Dyslexia of thought

I didn’t find out that I was dyslexic until I was in my second year of accounting in college; no wonder I was having a tough time of it. I’m sure that studying might have helped; although it never seemed to do much for my roommate, as we both got about the same grades. I spent my time at the student union building shooting pool while Alan was hunched over his books under those rotten fluorescent lights in the dorm. After each test we would compare results and it ticked him off that my grade was better. I found out that my dyslexia had some rather interesting side effects; something my accounting professor pointed out. At the bottom of a row of numbers to calculate; my answers would constantly have to be recalculated to balance out, the error being divisible by 9 each time. That was the clue; I was inserting the numbers backwards, 45 for 54.

I quickly decided that accounting was not a good profession for me; however, locksmiths work with lots of numbers too so I just have different issues to deal with. I was going to cut a key from code the other day; the information was numerically lined up with each cut designated as per its depth and spacing along the key blade, 245353. I cut the same wrong key, 243535, exactly the same wrong cuts in the same wrong places 3 times before I was able to talk myself through it at a much slower pace. Life can be frustrating at times.

Another interesting part about dyslexia is that I do the same with letters while typing. When I typed in 45 for 54 a moment ago it came out “fro”, something that was easily corrected on the fly. There are lots of “wrods” (words) I cannot spell without relying on spell checker; but the simple everyday ones are almost as big a challenge. I am now finding out that I also do the same thing with entire words every now and again.

I wrote a comment to a blog the other day and compared the author's logic to that of the one used in the “Give me Liberty or give me death” speech. I had the text in front of me as I wrote my comment; all the same when it came time to assign its author, even with the name Patrick Henry in front of me I typed in Thomas Paine and I was unable to pick up on it. I had also been reading in “Common Sense” and the name hit the electronic page and was off and gone. It wasn’t until the next day when a return comment pointed out the error. If it happened only once I could call myself ignorant of facts; but this happens all the time. Gosh, I wonder if this is CRS or just pre-Alzheimer syndrome.

I already wear some fairly expensive hearing aids, no line trifocal glasses and my joints hurt most of the time. My kids make fun of the halo appearing where robust hair at one time covered the back of my head. If I start having to get up three times a night for trips to the bathroom; well, that all “Depends”. The up side is I Yoda without trying talk I can.