Chemo brain and young kids

[sean]

If you have a young child to care for and are on chemo, please read my post from today on the "pale green pants" thread. In short, don't assume you can care for a young child if you are exhibiting any signs of "chemo brain". For me the warning signs over the last 2 weeks were:

transposing phone numbers
forgot to fill in the last 4 of my ssn on a form
took a wrong turn on the way to chemo and didn't realize until much later
can't think of words - oddly I know how many syllables are in the word I am thinking of and usually come up with one that is close but wrong
burnt soup by setting a burner I always set to 5 to high
used timer to avoid burning soup and would come back to find burner off
fine at comprehension, but my logical reasoning has been impaired - something I've noticed as a computer programmer

I met a woman yesterday in the chemo room (Angelina) who is doing Folfox too (she also as Avastin I think) has had a similar chemo brain experience with the loss of complex reasoning. Her number issue was that she couldn't remember her house number - she knew the digits, just not the order.

I scheduled an appointment with my doc friday because it was getting so obviously bad and I seem him tomorrow. Oddly a neighbor gave me this NY times article on Sunday:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/health/29chemo.html

I don't feel at all as if I'm in a fog - more like I'm loopy on percoset (used on Neulasta bone pain days). On the bright side, I'm stupid but happy and thankful that my daughter wasn't hurt.

[irish]

OH my goodness -- THANK YOU!!! I am glad to know there is a term for the fog I was in since the first treatment. I started the fog on Wednesday (drip was on Wednesday) thought I was getting sick or just tired. The fog started to lift on Sunday.

[Guest]

Me too
A coulple of week ago I went to port St Lucie 2 hr away from my home and on the way back my son remided me of my purse even gave it to me in my hands
and Belive it or not I still left it in Port St Lucie All I can do is laugh about it Then I went to my Dr and she called it Chemo Brain she says that a common side affect.

[Magnolia]

This is making me rather nearvous about going back to work. I'm using all the cheats I can, but I still want to feel at the top of my game. I read an article about chemo brain with pictures of PET scans of brains affected compared to those unaffected. At least there's proof this is real. I'm not sure how induced airheadedness is better than natural airheadedness, but I feel better having an excuse. I think employers and coworkers may be a bit more patient as well. It's really kind of sad. If I were born this way, I wouldn't get any breaks. Chemo makes me this way, and I get at least some accomodation.