Memory is an odd and elusive thing. It favors our own particular mind set and our own values. We may remember any particular situation differently to someone else because of what we bring to that memory. We constantly dwell in our own existence.
And to exist is to have come from somewhere. A childhood, a year, a yesterday.
My yesterday is lost. My last year and the year before that is lost. This sickness and therapy has blurred and destroyed my memory to the point of making me wonder, am I still here?
My weeks and months seem to have no meaning because I cannot remember what I did, who I saw or what I thought about. I have nothing to show for it except lost time and emptiness. I have a few markers which I can go by to let myself believe over 2 years have passed. I remember my grandfathers funeral, a wild weekend I had, my great uncles funeral and then a blur of medical procedures.
I want to know what I did yesterday, I want to remember my children growing up and I want to remember important or even uneventful days. Without that who am I?
I've been photo documenting this entire process since just before my bone marrow transplant, so I have a visual diary and I have some things I wrote with dates on them. And thank goodness for this blog. Without it I'd be nowhere.
5 comments:
I hear ya... people keep mentioning things from the past or movies, and I know I've seen the movies, but I have no idea what happened in the movie - at all! So basically, I should start telling people that I've never seen these movies...
I'm kinda cranky tonight... if you get bored, email me, and I'll give you a jingle... or maybe I'll just email you.
XO
Memory loss has it's good and it's bad points. I have great long term memory. I remember every little thing that happened in my childhood, some of which I wish I could forget.
My short term memory is fried. I have complete brain fog every day now and find it hard even to remember my own name some days. It drives me crazy, but the plus side of it is that even though I probably have read all the books in our small village library at least once, I don't remember so I can read them all over again as if they were fresh and new.
I'm probably keeping the post it note industry alive as I make list after list of reminders and have them stuck all over the place.
I know what you are saying about losing your identity because of the loss of day to day memories. If there is one thing having M.E. has taught me it is to live in the now, but that can get a little hard when you can't remember what the 'now' is.
*hug*
First, I just want to say I admire your spirit.
Also, although I haven't gone through an illness like cancer, I can appreciate your thoughts on memory. I ponder it myself and sometimes wonder, if life is a series of memories, what will I have at the end of my life to show for it,if and when my memory fades. No one can recall every moment of their lives, but the "present" moment is always fleeting, something you wind up looking back on. It's a scary perspective.
in this fast moving age, i guess our blogs are worth something after all - they provide a visual, technology driven memory of our yesterdays... but i agree, it's sad when people can't remember their past...
I found your blog through Kelly Kane... I too have AML, and was diagnosed in September 2005. You are the first person that I have met through blogging that has the same cancer.
My nurse told me that my "Memory Fog" was reffered to as Chemo Brain, if nothing else it comes in handy for a good excuse...
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