well.
I should mention here that I take no drugs for my condition. There is no cure and any drugs you take are only to treat symptoms and about 15 years ago one of those drugs damn near killed me and seriously degraded my quality of life. I quit. I also do not use dope or alcohol in any way shape or form.
So here’s the deal. I didn’t write this for any sympathy or good cheer. I actually wrote all this because I’ve been pondering a question for a while.
It seems to me that even my short term memory is not bad in the first 8 or 10 hours that I am up. Is that the case with any of you? That your memory degrades as the day goes along and you pour more stimulation on top of your memory? Or is your memory constant throughout your waking hours?
I don’t know. It seems important somehow to me. Important enough for me to write a hugely personal post.
I do thank you for reading this all the way to the end, and if you choose to answer the questions a BIG THANK YOU.
All words and photographs in this post are mine. For better or worse.
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