Let’s be honest, we’ve all had plenty of cringe-inducing moments that keep us awake at night when you most need the sleep. Much as I would like to say otherwise I am no different in this respect. However where I differ from the norm is that I can blame these horrendous instances on my disability, or more specifically the so-called “brain fog” that plagues people with various chronic illnesses.

As a member of a small team in the workplace I grew accustomed to the little quirks and idiosyncrasies that would make us the perfect subject for a sitcom, were it not for the fact that this idea has been flogged one too many times. Organising a table tennis tournament for one lunch break has been one of my least serious assignments, but being asked to arrange a “cheese day” takes the biscuit (because nothing goes better with cheese than a nice selection of savoury biscuits). For cheese day we are all required to fetch different cheeses to work, and during the team meeting we’ll all enjoy samples of them all, which for an office is an undeniably weird thing to see displayed on the calendar.

Imagine my embarrassment then, when I realise that I had not sent the email invitation to my colleague, but instead had sent it to someone else of the same name in my address book. Fortunately he had an excellent sense of humour about it and is now considering implementing a cheese day in his own office. So if cheese day goes viral, you know who to blame; parents who give their children common names.

I am particularly afflicted with brain fog first thing in a morning, which makes taking my morning medication rather interesting. The most common problem arises with a tablet I take both in the morning and at night in different doses. If I get them the wrong way around, taking the larger dose in the morning rather than the evening, I will spend the rest of the day in a drowsy stupor. This having occurred on a work morning means that technically I have been to work while high and got away with it, a claim that some would use the term “badass” to describe.

Perhaps more worrying was the occasion when I tried to inhale my nasal spray through my mouth, which was a somewhat interesting experience.

While living in halls of residence at university the fire alarm being set off at unthinkable hours by drunk people trying to use toasters was a very regular occurrence. When the fire alarm exploded into life at 2 am in my first week away from my parents I wondered why my dad hadn’t switched the burglar alarm off, which would occasionally go off at night when a spider crawled across the sensor (and never when someone was trying to break in). This is despite the fact that the fire alarm sounded completely different, was much louder, and included a red flashing light on the ceiling for those who couldn’t hear the alarm. Needless to say I was one of the last to arrive at the convening point as we were evacuated.

There is also the story of how this photo came to exist:

Discussing brain fog with a few online friends an accidental misreading lead to brain fog being substituted with brain frog in all of our messages. Given that for some strange reason I have a plushie toy frog (I still have the inventively named Croaky) it didn’t take long before dad took this photo for me. Selfies were harder back then.

By the way, if this becomes a meme the extra publicity is much appreciated.