Screaming and My Heart

I wrote this to my dear friend this morning and it is better to share this partial part of the letter than to try to write it all over again.  So, here is my heart today:

Two nights ago Doug had to wake me up because I started screaming and screaming and screaming.  He said he was terrified because it was like I was being murdered.  He had never heard that scream come out of me before.  Apparently Leif ran up from his room on the other side of the basement because he thought something was happening to Grace whose room is right above his.  I wasn't scared when I came to and I had no idea why I was screaming.  I woke up to Doug saying it was okay and that he was there and i was safe.  I didn't feel unsafe and I wasn't even shaking!  Last night though, I was afraid to go to sleep because I had upset Leif and Doug so much and I didn't want it to happen again.  I was very restless.  I kept praying and trying to remember the Lord's Prayer but I could only remember half of it.  I think you're the only one I am being a hundred percent honest with about this at the moment.  Doug worries and hovers so much.  I'm not complaining.  I feel very close to him.  Leif cried to me the other night which was on Sunday.  I think Sunday.  Did I say I could barely times 2.50 x 4?  I couldn't remember how to do it and Doug and Leif had to help me.  It's like when I tried to count a dollar and eight cents.  I am so internally frustrated.  It's crazy that I can type or write much easier than I can speak or keep my train of thought when I speak.  I will say it takes me a very long time to write or type because I do get lost in what I'm trying to say.  But, it is much easier.  I have a whiteboard that I write the date and day on every morning with the days activities and I can only look at one calendar now because I get very confused.  I did go to Zumba on Monday and that felt very good.  I don't really feel humiliated by not being able to do the things I used to.  It's odd to have my physical health despite some awkward movements sometimes while my mental health seems to just be flying out the window.  

Sometimes I feel normal until I see people's faces or see my family trying to hold a laugh in or help me by going behind me to put something in the proper place.  I see Doug watching me or noticing that I notice or get lost and then he tells me it's okay.  I feel like I have dementia now.  I can't ignore it.  I know that I have no tumor and I know that I have no lesions or shrinkage in my frontal lobe.  I also know that certain forms of dementia don't show until your autopsy.  I think I would rather have Alzheimer than Lewy Body Dementia or Vascular Dementia.  I feel like your one card and letter came at a good time and I am thinking of things you and Kate can do should what I feel is happening is happening.  I do feel afraid and I do think about buying many cards for my kids and husband for some special occasions and writing to people to tell them how i feel about them. Making sure they know how I love them so.  I've been making sure I am right with God and talking to Jesus.  I have been going to church and talking to my kids.  Lance is the hardest.  Leif, Grace, Doug and I went to a Polynesian church of the Nazarene this past Sunday and that is where I want to go.  You wouldn't believe the beauty of the singing and the lively worship.  I feel alive there and Doug loves it.  Grace says it is too loud but I know that she will be loved there.  I feel very strongly that this is the place we need to be.  You would love it so much.  I feel free to worship loudly or as soft as I want to there.  The preaching was outstanding.  I'm sure you do know because of the people you met in Hawaii.  I just love it.

It feels odd to be thinking on these things and to be putting things in some sort of order.  I don't mean to depress you or sound dramatic.  This is my reality right now.  I'm not too young for this and there must be a reason that I had that event.  If not too just make things known.  Perhaps I did have a "mini stroke".  Often they can set things off like this.  And, that stupid brain injury.  Consequences for sin and mistakes.  Not a punishment.  A consequence.  I don't feel sad about that.  I've been living with it since I was 19.  I can tell you that this isn't that.  It is that times I don't know how much.  Things just drop from my mind.  I can't recall them and people try to fill in the blanks which frustrates and agitates me.  I need to be in quiet to be able to concentrate on what I am trying to type or post.  I don't say much to anyone in my family because Joye has breast cancer and I will not absolutely will not intrude on this.  My heart is just breaking all over the place.