Confessions Of A Chemo Brain

A typical day in my life… with Chemo Brain.

I decide to water my garden.
As I turn on the hose in the driveway,
I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.

As I start toward the garage,
I notice mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys on the table,
put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back
on the table and take out the garbage first.

But then I think,
since I’m going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my check book off the table,
and see that there is only one check left.

My extra checks are in my desk in the study,
so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of soda I’d been drinking.

I’m going to look for my checks,
but first I need to push the soda aside so that I don’t accidentally knock it over.

The soda is getting warm,
and I decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the soda,
a vase of flowers on the counter
catches my eye – they need water.

I put the soda on the counter and
discover my reading glasses that
I’ve been searching for all morning.

I decide I better put them back on my desk,
but first I’m going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter,
fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote.
Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when we watch TV,
I’ll be looking for the remote,
but I won’t remember that it’s on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I’ll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers,
but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

So, I set the remote back on the table,
get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then, I head down the hall trying to
remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:
the car isn’t washed
the bills aren’t paid
there is a warm can of soda sitting on the counter
the flowers don’t have enough water ,
there is still only 1 check in my check book,
I can’t find the remote,
I can’t find my glasses,
and I don’t remember what I did with the car keys.
Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today,
I’m really baffled because I know I was busy all day, and I’m really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem,
and I’ll try to get some help for it, but first I’ll check my
e-mail….

I know we have all done something like this as part of the normal day's activities but it seems to happen more often and more extreme.