while it may not be very germane, i think it's important that i tell you a little about myself before all of this started. That way, the contrast between who i am now and who i was before this began is more plain.

For the past year, i have been jobless and leading a very frugal and solitary existence. Frugal because i seldom purchase anything inessential, and solitary because i've had no social life to speak of. Instead i was spending most of my time reading, aimlessly browsing wikipedia, listening to radio dramas, and watching a small selection of youtube channels.

My reclusive mode of living might account for the absence of certain expected difficulties.

memory

my memory or, more precisely, my ability to hold and retain recently acquired information has suffered the most. Since memory is key to performing so many tasks, this hampers me in so many different things.

Examples (these are not "one-off" occurences. They are all regular, nor is this a complete list)

  • when preparing meals i leave cooking appliances turned on, forget that i'm cooking food, take out only one piece of bread when i need two
  • i often lose my train of thought
  • i can't remember what i was thinking about 20 seconds ago
  • i have to frequently look at the time
  • when showering, i can't remember which parts of my body i've washed
  • i can barely remember anything from the previous day
  • (even as i'm writing these examples, i'm thinking of things then forgetting them)

i could go on, but i think you get the idea. To put it more generally: The capacity of my memory has diminished and it vanishes faster than before.

Although not as disruptive, there is also evidence that my "long-term" memory has been damaged too

examples:

  • when doing routine tasks, i have to pause to remember where things like plates and cutlery are
  • i often struggle to recall the name of things.
  • i make use of more general words when i can't remember specific ones
  • i sometimes come across words that i've seen/heard many times before but their meaning escapes me. This has only happened a few times
  • the short cuts on my computer desktop are harder to find. The short cuts have been in the same place for months
  • i can't remember how to spell words

i just can't bring things to mind as quickly as i could before.

reading

reading is an activity that has definitely increased in difficulty over the last four weeks. As i mentioned earlier, i spend a great deal of time reading. During the last year, i would guess that the majority of my waking hours were occupied with said activity, and much of what i read was abstruse material across a range of subjects. As a result, i became a proficient reader.

This is in marked contrast to my current reading ability.

Now:

  • i have to consciously curb the speed at which i read
  • if the sentence is long, i have to read it several times before i can comprehend it.
  • i overlook punctuation marks, misread words, read the same line twice, lose my place, and constantly have to refer back to previous parts of the text.
  • it's especially irritating when i'm reading news articles that concern two or more different people, because i can't remember who said/did what.
  • i sometimes come across words that i've seen/heard many times before but their meaning escapes me.

understanding speech

i am having trouble understanding what people are saying. My hearing is fine, but i can't distinguish the words. Usually, if the sentence is long enough, i can deduce the unrecognized words from the context.

If people enunciate clearly while speaking, i don't have any problems. Strangely, accents don't seem to contribute to the problem.

mental arithmetic

any mental arithmetic involving more than a few calculations that require me to hold the result of previous calculations are now impossible for me.

Let me try to illustrate. Say i wanted to calculate 16x27.

To tackle this, i start by simplifying it.
The sum of 10x27, 5x27, and 1x27 is equivalent to 16x27 and much easier to compute.

Previously, i would approach it thus:

Multiply the larger number (27) by 10, which yields 270
to obtain 5x27, i would divide the result of 10x27 (270) by 2, giving us 135
and finally, add the numbers 135, 270, and 27 together to get 432

with my diminished mental capacity, the process is impossible because i simply cannot hold all of the necessary information in my mind.

You might say that one can cope by using a calculator or a pen and paper. While that is certainly true, the same can't be said of reading; writing; following instructions, conversations; learning new things, etc.

The deficiency is a problem in every mental function.

physical symptoms

most of these are related to the circulatory system and heart.

The most alarming physical symptom is the ever-increasing force or strength of my pulse.

While lying down, my head moves in time with each beat, making it difficult to find a comfortable position in which to sleep. I can also feel my jaw moving with each beat causing my teeth to move. I can balance something on my head while lying down and see it moving.

Not once has this subsided over the last 4 weeks, regardless of my mood or mental state.

There is a visible pulse in my superficial temporal artery, neck, and abdomen. It has grown progressively stronger over the last four weeks. The visible pulse in my neck and temples first came to my notice about 3 weeks ago. The abominal pulse has been there for four weeks.

My pulse seems to fluctuate between about 70-100bpm. I appreciate that 70-100 is not especially fast, but for someone who is thin, relatively fit with a good diet, it is a little high.

I have no idea what my pulse or blood pressure was before. I never had occasion to check it. But i can tell you with absolute certainty that the force of my pulse is much stronger than it was before.

I have fairly frequent palpitations for no obvious reason. I think they are of the "skipped beat" variety. There's a rising sensation in my chest as if my heart is expanding for a second or two, then it contracts and returns to normal. They usually come in episodes ranging in length from about 1-3 hours.

sleeping problems

i haven't been able to get more than 3 hours of continuous sleep for the last 4 weeks. I just wake up spontaneously. I rarely have any memory of actually waking up, just a vague sensation that i only recently awoke. I estimate that i've slept an average of about 3-4 hours each day.

I realize at this point that the damage to my brain is almost certainly irreversible. This has caused me great emotional distress. I try to pass the time by pacing around and listening to music, but i just can't stop thinking about this.