testing: one, two, me

“Why are you here to have your memory tested?” “I forgot. –Joking!” Beginning of interview phase of neuropsychological testing for patient Gary Bowers, March 10, 2025

we had my pal marty on speakerphone/so he could give input on my cognitive issues

i described blanking out on names and forgetting i had done things

marty confirmed my argumentativeness/but said he’d learned to be more understanding/and i added “we both have”/and we agreed that my directional dyslexia/is nothing new

we bid marty farewell and thanks/i ended the call/ and dr. m commenced the testing

she did stuff like read a list of words/and have me recall as many as i could/in any particular order

then some numbers in strings progressively long

there was one segment involving making a sort of cryptogram transcription/of random-order letters of the alphabet

the worst i did was the test where i was shown an array of six shapes for ten seconds/and asked to draw them from memory

i sucked at that one

then she turned me over to her assistant e/who told me two stories and asked me to retell them/as accurately as i could

had me use blocks to reproduce two-colored designs

read me a list of paired words like “ice°cream” and “wood°fire” and then another list/and asked me which words had been on the first list

there was another list of paired words/and i was asked to describe how they were similar

“habit” and “tradition” were one of the pairs

and there was plenty of other stuff/and somewhere in there i found out/that I don’t know what the hell “pavid” means

the last and most fun thing was simply reading a list of words/that were increasingly unlike the way they were pronounced/and i was proud to give “hyperbole” the four-syllable treatment/and to add some french nasality to “piquant”

but the last word was a mideast (i think) doozy/whose last three letters were i d h/and i am sure i mispronounced it/but equally sure/that none of my fellow glendale high school class of 72 graduated/would get it right either

.

after the testing came feedback from dr. m/that filled me with jazzy joyous comfort

six words were especially thrilling

“there is no indication of dementia”