When did I get so dumb?

beckym
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I feel I have done everything I have been told to do since this all started in March. I try not to dwell on the fact I now know I have a heart problem, but, I can't ignore it either.

I have a small business and I have not been able to face doing the bookwork since my heart atttack. Don't know why, just can't make myself pick up the pencil and book. Well, yesterday I really did want to be responsible and get the entries done. I worked on it for the better part of 5 hours and I haven't been able to balance the amounts yet. We are not talking big stuff. Maybe 50 entries for 2 months and by the time I go to check that the account balances, it is 'OFF'. It's like I don't remember how to do even the most basic bookkeeping or math.

I take plavix, aspirin, metoprolol, and pravistatin but don't know that I can blame them. Didn't even have bi-pass to put the blame on.

It is really scary to me that I can't seem to get a handle on something so easy. I guess I hope that some of you have gone thru this and that it will pass.
Thanks for your input--Becky

8 replies

smokefreeme

The only drugs we take in common are Plavix and Metoprolol, and asprin but I so know what you are saying. I sometimes feel like half of my brain is missing. My short term memory is horrible. I have taken to writing everything down because I won't remember it 5 minutes later. My guess is it is the Metoprolol. I have had 11 angiograms, 2 heart attacks, no bypass, my EF is 50... I am a teacher and this is causing some significant problems. I am not teaching a class this year. I am going to be a para bacause I cant deal with such forgetfulness. My husband teases me and becomes frustrated with me because he thinks I don't pay attention to anything he says. Feel better knowing you are not alone but if you find out what causes this, please let me know. Take care and lots of hugs, Diane

joy2day
  • By joy2day
  • Posted August 4, 2008 at 12:02 pm

Becky,
Diagnosis of heart failure in August 2007. High dosage of Lasix + my (over)zealous adherence to "limit fluid intake" put me back in the hospital with renal failure.

Ended up with 3 BP meds, potassium, and a diuretic. My short-term memory and ability to remember numbers has come back slowly. It has taken months to begin to feel myself. I had always prided myself on my memory, but I've given that up (mostly).

When I came home from the hospital after the renal failure, my brain was fried. I had no short-term memory and the simplest of tasks took 100% of my mental capacity. I was scared, and so was a good friend/coworker. That first night at home, I popped off some "three-syllable" word and added "Pretty good for a crazy woman, huh?". His response: "Yeah, Well SPELL it." Oh, was I fuming!!!!!! I knew it was funny, but it torqued me off. Now we just laugh about it, because it really was funny and broke the tension.

Karla

martzj
  • By martzj
  • Posted August 4, 2008 at 1:05 pm

Hi beckym,

Depending on the duration and intensity of your heart attack, your brain was affected by prolonged oxygen deprivation. If you did not lose consciousness you were getting more oxygen than if you were out cold, or going in and out....but deprivation to the brain occurs during heart attack, along with adrenal glands sort of squeezing and clenching ferociously to keep your organs alive as they pump out the chemicals. Heart attack may look passive and unseen to the outside observer but on the interior all hell is breaking loose and the brain, while normally beautifully protected by the blood/brain barrier, is very much impacted by the full body hysteria of heart attack.

The brain uses a whopping 20 percent of our bodies daily energy supply, so the brain and heart are the last 2 organs to shut down completely. The heart in cardiac distress (or hypothermia) will begin shutting down blood supplies to all extremities and organs pretty much until only heart, lungs and brain are being shunted O2. I doubt any of us here were sent for brain MRI during or immediately after surviving heart attack, so we are left to stumble and bumble around on our own afterward. My heart attack (being the only one of at least 4 earlier ones that was acute enough to take me down) started on my nightly walk with the neighbor's dog and kept going until I blacked out folding laundry the next afternoon.

Numbers have since been a huge challenge and short term memory was deeply wounded. I was the lady who used to be able to substract 3 digit numbers in a backwards sequence so quickly my neuropsychologist friend, who had invited me to participate in a study she was helping a PhD student co-author, had to ask me to slow down because she couldn't write my answers down quickly enough. And they were all correct answers. After the acute MI, I can rarely do math in my head, only on paper. I used to whip through cross word puzzles in minutes. When first home from MI, it took me an entire day of getting through one simple puzzle.....I would stare and reread the clues.....over and over. Even now, I know when I'm having a brain distress day when I try to write the letter 'g' and an 'm' appears on the paper. I call those 'brain sludge days'...usually have something to do with fluid retention cycle days now. You are not alone in the distress these long-lasting brain deprivation effects cause. Those left brain functions that used to be almost automatic may (for the time being) use tremendous amounts of energy we are naturally resistant to expending....resentful of the waste.

'Pumphead' is a corny medical nickname that refers to the mental disorientation experienced by patients who have gone through hours on the bypass heart-lung machine and blood is deeply cooled to protect the body from impact as much as possible. During prolongued heart attacks, a person's brain may be getting far less oxygen and in more erratic stages than a person on steady heart-lung pumping. During both events a certain amount of deprivation is a given. Sometimes it is life imploding, other times most of functionality returns. Rarely are we the same. Heart medications definitely play some part in complicating things but we may need them to survive.

