Blaming my memory problems on some of my falls

(Chapter 3 Memory Problems in my book)

Last night I was talking on the phone to my thirty-seven-year-old daughter. I was telling her that I recently signed up and have been attending a “Fall Workshop”. I explained to her that I was hoping it would help me because sometimes it doesn’t feel like my left knee is going to support me and I’m afraid of falling. I told her that I felt that with my memory impairment that this workshop will only be able to help me so much. She said that she really didn’t understand what I meant by that. I told her that I felt that at least two of my falls that I have had over the past five years were caused by my memory impairment.

Then I explained to her that my first fall was in April 2014 at the elementary school that I worked at. That fall was not my fault and I had no way of preventing it from happening. The second fall was in Feb. 2015. I feel that this fall could have been caused by my memory impairment. It happened on a winter day in a local gas station. I remember as I entered the gas station, there was a very thick black mat with holes in it, right as you stepped in the door. I thought to myself, “I better remember this is here or it is not going to go well for me.” The reason that I thought this way was because I had to step off the mat then walk towards the register. I thought that if I forgot to step up that there could be a problem. I was only a few minutes at the register, but on my way out the door I had forgotten all about the mat in front of the door. So instead of stepping up on it, I must have just caught it with my foot. Suddenly I went into the glass part of the door with my forehead. I ended up going to the hospital by ambulance and having many stitches.

My daughter said that she has forgotten things within a short amount of time so she doesn’t blame this fall on my memory problems. After I got off the phone with her, I remembered that I was diagnosed at age forty-seven, but my family and I could trace the symptoms back to age forty-one. I just hope that my daughter isn’t starting to have problems with her short-term memory like me.