Before my medical crisis, I had an excellent memory. I could remember the names of everyone I met and never had to write anything down. After my medical crisis, this all went to hell. Understandable as I had a stroke–a significant one. to put it bluntly, I wasn’t expected to wake up (I was in a coma). I had walkiung (non-Covid-related) pneumonia, two cardiac arrests, and a stroke. Yes, all aat the same time. The last three within twenty minutes of each other.
When I suddenly woke up a week after I had fallen in a coma, I was thrilled to be alive. This was quite the change for me (being thrilled about it, not the actual being of it), and I didn’t care about the minor issues that came with it. The complete loss of my short-term memory, my blurry vision, my inability to know what day it was. Seriously. I woke up on the tenth of September (or maybe 9th). On the 11th, a nurse asked if I knew what day it was. Uh, no. And even if I did, I don’t think the tragedy of September 11th, 2001, would have been the first thing on my mind–or the hundredth.
My vision cleared about the third or fourth day I was home. The memory loss, however, stuck around. I took it in stride because, again, I was just glad to be alive.
Lately, however, I’m really irritated with my memory as it’s getting worse. I write down important things, so it’s not that. It’s the little things that are getting on my nerves. For example, I bought three different cases for my new phone. Not because I wanted three cases, but because I didn’t understand the way the phone cases were being sold. I wanted a case with a front and back–and with a clip. The pictures on Amazon showed cases that looked as if they were front and back while saying they were double protection!
What I did not get was that the two layers of protection (usually one being a flimsy foam layer) were both for the back of the phone and not the front. So the first two I ordered were like this. I finally realized my issue and looked specifically for cases with clips (Because that usually meant it would have a front cover and a back cover). I found the OtterBox for my new phone and ordered it. When that one arrived, it was for the wronge ‘size’ of my phone. I had specified the correct size, but they simply sent the wrong one.
Amazon has a 30 day return policy. You have to send back the items within 30 days to get a refund. That’s fair. If you don’t want to pay a fee, you have to take it to a UPS center and send it back. I waited until nearly the last day (yesterday) to look for the phone cases so I could return them. I found the first two, but not the third. I looked and looked and looked. I thought it was on the dining room table in my living room, but I could not find it.
Today, I took the two I had found and brought it to the UPS center. There, to my great surprise, it was actually the third case, the OtterBox. The one I kept looking for and could not find. The one I actually wanted to return.
Side note: I figured out how that mix-up happened. When I went into the dining room to look for the OtterBox, I DID see two sides of a phone case, but I just thought it was the other two phone cases. I thought I had brought them into the dining room (I hadn’t). That part of it is explained, but I can’t find the other two cases. Anyiwhere. And I KNOW those were the ones I had found initially. Again, I didn’t care as much about them because they were really cheap and ultimately, it was my own mistake. It just bothers me that I don’t know what I did with them.
The second issue is that I can’t find one of the dishes i had ordered with DoorDash yesterday. I’m fairly sure I got it and put it in the fridge after taking out the portion I wanted, but I can’t find it for the life of me. I have looked several times, including in the freezer. I would be tempted to say that I never got it except I’m pretty sure I took out a portion to eat. I can’t say for sure–maybe I was just thinking of another time I ordered from this place. However, the order slip says that I ordered it. That along with my memory of dishing out some to eat makes me think that it’s on my end, not the restaurant’s. I would not be surprised if I find it somewhere way in the back of the fridge in a week or so. That has happened before, too.
I know that it’s part of getting older–your memory getting worse, I mean. I also know that a part of my problem is that I’m not focusing on what I’m doing when I’m doing it. I’m assuming things rather than making sure what is happening is what I actually think is happening. Plus, I am on my phone way too much. I have a hard time doing just one thing–even more so since my medical crisis. So something as simple as dishing up my dinner, I feel the need to scroll on my phone at the same time. This is how I fuck things up like ‘where the hell did I put the fried rice?’
I think I’m going to have to do something drastic. I’m going to have to ban myself from using my phone when I am doing other things. It’s really messing with my attention in a negative way. Now, considering the fact that that’s the only time I use my phone, that’s quite the sacrifice. But I’m tired of berating myself for not being able to remember something I did a few hours ago. Not looking at my phone won’t solve all the problems, but it will solve some of them. I hope.
If that’s not the main reason that my memory is so much worse now, well, then I’ll have to rethink what I’m going to do. In general, I don’t think my memory is that much of a hot mess, but it’s not easy to tell because I have nothing to compare it to. I mean, other than how my memory was before my medical crisis.
I don’t know how much of this is me just aging. That is the wild factor.