You may find HEAD CASES; STORIES OF BRAIN INJURY AND ITS AFTERMATH by Michael Paul Mason helpful. He is brain case injury manager and writes with astonishing sensitivity and beautiful eloquence and compassion about each 'whole person' he profiles.

Try the chapter entitled, In All Earnestness, p. 205, about a woman whose lifestyle before brain injury could apply to ours.............. I like that he begins it with the Zen discipline/case 19 I have been using to rise and begin whatever I feel resistance towards doing for 20 years, THe Gateless Gate.

How is the smoking cessation going?

Hope you are having a smoother time of it today (smile),
Jaynie

SandyW
  • By SandyW
  • Posted August 4, 2008 at 2:32 pm

I'll tell you my story, talk about dumb... :)

My work back ground was teaching software programs, wordprocessing, spreadsheets, graphics, HTML etc.

Prior to the DUMB doctors figuring out I had heart problems back in 1999, my memory hit the floor. My husband finally dragged me into the doctors office demanding answers as to why he could put the same video on 5 nights in a row and I'd watch it an swear I'd never seen it before. He said I even laughed at the same places, etc. Now my memory did not disappear over night. I knew it was bad, but the doctors just didn't listen and I was getting to the point I could not fight for myself. At that time I could not walk 40 feet without being winded either.

I ended up with two major blockages in Left Main Artery. I think it was maybe 7 days later that I had emergency bypass. Surgeon said if I'd had a heart attack I would have died. It was a "Widow Maker".

My memory actully came back pretty good. The doctors were quit surprised, they didn't think I would improve to the degree I did. 6 months after the surgery I was back teaching. Unfortunately it was short lived. My Thyroid diease started to cause memory problems as well and in 2002 I finally had to quit teaching.

Now I find out I have a hole in my heart and other problems, I'm back to short term memory hitting the floor again. The weird thing is on a good day I do well, on a normal or bad day, forget asking me anything. As my hubby says "If your head wasen't attached you'd never find it" Thank god it's still attached :)

I really don't think the meds have affected my memory, I really think it is lack of oxegen. (my spelling hit the floor too).

Cheers Sandy W

lkay
  • By lkay
  • Posted August 4, 2008 at 6:00 pm

Becky,
I think my memory lapses and delays are a combination of medical and emotional. The more I feel the pressure to perform, the lesss I can. Right now my fingers are really working to get these keys right - typing is second nature to me and I cna't do it correctly now.

Hers is an example of my typing with correcitn the things that I now I am specling wrong The coordination of the braing sjut is not woking right.

Be kind to yourself and give it some more time - slow down like I am doing right now and it does get better.

Be well,
Laura

PS we loved Cleveland, especially the stop in Little Italy for stromboli and cookies (I brought 2 pounds home!)

beckym
  • By beckym
  • Posted August 4, 2008 at 7:08 pm

Hi everyone and thanks for your comments.
I worked on my books most of the day today and I am now close to being current. I just did it all really slowly and checked each entry 3 times before moving on.

It does help to know I am not the only one with these issues. I really am lucky I don't have more problems from the disease but I am still learning to accept what is going on inside me. Spent 24 hours in the hospital last week after chest pains and am going to have a stress test soon to gauge how much damage was actually done by the attack. Don't know if I really DO want to know.

To answer about my not smokimg--YES I am still tobacco free after 4 1/2 months.

To Laura--Cleveland really is a nice city but we really do stick to our own sides of town. I rarely go East but sometime you need to ride thru our metro parks which lives up to it's nickname of the Emerald Necklace--just beautiful.

Thanks again for your support.
Becky

mssarah_jane

I totally understand the memory thing. Over the last few months, it has been completely shot. I am having trouble spelling, which makes me thankful for the computer because I tend to be a perfectionist too. I don't do to much adding and such, so I can't say that that hasn't been affected, but I am often at a loss for words. I will know the word I mean, but can't find it. Or I will know the word I mean but will say another similar word with the same initial consonant sound but know that that wasn't the word I wanted to say.

The part that really bothers me is that my short term memory is getting to the point where multitasking is something I can no longer do. As a kindergarten teacher, that is one skill I really need to deal with 18 five year olds. I am at the part of the summer where I am trying to think of ways to help me with the upcoming year, because I won't be able to do it the same as last year. I feel like I slept most of June to recoup because I wasn't listening to my body when it told me to slow down.

BarbaraGale

Hi Becky et al. My memory is so bad since my stent procedures that I am going for an MRI to test for stroke. Like, I went for two doctor appts. last seek and they both told me I wasn't scheduled. And forget balancing my checkbook. But I know it's really a combination of stress, meds, and being over extended. And tired, tired, tired.

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