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Chemo brain is no joke. When I was diagnosed with cancer in late August 2018, I’d like to think that my baseline cognition was normal. Fast forward to my 8th chemo treatment (6 of Taxol and 2 of Adriamycin & Cytoxan), and my brain needs a lot more reminding than usual.
Here are some strategies I use:
Alarms
Phone alarms are an ever present part of my life now. It’s actually a little embarrassing how many recurring alarms I set on a daily basis. Alarms to leave the house for work, alarms to take my medication, and alarms to prepare for standing weekly videoconferences.
But just because I turn off the alarm and think “time to take my medicine,” doesn’t mean that I take the next step to go to the med box to actually take the medicine., which leads me to the next point…
Pill box
These are essential to setting up your medications accurately. The medicine routine can change daily and weekly, depending if you have chemo or not.
In my day job, I’ve taught people how to use pill boxes. Now I’m struggling to fill my big four time a day pill box independently. Perhaps you can have someone else fill the box for you. Some days, I couldn’t remember if I took my morning medicine, which I usually do just upon waking up so no alarm is set, and I’d check to see that I did take my medicine.
Calendars
Whether it is a paper or digital calendar, it doesn’t matter so long as you have a calendar and use it.
Calendars are a record of what is happening or not happening in your life. If you have a partner/spouse and/or kids who are old enough to enter their own information, then have them enter it.
Before cancer, I used to joke that if it wasn’t in the calendar, then I didn’t know about it. With cancer, I have become even more dependent on the calendar in regards to who has to be someplace, where that is, and who is taking them.
I’ve been asking my husband for years to put our family’s digital calendar on his phone, but it a few months of me having cancer to finally do so. He would ask me where someone needed to be, and I might not be available when he was asking.
Because our kids our teenagers, we are having them enter their rehearsals, practices, study sessions, and work schedules into the shared family calendar. We still have to remind them, but it’s been a good task for them to learn and takes things off of my plate.
Texts & Emails
Written communication has been most helpful to me if people are asking me for things in person. Back in my pre-cancer day, if someone asked me to do something, then I’d remember. That’s a bit hit or miss nowadays.
Now, I ask the to text or (better yet) email it to me. I prefer email because I can easily search for the message without having to read both sides of the text conversation.
Letting others know strategies that help you
Whether this be your family, friends, or colleagues, let them know that you need extra help to remember things. Let them support you when and however they can.
Our teenagers know that they need to physically bring myself or my husband any permission forms with a pen to sign right then and there instead of leaving it out for us to sign.
My daughter has sent me emails and left sticky notes on my phone when a payment deadline was quickly approaching.
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