The Fog Rolls In, But Not Out

Yesterday's New York Times has a story by health columnist Jane Brody about chemo brain, aptly titled "The Fog That Follows Chemotherapy."

I've written a little bit about the fog (here and here and here and here and here), although in my case it was mostly about the fog that accompanies chemotherapy.

But now that I'm three (and also eight!) years from chemo, I have to say that the fog hasn't entirely lifted. It's nothing like it was during treatment, when I was barely functional on some days.

Instead, it's a more subtle but markedly persistent phenomenon. When I read this sentence:

"The symptoms are remarkably consistent: a mental fogginess that may include problems with memory, word retrieval, concentration, processing numbers, following instructions, multitasking and setting priorities."

I recognized every single symptom.

For me, word retrieval is the biggest frustration. It's like the opposite of a stutter—there's just a long pause before I finally come up with the often-not-quite-right word. As a writer and a previously often-articulate speaker, this is maddening. And saddening.

I'm also nowhere near as dexterous with numbers as I'd been my whole life. I can still do a lot of calculations in my head, but it seems to take forever. This I can live with—working with figures isn't something I have to do all day, every day. But it's a loss nonetheless.

And while my long-term memory seems to be pretty much intact, the short-term side seems to be suffering. I find myself asking Zach the same question two or three times, usually prefaced with, "I know we talked about this, but. . . ."

The other stuff—concentration, following instructions, multitasking, and setting priorities—all manifest themselves at work, where I'm working on a couple of dozen projects at any given time. I know that these are issues because I've had things like "integrate all to-do lists" on one of those to-do lists for months. It's like I suddenly have ADHD, when focus and organization were never a problem before.

The tricky thing with all of this is that these symptoms coincide with two other events—passing the 40-year mark and being thrust into menopause—both of which are associated with memory and other cognitive declines.

So is it the after-effects of chemo, or middle age, or quitting estrogen cold-turkey?

I'll never know. And at this point, the cause of the problems doesn't really matter.

All I can do is try to find solutions.