Memory

Happy Monday!  It’s what we call a civic holiday up here in Canada.  In the province of Ontario, it is called Simcoe Day, in honor of John Graves Simcoe, the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, and the man who initiated the abolishment of slavery in Canada. Truthfully, most folks don’t care what the day is as long as it is a day off.  Those of us who are retired, don’t often remember what day of the week it is, much less what the holiday name is, unless, of course it is Christmas and I love Christmas!

Today’s blog is about memory, or perhaps more fittingly, the lack of it. This was prompted by the fact that I couldn’t remember what I was going to blog about. I know that I had an idea for something very profound (I’m sure it was!), but it got lost somewhere in the grey matter, called my brain.  I could, and often do, blame the MS--it’s nice to  have a convenient excuse for such things.

I may have another excuse, which I hope doesn’t show up too soon, or if I am truly blessed, will not show up at all.  Cavan and I sent our spit in the mail to 23andme and got all kinds of information back.  For both of us, it mentioned a high probability of Alzheimer's. Not too terribly surprising for Cavan, as his mother suffers from it and his paternal grandmother also suffered from it.  So, he has it on both sides of his family.  For me, I am adopted, so it was not a surprise, but besides a high probability of celiac, it was the only red flag.

Well, I guess the flags are really only yellow, as with probability you never really know if you will get it or if you will dodge that bullet. Celiac is probably a certainty for me.  I have known for years that I feel much better if I avoid wheat. I told my doctor that because I am not in agony, it is hard to convince myself to avoid it for the rest of my life.  I was actually surprised by the range and severity of symptoms when I read up on it, and I have a few of the symptoms, but fortunately, none are really severe.  I will go back to avoiding wheat for a while, though, as I would like to feel better.

Going back to the memory thing.  I know that if something is not on my calendar, I will definitely not remember it, but as I discovered last week, if it is on my calendar and I don’t check my calendar, I will also not remember it! Cavan is the same, so we actually share calendars (Google is amazing for that!), so that we know where each other needs to be and we can properly schedule appointments to make sure that nothing overlaps and we don’t get double booked.  This is especially important when you need to drive, as we are down to one car.  This works most of the time, although there have been a few times when one of us has had to walk, take a taxi, or hop on the Cobourg bus.  I have taken to coloring events on my calendar yellow if I need the car (which is really just when I need to drive into the city).

As with my MS symptoms, you just need to adapt.  You learn a different way of doing things. I have lots of sticky notes and keep whatever I can online so that I can find it. My phone is my life, because of that.  All phone numbers are stored on my phone, although it is linked to my Google account so that they are shared back and forth between the phone and my Google account, and that gives me backup. I think I need to start writing down ideas for blogs, though!

Anyway, things are good and manageable for now, for both of us.  Eventually, we joke that we may get to needing only one book and one DVD movie to watch, as we won’t remember how either ends! We have a little trouble with that now, but we still try to keep up with various TV series and go to the movies occasionally and I like to read a lot. I don’t think I will really get concerned until we start getting lost in our neighborhood. With prayers, perhaps we will never get to that point.

Prayers for all of your challenges!  God bless!