EvC Forum: How to let people show their ... stupidity?

RAZD writes:

As someone who has experience "chemo-brain" - the adverse effect on mental activity due to the chemical medications taken (made me more like common folk?

) - I can sympathize with someone saying something that did not come out entirely as conceived, however in that case one should not be driving the bus.

Hi, RAZD.

I'm all too familiar with chemical brain, though not chemo brain.

An auto accident eight years ago left me with cervical spine and leg damage, treated with bone grafts and titanium braces in my spine, treatment with steroids, potent anti-inflammatories, etc.

Complications due to these drugs in turn led to GI issues requiring further surgery (and additional complications) and drug therapy: Six trips to the OR in the past two years, and a (hopefully) last major operation in a few months to remove a considerable amount of damaged intestine.

After startling moments of emotional lability and disinhibition (there are subjects I cannot discuss without sobbing--the subjects appear to be random, including, of all things, sidewalk chalk), I was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury.

At times I am taking as many as a dozen different drugs--opiates, anti-seizure meds, combination antibiotics, steroids, anti-virals, and so on. Sometimes I have difficulty remembering which drug side-effect another drug is supposed to remedy, and it feels like I am nestled like a Russian doll in outer shells of drugs, like capsules inside capsules.

Presently I am recovering from a major shingles eruption (I bet you are familiar with that), but feel more myself, now that I am down to a half dozen drugs and tapering off opiates, neurontin and prednisone.

I'm sure other members here have noted the emotionally labile behavior (though they couldn't hear me sobbing) as well as the disinhibition and clouded thinking. The impulse to explain to others that what they see at those times are injury, illness and drug effects--not the native me--is strong...as you can see.

Sorry, all, if that is TMI. I've become socially infamous locally for saying what pops into my mind at the most inauspicious moments.

All of this is my way of saying I understand, if not the experience of your cancer, at least your struggle to regain the dream of health and the need to measure the cost of regaining it.

Your frankness and determination have encouraged me these past few years. Thank you.

{Ding-dong meant to post the above as a reply to this message at another topic. - Adminnemooseus}

Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.

Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner etc.

I know there's a balance, I see it when I swing past.
-J. Mellencamp

Real things always push back.
-William James

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