User Answer of the Week: Cognitive Dysfunction Moment

This post from a reader actually brought tears to my eyes. This was a response to the question "What your the scariest, funniest or most annoying cognitive dysfunction moment?"

The Moment That Made Me Leave My Career

Before dx I was a pediatrician in a small rural town. I had been battling chronic vertigo and problems with memory (like remembering phone numbers) any time I was fatigued. After one hard call night I was so tired, but I had a very sick preemie. He began to have respiratory distress, something I had always handled easily, but I didn't even recognize the problem. Yes, I saw his dropping oxygen, but there was no realization that this was a crisis or that I should do something (like save his life). The RN stepped in to give him oxygen, and I slowly realized that I could not wrap my brain around the problem. I literally could not think it through or remember what to do, even though I had done it hundreds of times in the prior 20 years. Luckily it was during the day so I could hand him off to a colleague. I left medical practice then and there. I still break out in sweat thinking about that morning and still grieve for the career I loved so much. I would not be able to trust myself again.

Read other reader responses and leave your own: MSers Respond: What your the scariest, funniest or most annoying cognitive dysfunction moment?