Sunday, January 9, 2011

Pump Head

01/09/2011 Pump Head
So I guess I have been in a writing mood lately because I think this is the third day in a row that I have written, usually I start out reading friends blogs and commenting, but lately I have been riding a lot-and when I ride I get lots of deep thoughts and this is sort of the therapy.
So from the heart transplant surgery I got developed this condition (that will go away over time) called pump head-that's it's real name-you can look it up on wikipedia, isn't it such a vulgar name? Basically what it is, is memory loss-of different kinds (short and long term) caused by the surgery-when I was on the heart lung machine. There are many theories what actually goes wrong with the pump, one of the things is that your red blood cells are crushed when they go through the pump and are ruined-but there are many other theories.
Anyways-I am talking about this for a reason. For awhile I have noticed that it is so weird the things I actually am remembering/remember. I have forgotten many things from my long term memory, it somewhat feels like I have a slight amnesia-I know the basic things like my name, family, etc. But some things that I expect myself to remember I am not remembering. They kind of catch me off guard because I just don't expect it and I am always surprised.
I have gone to church for my whole life and this morning we were singing songs in church that I have sang my whole life, but I could not remember the words, I had to read them from the screen. It was it kind of made me all the sudden evaluate my life and what I really value. I am having no problem telling people about medical crap-sorry, but I can real off a whole load of stuff, it took me 2 days to remember 20 medications I had never heard of (the dosage, why I took them, and when I took them, etc.) (and I am not just talking about knowing medications-I am a nursing student so just knowing about general stuff going on) but I totally am forgetting verses that I have always known-I just draw a blank.
I know it is important to know about my health, but it made me think that I also need to put a lot more time in reading the word. It is so weird how it took this pump head to figure this out.

3 comments:

  1. Great post!!

    I think I've figured out that it's not memory loss. What I think happened was that the re-partitiononed my brain during surgery, kind of like a computer. Most of the old stuff is still in there, but it's behind a wall and manages to sneak though the cracks a little at a time.

    It is amazing what we remember, what we forget .... and maybe at times what we bury as well.

    At least I can use "old age" as an excuse.

    Thanks from one "pump head" to another!!

    Hugs

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  2. Yes, I also think things got repositioned in my brain and I still have to figure out where everything is!

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  3. Quilt raffle. I didn't make it, my son's 7th grade class made it to raffle off to help with some medical bills since there is so much our insurance doesn't pay for.

    Because of gambling laws, and how picky the NTAF is, we aren't supposed to sell tickets online. It would be 100 times easier on my end if we could

    If you'd like to buy a ticket through snail mail you can find more info about it here....http://long-roadahead.blogspot.com/2008/12/you-gotta-have-heart-quilt-raffle.html

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