Time, or, A Summation of How Normal Physics Can Go Out the Window at the Drop

of a Blood Vessel

 Originally Written 02/19/2022

So far today, I’ve lost track of what day it is about 4 times.

Yes, I know this isn’t exclusive to me. I know tons of neurotypical people lose track of what day it is as well. But very few of them lose track of it so hard that they think they may have lived this day before, or start to cry because how can it possibly be Monday AGAIN.

This has been happening to me since I had the stroke (brain hemorrhages are classified as strokes due to their effects and you know, damage from blood loss in the brain). I even know why. One of my long term effects is short term memory loss. 

There are movies about this. I have seen precisely none of them. I might decide to eventually, but it could be emotional for me, so I need to be sure I’m prepared. 

In the movie Memento, the protagonist has no short term memory, so he leaves post-its everywhere with info he needs. In 50 First Dates, Adam Sandler has to keep going on first dates with Drew Barrymore until they marry. I don’t actually think they’re way off, from what I know. But, you know, Hollywood. It’s got to be entertaining.

In my experience, having a bad short term memory does a few things. First, I lose track of what day it is, as I don’t always have a clear memory of waking up in the morning, or what I ate, or what I was wearing this morning. When
I was in rehab, I would have on average, about 3-4 Mondays and Tuesdays per week. Likely other days repeated, too, but, shockingly, I don’t remember. I think this was due to me taking short naps during the day and then waking up thinking it was morning. But, it could have just been that I forgot I woke up. 

This happens more frequently when I’m not in familiar surroundings, or when I don’t get enough sleep, or likely some other reasons I can’t currently recall. 

Today is Saturday. I woke up a little late, I think about 10 am. After that things get a little jumbled with the what and where. It’s kind of mixed in with yesterday, when we went to go visit my son and his fiance and their dog. But I can tell I haven’t gone anywhere because to be frank, I’m still in my pajamas. Also, I know we got back from their place at night, and it was daytime the last time I lost track of today. It’s kind of a trail of breadcrumbs for the process of recall.

I used to get so upset when I found out it was still Monday or whatever day. Because in my mind I knew I had lived it all before, and that it HAD to be the next day, because days just don’t repeat like that movie Groundhog Day. It doesn’t happen. Impossible. Time is (at least as far as we know) a straight line, not a circle. Or a star. Or a dodecahedron. Whatever.

That doesn’t stop my brain from completely missing the point. 

Hence what brain damage is, essentially: your brain entirely missing the point of things. If you’re born with the damage, your brain never had the point. If you acquire it, you just start missing things. I mean, that is the bare-bones of it anyway.

There are coping mechanisms. Writing notes to yourself like the guy in Memento, for instance. In his case, he wrote down who he could trust, what he needed to keep in mind to avoid death, etc. I have nothing that dire in my life, but I still have my coping strategies. One thing is I have about 15-16 alarms set on my phone. I have the usual ones for waking up, but I also have reminders for taking medications, reminders to call to schedule appointments or confirm referrals, reminders to use up leftovers on Saturdays, reminders to call my family and friends. I set up reminders from websites I frequent. I think at one point I had a reminder to play a certain game on my phone, so that I could develop a daily habit. This last was an actual suggestion from my OT, and, as far as I can tell, it helped me to redevelop some short term memory.

I can’t tell you how many times I have to ask my husband questions about what day it is, whether we did something we were planning to do, who I called yesterday, or why I’m not where I thought I would be on any given day. It’s a lot. He’s an honest to God angel about it all, too. I know none of this is easy for him. I feel that I must be a totally different person than he married, but the essential me is still there, I just have issues with some things that I used to be able to do.

On the other hand, aside from the memory issues and the constant equilibrium problems, I am in better shape, health wise. As I stated in my backstory post, I had high blood pressure before. I fully intend to ask my doctor what it was running at that point. However, any rise in blood pressure above normal or average blood pressure is high, and it should be treated. I was relatively young when I developed it–about 35. High blood pressure runs in my family, my dad has had it since his teen years, for instance. I was on a med for it, but I guess it wasn’t quite strong enough, judging from how things went. 

I also, as previously mentioned, had chronic migraine. I was on gabapentin to try to control them. That was the second med I’d tried. The first was Topamax, which is an anti seizure med. It helped, but it made thinking really difficult. I took to doing logic puzzles on my phone to try to make my brain work in a more helpful manner. But, it didn’t stop the migraines at all. Neither did the gabapentin, but that apparently helped with the arthritis I’d developed over the years, so I’m still on that.

Anyway, two major problems are now gone. I still have high blood pressure but it’s controlled. I no longer have chronic migraine, or, so far and three years later, any migraines. 

It’s bittersweet. I loved my career. I loved my busy life. I had always been overscheduled, but I lived for it. Now I am definitely scheduled, but I don’t have much in the way of hobbies. I used to read constantly. I was in musical ensembles pretty much all year. I acted in local productions. And yes, I did have adult ADHD. I still do, actually. Made a bit worse by both the brain injury and also not self medicating with caffeine 24/7. This does not make me relieved that I’m not as busy. But I can’t really keep up that pace now. I don’t have the energy. 

A dear friend from therapy has said that she thinks that is a major thing you deal with after a brain injury. You’re constantly exhausted. Even when you have energy, you’re just…almost desperately tired all the time. I’m guessing it’s because it takes so much to just think, even. Add in the chores of everyday life and then occasionally having to manually reset your clock because you forget when it is, and you really have quite a packed life.

We’re busier than we look, it's just that a lot of it is internal.