Lynn has the most awesome memories of anyone I’ve ever known. He is the one you always want on your team for any trivia game. He remembers every little detail about any movie he has ever watched, can tell you what year and the date something happened, and if you think you’re right and he’s wrong about something that happened, give it up. He’s always right.
For those of you who might not be familiar with MS medical assessments, one of the tests they have you take is a memory test. It’s horrible, and when I listen in, I always give up after about the third set of numbers. There’s a man’s voice that calls out numbers, and what you have to do is add the first two numbers and get a total, then he calls out another number, which you add to the second number, not the total, to come up with a new total…see below…(totals are in () with the numbers being called out between the pluses)
1 + 5 (6) + 3 (8) +7 (10) +5 (12) etc.
It’s effortless to add the last number called out to the total, or if you are like me, you get behind counting the totals on your fingers. The test has 60 numbers to add that way. Lynn would usually miss only 1 or 2 and, many times, would get them perfect. He was amazing, but that is changing. The last few times, he hasn’t done very well. He says he hasn’t felt like trying, or he just isn’t as motivated to do his best, but I wonder if maybe he’s having more trouble remembering.
I’ve noticed that now I tell him something, he asks about the same thing a short while later. He recalls it if I make him think about what he asked or remind him of something, but it takes a while. I can no longer ask him to remember to tell someone something for me or to remind me because he may or may not think about it at all.
I sure hope it’s just his feeling bad after all those hospitalizations and his anemia, or maybe just the lack of brain stimulation. He still seems to have excellent long-term memory, yet a whiz at trivia, but he’s getting more and more forgetful. I know that if you don’t have a lot to stimulate you, your brain gets lazy, so I’m pushing him to work more on his books, and he’s doing some AutoCAD drawings, which is good for him. I hate to think that he might be losing some of his memory, along with his mobility. That’s scary. I guess only time will tell, but for now, I’m going to believe it’s just selective memory. That feels better.
