On Brevity - No Really

Now that I have MS, one of my major issues is that when I am talking to someone (or listening to someone speak or watching something on TV or reading something) if they don't get right to the point of their story, lesson, question, demonstration, etc. I will mentally take them to the finish line.

I make an educated guess at what they are talking about and what response they need or want from me, mentally tuck it away (if it is a work related or complex issue I jot it down on paper) and then my mind just sort of "leaves the building." I'm thinking about other things.

Is this fatigue? Cognitive dysfunction? Straight on brain damage? A little bit of all three? I don't know. What I do know it that this is really becoming a serious social issue for me in certain circumstances. It's hard not to look disinterested and therefore rude when you are not giving someone 100% of your attention. And not everyone I interact with knows that I have a chronic illness. I certainly don't advertise it. And as you can imagine that I don't want to make them think they have to try harder to capture my attention, or speak to me any differently.

So I have to pray for the occasional blessedly terse, strightforward speaker. Otherwise, I try to silently change the channel without offending. Maybe this is what happens with Alzheimer's. A person gets to the point where they change the channel, then they forget how to switch it back to where they started. So they kind of get lost in the static in between.