My problems with words

I just thought that I'd share a little bit about what I've been struggling with lately. The other day at school during recess, I had to speak to a student about their behavior and I had a slight pause, then I was able to finish my sentence. This felt very strange, almost like my brain was processing, but very slowly. It didn't seem like I was searching for the right words to say, but perhaps that is what was happening. It was as if I knew what I wanted to say, but it somehow came out in parts.

The other day when I was in a candle store at the mall, they were having a sale. I needed to have someone who worked there explain the sale to me several times because I didn't really understand what they were saying. Luckily, they were very patient and kind with me and I eventually understood.

This made me think about how something small, such as going shopping, can be challenging for someone who is living with a memory impairment. For someone whose brain functions normally, they don't really have to give this much thought and probably just take for granted that they are able to go shopping without any problems.

One of my hopes for the future, with helping to bring awareness about memory impairments is that people understand that it doesn't just affect someone’s memory, but so many other things related to their cognition. Since 2011, I've been struggling a lot with understanding language. Sometimes I read the words, but they don't make sense or have little to no meaning to me. This has been very frustrating for me, since I'm very much a “people person” and I enjoy talking to people. People need to understand how memory impairments affect the person's interactions and relationships with their family and friends.

I also know that sometimes the tv or music is too distracting for me to do anything else. Most of the time, I can only concentrate on one thing at a time. I usually will mute the tv and or music so that I can do what I need to.

Over these past few years, I don't deal very well with changes, especially abrupt changes at work. I think that I have had about three schedule changes over the past 4-5 weeks and luckily so far, I have handled it okay.

A few weeks ago, when my daughter called me, she asked how I was doing and I said "better than last week." She said, "why didn't you call?" I replied, "call who". She was like, “Da....me, your family.” I don't remember what my response to her was. Sometimes I guess that I don't really get it.