Mental Blocks and Other Notes

I have read of others with brain tumors, surgery, or head trama as having memory problems. Yes sometimes I have those now which I never had before (seems to be with short term memory loss).

Maybe I will write more about it later. For now I just want to make a small note to remember to tell the doctor.

Over the past week or two simple little things I would get stuck on or could not remember. For example, in a couple incidences I could not remember someone's last name when it was somebody I knew. I had a sort of brain block and then it came to me like hours or a day later. The most signifcant this week however is that I had difficulty with the multiplication tables.

For the life of me, I struggled one day to figure out the answer to 7 times 9. I could not figure it out! I had to think of the answers to 8*9, 7*8, 6*9, etc. to figure out the answer! And no I am not a mathematically challenged person who never made it past algebra. I have a science degree and had to take chemistry and physics! I can still remember my locker combination from junior high school but the other day I could not remember 7*9!

I have made a habit to use my dictionary regularily since treatment and it appears now that a calculator needs to be part of my everyday repetoire.

I did notice more of a challenge with math while grocery shopping over the last year.

Another recent oddity that I forgot to mention:

I am uncertain to decribe it but the best I can relate it to is when a flashbulb goes off in your eye when you are unprepared or when you get up too fast and become lightheaded and nearly blackout. Hmnn, that sounds kind of extreme. What I am trying to describe are moments when I get up and I feel almost blinded in the one eye. I was feeling weird when this happened and started closing my left eye and noticed my field of vision in the right becoming narrowed or momentarily blinded as if I had stared into the flash of a camera. It does not last long (few seconds) and seems to happen when I get up from a sitting position.

Okay I have to say goodbye to the blog tonight because I am way too tired.