I once left my cell phone in the refrigerator. And my car keys in a bathroom cabinet. Sometimes while talking, I lose my train of thought—my brain just goes blank and I stop in silence, on occasion never recalling where I was headed with my words. I call it chemo brain, an often-misunderstood condition characterized by mental fogginess, a result of toxic drugs that sail through the veins of cancer patients. John calls it normal. We all do wacky things with our cell phones now and then, he says. He just went on a wild search for his the other day before realizing it was strapped to his side. Chemo brain? He doesn’t think so. He might be right. In my case, at least.
Two recent studies suggest that chemotherapy is not the cause of memory and concentration problems in breast cancer patients, like me. The stress of diagnosis, not the drugs, is to blame for my forgetfulness, say researchers, who found that most women with breast cancer had slight issues with attention and learning skills before chemotherapy. Chemotherapy resulted in only a minor slowing in thinking speed—just 10% developed cognitive issues during the treatment.
Perhaps this is all true and my excuse for all things forgetful has just flown out the window. That’s OK. I’m fine with being a little cloudy without medical reason. What’s important though, is this: Breast cancer patients could be making decisions about whether or not to have chemotherapy based on stories they’ve heard about chemo brain. And that’s scary. These studies will hopefully convince folks that it’s likely diagnosis alone that messes with the brain, not the life-saving drugs that help us survive.
The message here: If your doctor says you need chemotherapy, get it. Worry later about your cell phone, your car keys, your memory lapses. Think of it this way: You should be so lucky to have a scattered head some day down the line. It will mean you’re alive.
I love the new look to your blog.
I just wrote a post (and e-mailed a bunch of bloggers) about my recent diagnosis and have been receiving such wonderful feedback. I am even thinking about chronicling my journey about breast cancer in a new blog, but haven’t yet got it up and running.
I don’t yet know if I will have chemo, but happen to be a bit forgetful sometimes. I told my husband about chemo-brain last night and we had a good laugh about it. It is nice to laugh in the face of diversity!
Hi Jacki, let me start by saying I think you are providing an incredible service to so many by writing this blog. We often recommend it to our cancer clients who are searching for some additional online support.
I work for Maximum Capacity: Strategies for Cognitive Enhancement, a company devoted to helping people improve the way they think, feel and function. In fact, we offer services to suit those experiencing cognitive decline as a result of cancer diagnosis and/or treatment. The overwhelmingly positive responses we have received from participants has been outstanding.
Our evidence-based programs were developed by company Founder Dr. Heather Palmer (Ph.D. Neuropsychology), who has over 20 years of scientific and clinical experience in the area of brain behaviour relationships. She is a firm believer that the brain has the capacity to develop new connections between brain regions and that through proper training we can regain cognitive skills once thought to be lost for good.
We would love to write an info article for you on how to cope with “chemo brain”. We would also be happy to write an article for you on how to interpret research findings, as there are many things to consider when reading the data, and sometimes media reports can be misleading (for example we don’t think that the one research study you quote in your “no excuses” article is sufficient evidence that chemotherapy can be ruled out as a contributing factor to ‘chemo brain’ – although we certainly prefer the term ‘brain fog’).
Check us out at http://www.maximumcapacity.org. We’d love to work with you!