Today is January 1, 2012. The first day of a new year. Happy birthday to my mom!
The month of December flew by. We celebrated Harry's birthday and Meegan's birthday. Kara was in a school play for Christmas that surprised us all. No mention of Santa, but a play about the gift of a savior given to the world. Wow, is all we could say! There were doctor visits, school vacation, other assorted activities and even a colonoscopy for me (two polyps found and taken care of). We ended the year with believers at a video training at the meeting hall. Christ was our celebration!
Now we start a new year and a few changes are being made. I have been doing the church books for several years now, but over the past several months I have been having the sense that I just can't concentrate like I used to. I find I forget things I would normally remember without any notes. If I don't write something down, I just let it fly out of my head. It's not that I truly forget it, but there is not the same sense of needing to remember it. So, I have asked to be released from bookkeeping because I am afraid I will make a costly error due to inattention. The brothers are putting in place another member of the Body who is a CPA and will keep the books for the church. That's a big weight off my shoulders.
That being said, I have started to consider what I think is happening to my head. I have spoken about that to several people and even asked my surgeon about my theory, but no one seems to agree with me, but... here's what I know.
Prior to my major fall and surgery earlier this year, I was not having any problems keeping up with paperwork/bookkeeping for the house, mom, and the church. I was able to do several things at once and keep more things to do in order in my head. I was amazing, ha ha!
After the surgery and the few weeks on pain drugs, I noticed my lack of concentration when someone was speaking to me and my inability to stay focused when I did computer work for the house or church. If anyone tried to speak to me, I would lose my place and would find it hard to get back in the flow of work. I am still finding I need everyone to leave me alone while I concentrate on what I am doing or else the bills won't get paid correctly.
So here's what I think... Because of the length of the surgery and the time I was under anesthesia and the weeks prior and after surgery I was on heavy duty drugs, my brain has lost some of it's cells. Drugs kill brain cells and I was on a bunch of them for some time. Because of my age, I am able to function but at a lesser ability. My brain is re-wiring itself to make my right arm move correctly, and because other brain cells were killed, my brain is having a hard time finding new routes to connect "what I know" to "how to do it." Because I have less active brain cells than a younger person, I have a more difficult time relearning stuff. I think the younger you are, the easier it is to bounce back because you have lots of unused brain matter waiting to be put to use.
I really can't believe the medical community does not know this happens to people. I guess if they told everyone, there would be less surgeries, therefore less big houses, boats, cars, vacations, etc. for the doctors and nurses doing these operations.
With this theory in mind, I consider my mother's situation. She has had two major surgeries in her later years. Both operations took hours and had many pain pills to follow. She even now takes pain pills to help with her artheritis needs. If drugs kill brain cells, the older we get the less brain cells we have to compensate for those we are killing off. My mother doesn't stand a change to have a functioning brain anymore.
Why didn't we think about this, know about this, when making decisions for surgeries and drug dosages. I know I could not have made a different decision about my arm, but I was not prepared for the "fallout".
Anyway, that's my opinion and maybe one day I will be proven correct.
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