I know we don't usually discuss our birthdays on the Forum but I thought this milestone in my Life might be worth mentioning to All you understanding folks because you may be victims of Birthday " Brain Fog" too.
So , I'm 48 , why is this significant?
Well , if any of you have read my posts or replies over the last year you might have noticed that I have been saying that I am 48 for the last year!
Only , this morning , a day when your Family vengefully recognises your age in ever increasing numbers , did my daughter's remind me that I had completely ignored being 47.
I'm sitting having breakfast in bed , a bowl of yoghurt , a mountain of pills ( large enough that Skinny Johnny may choose to scale them for his next PMR/ GCA charity Hike!) and a morning brew, when I say casually to my girls , " Well only one more year to the big 50!"
Eric and Grandma looked at me with the usual smirk of confused amusement , "Mother you are only 48!!!"
I looked aghast , " I've been telling everyone I'm 48 all year ! What the heck! Flipping GCA !"
And then came another birthday revelation , Grandma ( as you know , my youngest girl is called) reminded me ,with a little too much relish , " It's not the GCA , you've always had Birthday " brain fog " you can't blame the drugs for that , that's all You!"
( You can go off people you know , if she wasn't in charge of making my Birthday Cake I would be tempted to send her into the garden and lock the door ...again!)
Eric ( the eldest) is now making the bed wiggle painfully as she rolls about it in hysterics , giggling,
" Happy Birthday You Woolly Headed Ninnymuggins!!"
I decided to use a "spoon" kicking through the duvet and throwing a pillow at them both as they tried to escape out of the bedroom door.
A big sip of coffee , and a little thought has made me come to write to You, the only folks whom truly understand the blight of the ' Brain Fog ' and ponder , is it just Me or have we all just blamed our fuzzy noggins on PMR and Pred when actually it's not their fault at all ? ( or at least not entirely!)
It's true , I have been useless at remembering my age since I was at least 23 ( or maybe 22!). Unless my birthday had an 0 , 1 or a 5 at the end it was always a Game if Chance if I got it right . And , since having the wonders that are Children , I have always had a gaggle of giggling offspring to gleefully remind me of my foggy memory on the matter of my age . I am that stupid too. I don't even manage to shave a year off my age , I usually add one or two on. Like the years aren't racing by fast enough!!
And how about all those other lapses in memory that plague us all. Is it just the PMR ? No , that has just added another ever growing cause for the Mind Malaise , it's made it more noticeable , because our Medical woes make us look out for signs of this Memory Mould , but in reality , bit by bit , Brain Fog has taken a bite out of us All for years.
Lost items , like spectacles , that end up being on your head. Keys , searched for in every bag or drawer only to turn up in your pocket.
Shop trips for milk , when you come home with everything but.
Walking through a doorway that seems to have the mind altering power of the River of Forgetfulness on the trip to Hades , and arriving in another room without the foggiest idea of why you went there, and then, only remembering why you took the trip when you sit back down again .
Forgotten appointments , wrong dates for days out , birthdays and anniversaries , or the worst form of memory loss of all , forgotten invitations to guests to call at your own house which are quickly covered up , after a concealed look of shock, as your friends pass through the door and you rush to the freezer to find an emergency entertaining meal.
Now , there was a clue years ago , and another one of my eccentricities. I have always had a freezer of emergency entertainment meals , and an emergency box of gifts and cards because like the Girl Guides I was always prepared , and unlike Elephants , I have always forgot.
It's one of those "Mummyisms" , along with "Birthday Brain Fog" that my Daughter's always spout affectionately that they love about Mummy.
And this is the answer to my question , is my ' Brain Fog ' just caused by PMR/ GCA and the much misaligned Pred? The answer is No!
I suspect the same can be said of all of us here too.
Over the years our forgetfulness was put down to many things . When it comes to the ladies , we may have blamed Pregnancy , Periods , PMT and the Menopause .
There's not a gent , who hasn't spent many hours circling the house looking for a variety of things , before finally giving in and asking their wives for assistance only to hear the well used phrase embarrassingly announced to One and All , " Oh, he'd forget his head if it wasn't screwed on!"
Busy lives were often blamed for acute bouts of "Mind Melt " and " Boggy Brain" , especially if we forgot to get something from the shop or that winning answer we always knew became a " Lost Dog" at a Pub Quiz or playing Trivial Pursuits.
And then there are the folks on here , like Me , who didn't begin the journey down the road of Chronic Conditions with PMR / GCA , but years earlier , with a building catalogue of Autoimmune , Autoinflammatory or Neurological Conditions that could put a Medical Thesaurus to shame. For us , the ever expanding Foam of Fog , has been taking over more and more of our Mental Acuity for decades with every new ailment and drug .
Even the Exercise and Health Junkies will admit they were sometimes beaten in Mind as well as Body over the years by getting Dehydrated , losing Sodium or not getting their Nutrition right. Well before PMR/ GCA had a bite!
Yes, in reality , every little chemical change in our bodies has been a distraction to our minds for years , at first an occasional blip , but even without GCA /PMR if we really look back on things Brain Fog was becoming an ever growing Blot on the Landscape.
So , today , now that I'm ......ERM...... 48!!!!
I am happy to admit , it's not just the GCA , the PMR , the Pred or any of the other things that afflict me . It's all of them and none !
It's Life , It's Biology , It's Me !!!
And it may make me want to drag my brain out of my skull with a knitting needle , throw it down the street and beat it with a stick ( not that my neighbours need any more reason to think I'm two fries short of a Happy Meal than me doing a Basil Fawlty on my Cerebellum !) but it makes my Family and Friends love me all the more.
So , today , I'm not going to celebrate my age , but my Brain Fog and all the happy times I have had , not just despite it , but because if it. Because being positive is the only way I know of surviving all the slings and arrows of this sickly life of ours.
Now , where did I put that remote control!!
Hugs and cupcakes to all you Woolly Headed Ninnymuggins , and may PMR/ GCA and all the rest be a distant memory for us all sometime in the years to come .
Auntie Bleary-eyed aka Birthday Bee xx 😘😘😍
Is varicella zoster (herpes zoster, shingles?) perhaps a partial cause of some PMR, GCA? Does it fit for you?
PMR and GCA - IS THIS A 'MAZE' !! ??
