May I have a moment of your time?
You will sometimes hear people of ‘advancing’ years declaring they are having ‘a senior moment’.
These ‘senior moments’ often refer to a temporary mental lapse where they momentarily forget something such as someone’s name, or not being able to remember why they went into another room. They might have difficulty finding the right word to say, misplace their glasses or just draw a blank.
The phrase ‘senior moment’ is often used to make light of gaffes or lapses. The phrase is also quite ageist because it stereotypes older adults.
But clearly it isn’t just older people that experience these moments. The loss of memory and the inability to think clearly is something you will experience as a cancer patient.
Cancer treatments and their late-effects can lead to ‘cancer moments’ and these manifest themselves in very similar ways to so-called ‘senior’ ones but affect people of all ages. They are the opposite of a eureka moment, a Hollywood moment or a Kodak moment.
Cancer moments are commonly referred to as brain fog or chemo brain but they are not exclusively related to chemotherapy but sometimes the cancer itself and other forms of treatment.
You don’t pick and choose your cancer moments, they choose you and they seem always come at an inopportune time. Some might even be watershed moments you’d rather forget. Don’t worry though, you probably will.
Personally, I have suffered from cancer-related cognitive changes over the years and still do. These cancer moments aren’t necessarily things that upset my day in any significant way but they can and do get on my nerves. I realise I’m not as sharp as I once was and I do make more mistakes than I used to. When they happen, I really don’t feel like seizing the moment.
Not everyone will experience cognitive dysfunction or getting caught in the moment because we all have different cancers and different treatment regimes but many patients do and they can be annoying and embarrassing but sometimes endearing. They are also normal so don’t worry if you do experience them. Some cognitive changes might only be very subtle ones.
Cancer moments come in all shapes and sizes too and the mental cloudiness you experience will vary.
For example, you might find your attention span is shot to pieces and you can’t focus for long or you get mixed up easily and fatigued faster than you did.
You might find multi-tasking more of a challenge, you take longer to do something, you don’t process information as quickly as you used to or you are disorganised.
Cancer moments can be hard to manage and they can affect your confidence levels. Things can be especially hard when you do have a cancer moment and other people around you aren’t aware of your health status. Their reactions might not always be positive or understanding but keep in your mind that it isn’t personal even though it will feel like it.
Cancer related cognitive impairment is worrying because you do begin to wonder whether your memory, concentration and how you think will always be affected. No one knows. As treatments tail off, cancer moments might also tail off too but it is very individual. After 16 years of on and off treatments, I still get cancer moments but I don’t let them get in the way of life. One thing is certain with cancer, there’s never a dull moment.
The worry, stress and anxiety of cancer moments can make things worse so I try to just let things go and accept that this is part and parcel of my treatments. Even in the thick of a cancer moment, we have to live for the moment.
One important point though. Whether you experience ‘senior moments’ or cancer moments, what is certain is that everyone else on the planet experiences ‘brain glitches’ and moments of forgetting and these are related to a whole range of other factors such as lifestyle choices, sleep quality, medications, environment and more. For example, depression, anxiety, and fatigue can adversely affect cognitive functioning in healthy and ill patient populations.
I suppose my message is this: don’t be so hard on yourself if you are having a cancer moment. The chances are, the person you pass in the street is also having a moment too and it won’t be anything related to cancer but 1001 other things that go into being human. The bottom-line is, we all have moments and every moment counts because we are all in the moment.