The Brain Fog Blog

I’m currently sitting in my armchair with a heating pad wrapped around my hip, an ice pack velcroed around my neck, and a large “cooling pad” tucked into that neck ice pack to form a makeshift cone of chillness, which is kind of like a dog cone but for human adults whose musculoskeletal systems want to destroy them. Almost every part of me hurts, thanks to popping my shoulder out and then slipping on ice. I’ve had a rough couple of weeks. The muscles in my neck and shoulder on my left side scream bloody murder every time I move, and I’m stubborn as all hell so I still move around too much.

I’ve spent a lot of the last week or so laying in bed trying to do this “resting” thing I hear people speak so highly of. And I know I need it, but funnily enough restING just makes me restLESS. Wow I think that was poetry.

So I’ve been sitting here in my room for days now just staring at my laptop and trying to will myself to write, whether a blog post or a book chapter, I don’t care. I just wanted to write something other than just copying down quotes from X-Files that could be worked into our wedding vows. But I haven’t been able to do it. I haven’t been able to think about what to write, or find any words to describe anything that is happening in my life right now. Not that there’s a lot of indescribable things going on with me at the moment, I just don’t really have words in general. And I think I have brain fog to thank for that.

I don’t really mention brain fog very often so I don’t remember (ha) if I introduced you to this good friend of mine yet. I know it almost never gets added to my list of lupus symptoms, but it’s definitely a doozy for me and others with a wide range of chronic illnesses. It hits me pretty hard when I’m feeling generally unwell or full of fatigue. It’s kind of like fatigue but for my creativity. My brain just gets tired and wants to nap all the time, so it forgets words like “milk” and “deodorant” and it has made me put my keys in the freezer before. Brain Fog is like a giant blob of blahness that sits on my brain eating chips and reclining while the rest of my brain is trying really hard to work. And then the rest of my brain sees that Brain Fog gets to do fun lazy things like binge Netflix all day, so the functioning brain parts are then like “okay if he can do that then we are on strike too,” and it results in a total malfunctioning of my creativity and any of those brain muscles that are used to remember where I put things and what those things are actually called. I’m really good at explaining brain science. Anyway, it suuuucks, and the only cure is to read, watch New Girl, and do some crossword puzzles.

So while I was struggling with this inability to write sentences, I opened up a book of poetry and a poem told me that I need to write. The poem even told me that this poem was in fact the sign I was looking for to start writing again. Get out of my head, poetry book! So here I am, trying to write. But instead of writing an actual blog post, or book chapter, I am instead going to write a random jot note list of things I have done over the last couple weeks. I’m going to do it as an exercise to get my brain and my fingers used to typing words again and to also see if I can remember more than 2 things from the last 2 weeks. Also so that I will start feeling less like Nick Miller while working on his zombie novel:

In no particular order, the last 2 weeks have consisted of:

• Popping my shoulder out of place while giving my Feyoncé (this is now what I call Matthew) a high five.
• Spending a concerningly long amount of time trying to get my shoulder back in place with the help of Feyoncé, instead of being smart and going to the hospital.
• Reading a Swedish book about trolls.
• Having delicious homemade cinnamon raisin bread delivered to me by my awesome friend Steve. Steve is awesome.
• Taking lots of selfies from my bed using the snapchat beauty filter.
• Eating a pickle for the first time (at least that I can remember) and hating it.
• Upon realizing I could no longer use my arm, finally going to the hospital to see if I needed to have my shoulder popped back into place, then meeting a doctor who knew random Days of Our Lives facts and told me that my shoulder was in place which disappointed him because he really wanted to pop a shoulder back in place on that particular day. Then being told by said doctor that my muscles are super inflamed and guarded because of that one time I just really wanted to high five Feyoncé and it will take me about a month to recover from this high-five. High-five at your own risk, friends.
• Watching about 2 seasons of New Girl (againnnnn). (Best show ever). (I mean it). (I’m definitely not allowed to use brackets like this). (Doing it anyway!). (Eww double punctuation marks). (This is awful).
• Making pancakes.
• Reading every wedding ceremony reading that has ever been posted on the internet and still not finding one that is worthy of the ridiculous love I have for Feyoncé even though he will probably want to break up with me if he reads this and sees that I keep calling him that.
• Finding out that there is a Nordic Noir convention in Iceland where I can go and meet my favourite Nordic Noir authors, which is very exciting for future Lisa who can afford to travel to Iceland.
• Deciding that I will now be someone who puts drops of kool aid mix into my water to make my days more exciting.
• Hanging out with some dogs.
• Finding a cat in my house because I left the front door open for too long and then having to make the cat leave my house even though I just wanted to keep him.
• Opening a cupboard door into my face and hurting myself the exact moment Feyoncé yelled out to me that we will be missing Nathan Fillion and David Tennant at Montreal Comic Con this summer, so really my face and my soul were hurt at the same time.
• Having a gastroparesis flare up and barfing way too much again.
• Trying to convince Feyoncé that he should invite the entire cast of New Girl to our wedding as a surprise wedding gift for me.
• Slipping on ice and hurting the muscles in my hip and back because they probably felt left out from all the attention my neck and shoulder muscles were getting.
• Researching and finding a fancy, fashion-forward travel cane to take on my honeymoon.
• Getting the plane tickets for our honeymoon!
• Trying to find an email address for Lin-Manuel Miranda so I can write to him and ask him if he can get his Hamilton friends to comp us two tickets to see Hamilton on our honeymoon, but ultimately failing because you can’t just e-mail celebrities. Then wondering if I could get my followers to start a letter writing campaign to everyone from Hamilton so I can get tickets. But ultimately figuring that I shouldn’t use my AWESOME powers for selfish gains. (But I mean if you are in the mood to write a letter I will accept tickets anywhere between November 6-14^th. Thanks so much).
• Trying to convince Feyoncé to get me a puppy, but ultimately failing.
• Listening to every love song I can think of in an attempt to find a good song for our wedding ceremony and now I’m love song’d out.
• Starting a gratitude journal in which every day I write one thing I am grateful for and so far it only says “Matthew asked me to eat a pickle because they are some of his favourite food and I’ve never tried one before so I ate one and I didn’t like it but he told me he was proud of me and kissed me,” and “There was a cat in my house today.”
• Watching even more New Girl.

That’s essentially my life in a fairly long-winded nutshell. What a whirlwind! I can understand if you find it too hard to keep up with me and my busy schedule. I know you all must read this and think “my goodness she is just like Sarah Jessica Parker’s character in ‘How Does She Do it?’” I know, I know, I’m a powerhouse. I’m amazing for being able to balance so many things at once. I can even watch New Girl and colour in my adult colouring book at the SAME time. But don’t be jealous. You’ll get there someday too.