Is it difficult to learn something new while living with a memory impairment?

(Chapter 21 Learning Something New in my book)

In 2005 at age forty-seven I was diagnosed with EOAD -Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease. A few months later a second neurologist changed my diagnosis to mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In 2014 a third neurologist sent me to have a neuropsychological evaluation which confirmed the MCI diagnosis. I am now sixty-one. For me learning something new is very difficult and sometimes impossible.

In 2017, my daughter was pregnant with twin daughters, I decided to crochet two baby blankets. I don't think that I had crocheted in over twenty-five years or more. I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to follow a pattern. With MCI, it doesn't just affect my memory, but also my comprehension. I started looking at patterns online. I wanted to find one that I really liked but that was not that complicated. I narrowed down the patterns that I liked and I found an online video for one of them. I found a crochet hook and a ball of yarn and I practiced the pattern to see if I could do it. Having the video was very helpful. I had to keep pulling out rows and redoing it until it looked great. On a piece of paper, I had to write part of the pattern and I checked off each row as I finished it. This helped a lot. The next step was picking out the yarn for the baby blankets. I was so happy that I was able to get this done and my daughter loved the blankets. I even decided to crochet some blocks and the babies loved them!