The Guggenheim Incident, or My Adventures in ChemoBrain
April 4th, 2011
My chemobrain seems to be improving in most areas of my life. I can concentrate better. I recall details more accurately. I even keep some ideas in my short-term memory. Each time this happens, I notice. It’s a fist-pumping triumph.
However, I continue to struggle recalling faces. I led a seminar a few months back. A student who I have known for over a year attended. She had been out on maternity leave, so there had been some break in our contact. My brain could not put her name and face together.
It felt painfully obvious to me. When I teach, I tend to use people’s names to facilitate conversation. I had to look at her and say “you” a lot, internally distressed at not pulling up her name in my brain.
Afterwards, I checked with another student, “Was that Liz?” I was assured that it was, and I went up to Liz and explained my embarrassment at blanking on her name.
If you knew me better, you would know how completely uncharacteristic this is. At my 20th high school reunion, the organizer forgot to get name tags. I offered my Facial Recognition Services to my distressed classmates. I stood in the corner with a number of people, discreetly helping them link high school names with middle aged faces. I had nearly perfect recall of the name-face link for people I hadn’t seen in years.
So this new handicap is a big change for me. I am trying to figure it out. One strategy I’ve developed is to make a deliberate study of new faces, talking aloud their distinctive qualities and then saying the names that goes with them.
Without that, my recognition is a bit of a crapshoot.
The worst experience I’ve had so far with prosopagnosia happened a few weeks ago at the Guggenheim.
After a lovely afternoon of modern art, I went to pick up my coat and bag. There was a long line at the bag check, and I was preoccupied with the subway map. I absentmindedly handed my tag to one of the men working behind the counter, and after a minute or two, looked up again.
“Did you hand me your tag?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah. I think so.”
“Are you sure it was me?”
“I’m pretty sure,” I answered, the dreaded doubt seeping in.
As we muddled around in this confusion, the actual man I handed the tag to came forth with my bag. I looked from the first man to the second. They were both tall African American men with shaved bald heads, but their faces were quite distinct. The first had a brush mustache, and the second had thick round glasses.
“Oops,” I said, realizing my mistake. “That’s just terrible.”
The first man looked pained and answered me pointedly. “Yeah, you’re right. That is terrible.”
He took the tag of the next person in line, and I rushed off with my bag.
I felt awful knowing that our agreement about my mistake being terrible came out of different understandings of my confusion.
I was ashamed that I couldn’t see the mustache versus glasses. He assumed I was a racist.
I wished I could tell him about blanking when Liz returned from maternity leave. Or chemobrain. Or any number of embarrassing things that would ease his judgment of me.
But the moment was gone.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 4th, 2011 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Survivorship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Stuff like this happens to all of us. I love your last line, “but the moment was gone.” Well, life is full of moments isn’t it? Some we wish we could take back and redo, but…
Maybe the lesson here is to remember when somebody does something like this to you, they might be having “one of those moments” and we should cut them some slack too. Great post.
i think that’s exactly the lesson, nancy. i think before i had cognitive difficulties, i couldn’t really understand how much it changes everything, down to how you interact.
Babe, I managed to flood my basement once because I forgot to turn off the water in the bathroom sink when I was rinsing out a pair of stockings… Had to spend the next several hours mopping, shop-vacuuming, fixing the dehumidifier, plugging in space heaters, etc., etc. to dry things out. Just how I wanted to spend a precious day off in the midst of cancer-related-fatigue, too. Sigh. As far as names go, I don’t remember any of them anymore. But I’ve taken to just admitting it right up front to save anguish! The hell of it is I can remember usually everything else about the person EXCEPT for their name. So, I just tell them that & get on with it!! Oy. Hugs, sistah.
that is an awesome adventure in chemobrain. not funny at the time, but makes a great story now. hugs back atcha.
Oops… That is awkward, but then I’m inclined to just continue to step in it. I might have said, “I had chemotherapy for breast cancer and it causes something called chemo brain. Ask my husband, I only recognize him about 30% of the time!” I sympathize.
XOXOXO,
Brenda
i know! i was so stunned, my words failed me. i hope people can learn more about the way healthy looking people might have cognitive troubles that have nothing to do with how we feel about them!
This posting really hit home for me. I had intense chemobrain during and after treatment, but it still lingers to this day, 10 years out. I used to have a phenomenal memory, but my short-term memory is kaput. I need a scheduler and must create constant reminders to myself of when I need to go to an event. Add menopause into the mix, and…well….it’s not so nice.
But I still have good skills, so I try to focus on the positive rather than dwell on what I don’t have.
This is such familiar territory, and you’ve described it with such eloquence. It’s over two years out and I’m still so terribly grateful for post-its. I have a collection of little notebooks to jot down reminders, which really help – except when I forget where I put them. If I worry about it, it can feel terrifying, so I’m trying to enjoy the humorous side. I’ve reached the point where I have no shame about it, and tell people sorry, my memory is shot, please remind me of your name, what we were just talking about, etc. We all manage to contribute enough pieces of information to accomplish the task at hand. You are not alone in this. xoxo
Oh, I’m so sorry. That must have been really awkward.