Addled

My friend, Katie, who teaches across the hall from me, is a self-professed hypochondriac. She cracks me up, because she has literally blocked herself from WebMD for over 10 minutes at a time, because she ruminates. When I tell her that my foot hurts, she will pop her head in after her planning period and let me know, "Well, maybe it's a blister. Or maybe it's an untreatable form of gangrene that's eating away at your mobility, beginning with your large muscles and eventually becoming a flesh-eating mutant fungus that will take your leg." WebMD always gives a hierarchy, beginning with the most probable and simple causes for the symptom, then getting into the fine print of the unlikely, usually reading something like, "Some people die from this within a matter of hours."

Well, Katie's attending to her own family's needs this weekend, so I had to use the symptom checker myself this evening, against my better judgment. It scares me to find out. You see, I think I'm going senile. I'm only halfway kidding. :-)
For someone who is terrible at math, I'm really, really good at spatial relationships. As in, I never, never get lost, and I don't need a map. It's a weird thing, but I rarely use street names, and can just sort of orient myself.
Until Friday.

On Friday, I went to get a cup of coffee about two miles from home. I was coming home, and there was a train whistle in the distance, so I decided to take a different route that would avoid the tracks and be a little bit farther, but not much. My word, an hour later, I was still trying to find my way back to civilization. It's a short trip from our house to the middle of nowhere, and that's exactly where I went. Even passed a llama farm! A llama farm!! I don't use maps, my cell phone had no coverage, and the majority of highways weren't marked that far out. Thought I never would get home! Eric laughed when I finally returned and said his thing about my brain being a fuzzy, fuzzy place....... the end.

Except it wasn't the end! Tonight, I left from choir to take my step-grandmother's birthday gift to her since her party was canceled. She lives in the south end of town, and from there I was going to go to the furniture store to look at bunk beds before they closed and the Derby sale ended. Using back roads, of course. No expressways for this girl!
Wow. I drove all over the South End. Into an industrial area, past UofL, up Eastern Parkway nearly to Bardstown Road, all around Six Flags.... It took over an hour for me to find the right street, and when I finally arrived, the furniture store was closed.

Aaargh! By now, I'm doing the math on the wasted time, the wasted gas, and the end of the Derby Day sale, and I'm getting annoyed. Then concerned. Then seriously concerned! This is what I'm good at! I don't use maps! Right?

So I finally made it home, and no one was here, and I gave into the temptation and looked up "dementia" on WebMD to see whether that could be the cause. I say that in all seriousness, because when Grandaddy got dementia, we would send him to the bank and not see him again for hours....and that's exactly what I've just done. Twice. I felt a little better by the time I got to paragraph 4, since I'm not 60 yet, and I stopped reading before I got to the part that tells me that this could be a tumor on my cerebral cortex that will press and press until I don't know where I am and I stop caring, besides....right before I realize that I only have hours left to live....

I did read the part about making an advanced directive, and I'll consider that....if I don't forget. I guess I'll break down and buy a map, too. I can't wait to ask Katie tomorrow what she thinks is wrong. :-)
Do you guys forget things, seriously? Tammy, I'm afraid for you to ask Steve....