When I started chemo, I was told that brain fog would be one of the side effects. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting but I really wasn’t ready for how stupid I felt. EVERYTHING slowed down. So much so that I couldn’t check off a long To Watch list that I was excited to delve into as part of my down time. It was a list of new shows, anime, foreign language films. I quickly learnt I couldn’t process new storylines or premises, much less read subtitles. So I went back and started rewatching some my favourites and to name a few:-

• X-Files
• Seinfeld
• Criminal Minds, all 12 seasons!
• The West Wing
• Breaking Bad
• The Walking Dead
• Modern Family
• Clone Wars and this got me to re-watch the entire Star Wars franchise to date!

It was easier to fall in and out of sleep with these familiar stories playing. While my synapses felt blunt, my memories were surprisingly all there. I was quite impressed at how much I could remember of my favourite episodes and laughed or cried at pretty the same moments. As I am coming out of my brain fog and starting to feel more like myself, I learnt from a year of re-bingeing – good stories and relatable characters are timeless. All good things can’t last forever and 5 seasons seems to be how long any concept should live before it becomes bad. Maybe not bad but not as good as it was. Also, while not everyone will agree with me, I reckon The Clone Wars was a really good extension of the Star Wars world and I wish we saw Darth Maul more.

With my parents home from Australia and their binge on all things local, I caught up on Singaporean TV too. This simply reiterated the fact that relatable characters will get you very time. Now that the fog is lifting and my brain is starting to click like it was, I’m going back to my stories, re-focusing them, pushing the characters and planning to get them told.

Watch this space … because another life lesson from cancer and chemo, just tell your story.

P/S: Streamers should have cartoons from the 80s and 90s on their platform too. Loads of new cartoon but hard to find the ones I grew up on.