Brain Tumor, Early Alzheimer's, or Am I Just Crazy?

That was the question I've been asking myself the past year or so...you see, my mind is not what it used to be. I find myself being more forgetful than usual, even forgetting why I went into a room when I go in, or forgetting things I've always known, important things. I've been doing funny things like starting to put my purse in the refrigerator before catching myself, or taking my laundry into the bathroom when I should go to the basement. I've stopped mid-sentence more times than I can count because I completely forget what I was just talking about, and usually can't get it back unless someone reminds me. I will be writing, and suddenly the word is backwards, or spelled wrong and I can't find it in my mind to correct it. The weird thing I began to notice is, it only happens in a moment, and then the next moment or day I'll be fine. I'll do okay on a test, but if someone asks me what was on it a day later, I wouldn't be able to tell them what it was even about. I could read a book or watch a movie and not be able to recount what happened, but I could still tell you how it made me feel. I know what you're thinking...everybody has these moments, and I totally agree, which is why I dismissed it in my mind as me being dramatic about something as usual. I thought I was crazy just to think I might be going crazy. The past year has really forced me to take notice of it, however, because it has reached a much higher level in a very short time. I have begun to have trouble speaking, or putting thoughts together, giving up on attempting any kind of intelligent conversations, altogether. In drum practices, I cannot count how many notes there are anymore, or determine the rhythm by seeing, only hearing. I have begun to actually put things where they don't belong or walk into the right room and think it's the wrong one, only to walk into a different room and have no idea what I'm doing until I just give up and do something else. I have had to stop writing because I cannot put a sentence together, or my mind can't even find what I'm supposed to be writing about. There are so many more things that just happen on and off, I can't even really explain it. It's been the craziest thing, and I finally gave in tonight and typed in these symptoms online to see what came up...I am so glad I did. This is the first thing that popped up: Dr. Warga identifies the "mind misconnect" syndrome that causes unsettling events during perimenopause and menopause, noting that they are not signs of imminent madness but a natural part of aging. She names this condition "WHMS: Warga's Hormonal Misconnection Syndrome." Sometimes it begins out of the blue with occasional slips of the tongue, meaning to say one word and unexpectedly hearing another pop out. Or when you realize that you, once a champion speller, aren't so sure anymore how to spell "potato" or "forty." Sometimes it begins with uncharacteristically forgetting important appointments or drawing unexpected momentary blanks -- total blanks -- when it comes to remembering your only child's or best friend's name, or how to turn on the computer you've been using for years. Sometimes with feeling mentally "hazy" "foggy," or "spacey" and not being able to clear things up though you need to be "sharp" at that moment. "What's happening to me" you wonder. "Could this be early, early, early Alzheimer's disease or a brain tumor?" "I'm losing it," women say. "I'm going out of my mind," "I'm falling apart at the seams." "I'm flipping out." "I'm cracking up." "I'm having a nervous breakdown," "I'm just not myself." "I don't know what's wrong with me." "I do the strangest things." "I think I'm getting early Alzheimer's." As you examine the following chart keep in mind that the symptoms below typically occur as brief come-and-go episodes within the context of a functional ongoing nondisabled life, not unlike the manner of hot flashes. THINKING CHANGES -Losing your train of thought more often than in the past -Forgetting what you came into a room to get more than in the past -Not being able to concentrate as well upon demand -Feeling foggy, hazy, and cotton-headed and not being able to clear it up at will -Experiencing a thought blockade: an inability to pull ideas out at will -Fluctuating agility in prioritizing as well as in the past SPEECH CHANGES -Naming difficulties for long-known names: children, best friends, things, places -Finding yourself at a loss for words in how to express something while speaking -Experiencing "It's on the tip of my tongue but I can't get it out" sensation -Making malapropisms: saying wrong words that are related some how to the intended one -Reversing whole words while speaking -Reversing the first letters of words while speaking -Experiencing "echo" words as unintentional intrusions into present speech -Relying on "filler" words more often: "whatchamacallit," "that thing," "you know what I mean" -Organizing sentences and ideas less efficiently while speaking CHANGES IN THE "BEAM" OF ATTENTION -Blinking social attention when interested and interacting: listening but not always attending -Blanking-out amnesia for what you just did -Experiencing increased distractability MEMORY CHANGES: SHORT- AND LONG-TERM -Forgetting what you just did, or past occurrences, with no threads of associationto getting back to what's missing: missing links -Changing certainty in how words should be spelled in once good or great spellers -Fluctuating agility in calculating and in "counting with a quick scanning look" -Experiencing changes in the speed and accuracy of memory retrieval -Forgetting the content of a movie right after seeing it but remembering your emotional reaction to it BEHAVIORAL CHANGES -Making behavioral "malapropisms": unintended slips in behavior that are related to the intended behavior somehow, such as putting shampoo inthe refrigerator -Forgetting briefly how to do things long known, such as where to turn on the computer -Feeling that automatic skills such as driving for a few moments are not "automatic" in the same way as usual -Dropping things more often that require fine finger/hand coordination -Absentmindedly, leaving out or reversing letters in words while writing -Forgetting how to write a word in the middle of writing and having to leave blanks -Experiencing "translating" hesitations in converting what's heard into writing -Not handling the same amount of stress in the same way SPATIAL SKILLS CHANGES -Changing skill in remembering and/or recognizing faces (not well-known faces) -"Looking at but not seeing" what you are looking for when it's right there ultimately, more than in the past -Changing reading skill in visually "seeing" and comprehending reading material -Spending less time reading, without difficulties above (for formerly heavy-duty readers) -Forgetting briefly how to get to long-known landmarks in your life -Experiencing familiar locales in one's experience as momentarily unfamiliar ALTERED SENSE OF TIME -Forgetting appointments more or not anticipating events of personal importance with the same accuracy as in the past -Forgetting important events in your personal history timeline, i.e., which breast you had biopsied -"Living more in the moment" out of necessity: a "spliced-film-frames" sense of personal time I have to tell you, I read through this article, and it was like my whole body melted with relief. First, my concern was legit. There really was a change in all these things, I wasn't just being dramatic. Second, it was caused by my hormones and not something much bigger, or much more fatal. Unfortunately, this means it is probably not going away any time soon. I have probably been going through menopause now for, roughly, four years. My body reminds me when my brain forgets, with hot flashes, and other fun things only middle-aged women are supposed to have to deal with, but this whole foggy brain thing is really putting a strain on things. I think it is time for me to look into some kind of treatment, whether it's a simple support group kind of thing with other young women who have gone through this before, or hormone replacement therapy, or, I don't know, but there must be something I can do. It says in the article that many women that show these symptoms are often diagnosed with ADD...I was just telling a classmate the other day that I think it's time to be checked for that because something is going on that goes a little past normal. You know what's crazy? I always believed I had hypothyroidism before I found out I had menopause, turns out I wasn't too off-base, the symptoms are very similar, and often women going through menopause often experience changes in thyroid functioning. Often menopause can leave you with other mental and physical symptoms like bouts of depression and leaving your body "bone wearying" tired. For those of you who know my lifestyle, neither of those things are really an option for me, but they tend to happen more than I ever let on. Basically, to sum all of this up, my hormones are kicking my butt right now, but I would take this over a brain tumor any day. Now, what was I saying again...... :)