Memory Problems

Memory problems have continued to plague my train of thought.  At the start of recovery it appeared that it was a simple case of losing the majority of the past decade with the decade prior to that one being something a little more than hazy, but it is now apparent that this is not just a simple case of amnesia,  it is more than that as it affects my day to day living in much of what I do.

1 cup Kettle (couldn't be simpler)

Early warning signs came in just doing the simple things such as making a cup of tea.  For most people this is a long established routine that they can carry out without second thoughts, almost a sub-conscious series of steps, but for myself I had to break this down into each step and even then there was no guarantee of a successful outcome.  People have different taste and therefore each cup would need different mixes of milk and sugar, but before I got to that stage I would need to consciously think about how much water was in the kettle, whether there was enough water in the filter to refill the kettle, how much to add, all the typical things I had one before without a second thought.  Still things would not go as they should, one of the most common things for me was to finish adding milk to those required, reach up and open the cupboard above me and have the milk half way there before realising that the milk was not going to go into the the crockery unit but the fridge several metres to my right.  Most people would note the first experience and not repeat this kind of mistake again but for me it happened time and time again.  There was also getting the number of cups needed correct, having made not only one less than required but even one more, the number that required sugar, actually putting tea bags into cups, and a host of other things that could go wrong, not just once but time and time again.  We reached a stage where we bought an kettle that would boil one cup of water at a time, and still I managed to boil a cup of water twice without changing the cup underneath.

These problems are not just confined to drinks in as much as I have managed to make errors in the simple task of using the laundry machine, often putting powder in the fabric softener tray, and even to the extent of forgetting to select the machine programme or in several cases returning to the machine some time later to find I have not turned the power on in the first place.  The amount of bread I have cremated when making toast is now beyond a joke, just smile and don't let it get me down, fortunately I haven't burnt the house to the ground yet, although I have ruined dinner. It is now three years into recovery and things are falling into place, which basically means I still get it wrong on numerous occasions.  Right now I am struggling to remember what I wanted to say, this is possible going to be the shortest incomprehensible blog I write.

Much of the advice available to tackle this is about taking notes, not unlike a 'to do' list.  There are several reasons that this fails to satisfy my needs particularly well.  When I am given something to remember a part of my brain is telling me that the information is short or it is a simple item to remember therefore I do not need to make a note, the problem here is that I can and have at times forgotten what was said within seconds, other items such as making the tea would become quite laborious if I followed a list of instructions from notes so as to take an inordinate amount of time to complete the task.  Taking notes then in itself is fine for people with full faculties of mind but for a person with Acquired Brain Injury or damage it is not always the answer, as I have tried to explain on several occasions I have to remember to make the notes in the first place. 

Distractions are a major source of problems for many things that I try to do.  Following a recipe, for instance, should be straight forward but if I am engaged in conversation and I need to get the information across accurately then the 'Overload' on my brain almost inevitable means something will go wrong.  Even this morning while talking bicycle set up I almost missed adding water to a bread mix.  Many people will have trouble comprehending how it can be so easy to make basic errors on simple things like this, but for me this is an everyday part of life I have to deal with.

Yes, I have a white board in the hallway with important numbers and dates, where it can readily be seen every morning if I remember to look!  Yes, I have a desk pad by the PC and phone to scribble notes but if I'm concentrating on what is being said in a telephone conversation or reading a web page I'm concentrating on it doesn't always happen.  I have two note books to hand, one for special use and one for general needs but the notes I need to make do not always end up in them!

 As I once tweeted- whiteboard in hall, desk pad next to PC, notebook to hand, still forget note to self!

Labyrinthine Minds

I am not a neurologist or psychologist or any kind of brain specialist.  I have not done any real research for this article lest I come across better than I am.  This is just trying to explain things to myself, in my own way, while allowing others to observe what creaking cogs are going round in my mind.  So if anyone is looking for definitive answers for their homework you have probably come to the wrong place.  If, on the other hand, you need to fill a dissertation with random ramblings help yourself, just do the right thing where credit is due.

The standard given for memory is a three tier model.  The first layer is an instantaneous there and gone, lasts for less than a second, unless needed for short term holding. The second is a short term memory, to deal with an immediate item, which can last for a second to a few minutes, but I am not aware of a time on this.  The third layer is long term memory, this is the one that lasts for years if not life.  The first layer takes in everything we sense, sight, sound, touch, hear, taste.  As it does this it discards what we do not need.  The second layer, short term takes selected pieces of information that mean something of  use in our lives until that moment has passed, should that be sometime in the future it will transfer the information to the long term memory for recall later.  Since I have come back from an Acquired Brain Injury (ABI), namely Encephalitis, I see things in a slightly different way to before.  When we talk of memory I get the impression we are really talking of recall.  This then presents to me an alternative picture of what I thought I knew.  

The Labyrinthine library from the film 'The name of the rose.

The alternative then is that we take in absolutely everything we experience through all our senses.  This can sound impossible but for however much we know of outer space our knowledge of inner space is quite limited.  It is a combination of what I have found as much as what I haven't that leads me to consider an entirely different picture.  The brain is acting like a three dimensional library, not the acceptable man-made building, but a labyrinthine type.  There is no neat corner of the construction that is dedicated to a stairwell, with each staircase going from floor to floor, this is more Escher-esq, or the film 'The name of the rose, floors on differing levels and stairs going all over the place. As we take in or experiences each individual piece of information, touch, taste, smell, feel sound is put on an individual card (or piece of paper).  These are then sent around this labyrinth for storage, not in a timeline, but under some unknown retrieval system, no GPS, no maps.  The more important the information, the more often we need to use it then the easier the route back to retrieve the carded info is, like doing a regular journey.  The less travelled route becomes harder to retrace as we struggle to recognise pieces on the way, and sometimes, if we do a route only once for recall we may never remember again.  yet there are times when we seek to recall something we did many years ago, we may make it, we may get lost, it all depends on whether we can find the route back.

Then one day there is a catastrophe, a fire, a collapse, a bomb, who knows but the building is damaged.  No longer can the familiar routes be relied upon. Some staircases have gone, some floors are unobtainable.  As we search for information stored within we find some right where it always was, other bits require that we take different routes around the damage to try access what we are looking for.  In taking or travelling these alternative routes I find older cards from years ago, things I had long since not required but trigger a recognition.  Sometimes I find the odd card but not the complete picture, other times several cards from different pictures are lying next to each other but you know they do not go together, it's a false memory, a confabulation.  There are two cases that tend to defeat me, I can no longer access that area of the library where the information I am certain is stored and the new information seems to fall through the destruction on its way to storage.

It is all so frustrating, especially when I try to explain to people why I cannot recall some-things I was told two minutes ago, yet can be seen talking and living a memory from three or four decades ago.