Highs and Lows

One of the things about my dementia is that you get highs where you are much more functional and you feel almost as though there's not much wrong with you. It's brilliant. I feel almost back to normal again. I feel energised and bright and in love with the world. It's as though I'm on the mend.

However high the high it still means I have the eternal head-fog (which made me initially think it was long-Covid until the MRI scan said "NO!") where in your cranium you feel the physical pressure of being at the bottom of the deep end of a swimming pool, as well as the (comparative) numbing of your cognitive abilities, although I try and avoid staring reality in the face on this point.

And then there are the lows.

Every morning I read The Times and yesterday read pretty much the whole paper. I also read a book on Noam Chomsky and saw lots of other stuff on Youtube. It was an attempt to kickstart my brain and try and get up to speed again, to see if I could. Well, it was good fun but I could feel the physical effects  myself when I was trying to assimilate the information. I got headaches, I almost fell asleep a few times, and my temples were throbbing. It's so frustrating. All the stuff I wasn't taught in schools but  now wish to learn about but I'm impeded by my condition.

I guess it's like taking a drug and getting high and then getting the midweek blues afterwards. It doesn't stop you taking the drug if you're that way inclined, but it means for the brighter, more cognitive days you then drop and your abilities drop. I'm thinking now in Dungeons and Dragons terms, but it actually helps to think of your abilities like intellectual capacity, cognisance, temper, etc like a bar chart or a graphic equaliser composed of numbers.

The effect of all this is especially prevalent when put on the spot or asked to make a decision right here, right now. The stalling of the brain is matched by the frontal lobe kicking in and you instantly feel the frustration (anger) of your total failure of being able to do something relatively straightforward in your mind, which you could do without any conscious effort a couple of years past or so.

I'm having dinner on my own as I can't cope with R's hyperactive babbling. At least, that's how it sounds to me. It may not be at all.

I was asked if I wanted to watch the new series of The Apprentice. The idea of watching a bunch of arrogant arseholes whose abilities are outweighed by their egos 20 to 1 in my present state it will drive me nuts, and in turn I'll probably annoy everyone else. And probably make me angry, if I don't walk out on the programme before hand.

Trying to read when you're on a low is not difficult. I can read. But taking in the meaning is another thing entirely. The same can be said for listening. I hear all the words, in that order. And that's it. What was that you said again? Oh, I'm supposed to take in the meaning of those words in the sentences? Ah...not going to happen.

So FTDsv like a lot of things has ups and downs, good clusters of days and bad. Please don't ask me to do much on a bad day. And this is why I can't work anymore. The effort involved is just physically and mentally exhausting and I end up paying for it and on a job of a few weeks that would be in the middle of the job, and it's just not feasible.

So I write a blog instead. 😜