Slipping Cogs – Massive Disconnect Between Brain and Speech (“Chemo Brain”)

Dr. James Abraham used positron emission tomography, or PET, scans to understand differences in brain metabolism before and after chemotherapy.

I think my cognition and mental acuity has improved since peak chemo and radiation, but I still find massive disconnects between my interior dialog and what I type on the screen.

In my head, I think fully formed and discrete sentences. As someone who scored nearly an 800 (perfect score) on the SAT Verbal, I prided myself on my spelling, grammar, and syntax.

Since nearly 4 years of Chemo on an equal number of chemo protocols and radiation therapy, I find that what I think is not always what I speak or what I type.

I’ve been trying to build buffers and safeguards into both my email and my web browsing. I use Grammarly and Microsoft Editor heavily, but sometimes I overlook or ignore the errors when it warns me “what you typed doesn’t make sense.”

I really need to slow down, type, read what I typed, take a deep breath, pause, and READ. IT. AGAIN.

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2 years ago

Yes, focus on the here and not on the future.