A mind is a terrible thing to lose
"Cloudy thinking." For a couple years, my nephrologist would ask me if I had that, along with nausea, fluid retention in my feet, other telltale symptoms I was heading into true kidney failure. Numbers tell you percentages, but symptoms tell you how your life's affected and whether you need intervention soon.
"Nope, nope, nope," I'd respond confidently. This held up just fine, until December '08, when my cell phone rang at Rosedale one weekday afternoon. "Hi. Are you coming in to plan out the Christmas music tab?" my boss asked.
Wow. This was a project I'd shepherded through every step -- even located copyright-free Christmas songs in my mother's antique songbook -- and here I was blithely looking at sweaters on deadline day.
Any of you who knew me "in the day," I hope you remember that's not me. The late nights, the overnights, the necessity of calling the North St. Paul police to beg them not to ticket my truck, which was parked outside between 1:30 and 5 a.m. ... and now I couldn't let other people depend on me. I couldn't even depend on myself.
First thing -- well, after planning the tab and getting it to the graphic artist -- I told my boss and the publisher what was up. They didn't think it was so big a deal, but I could see it was a bellwether of things to come.
Such as the poor Bulletin editor, layout day after layout day, hearing me say, "Hey -- was I supposed to have a story for you?" (I then had to tell him, too.)
Such as having to calendar everything and "invite" my husband, lest I be working on my driveway instead of going to a doctor's appointment or staying at work late instead of getting together with a friend.
Such as leaving the stove on all night or leaving the dogs outside and then wondering where they were.
Except perhaps for the kidney pain, none of the other symptoms have been as unnerving as this. I'm usually the organizer in my marriage: the door-locker, the appointment-maker, the one who thinks of the ramifications. Now I have to double-check myself on everything -- if I remember to check the first time...
I'm certainly not alone -- "lack of ability to concentrate" and "memory problems" are cited all over the medical literature. But it's a shock to go from being able to keep track of 4 or 5 tasks to do, one after the other, to not being able to remember where to paste some text copied from a list a half-second ago.
I'm sure it's even more aggravating to my co-workers, since they're presumably still as alert as I once was. I tell 'em "I'm just losing my mind," and they laugh and go along with it. I sure hope I get those IQ points back after transplant.
This phenomenon is so common I actually found it called "kidney brain" in a blog somewhere. Unfortunately, I can't remember where.
Yeah, you know why that is ....
