Joan posted on Facebook this past week that one of the elementary school pupils she has been tutoring got excellent grades in reading and math in spite of his dyslexia and discalcula. Kudos to Joan and the pupil. But I immediately went all self-centered when I read her post. What? What? Discalcula? Could this be what I think it is? From the same root words as “calculation” and “calculus”? I’m no Latin scholar, but I know enough to put two and two together (well, two and two are fine but don’t try me on two and six, or two and nine, or anything bigger! To this day I can’t add any numbers with nine in them.) I have figured for as long as I’ve known about dyslexia and ADD that I would have been diagnosed with both when I was a kid. They didn’t have these when I was young, but I certainly have the adult versions today.
But now I hear there is discalcula!?!?! Could it be true? There is an actual, named dysfunction for people who struggle with math? Joan, I could hug you! I now have an answer to my lifelong mathematical misery! I have been hiding my disability for 50 years or more! Now I can declare it openly: YES! I have DISCALCULA!
Hear that, Dad? Now there’s vindication for all those Farmer Brown and his cow problems I couldn’t solve that made you despair about my future! Now there is a medically sanctioned reason why I can’t look at a paragraph of text with numbers in it without glazing over! Now I know there is an actual condition that explains why I can’t keep a budget or balance a bank account!
If only I had known this when I was a Brownie selling Girl Guide cookies door to door. I could have avoided the paralyzing fear and total humiliation I felt at my first sale when I couldn’t give change. I could have said, “Sorry. I have discalcula!”
My one night of terror in the Bay department store when they were short staffed and they asked me to ring someone up at the cash register when all I was hired to do was answer phones in the Interior Design department could have been avoided if I had known to say, “Sorry. I have discalcula!”
Not to mention the nightmare of being responsible for multi-million dollar budgets on the design projects I’ve been assigned to over the years. OMG!
And today, in my semi-retirement, I can avoid ever having to be the cash out person at charity events by cheerfully saying, “Sorry. I have discalcula!”
Now I can admit that I can’t figure out the tip at a restaurant without using a separate piece of paper and mouthing the words: “Let’s see, 10% of that is…uh, o.k., what is it, um, o.k., so, just move the decimal, o.k., so if I double that for 20% then I get…” I’ve never given a 15% tip because I don’t know how!
Now I don’t need to be embarrassed that I can’t mentally figure out what change I have due back on a purchase. I can’t tell you how many times in my life I’ve suspected I’ve been short-changed, but have never had recourse to prove it! I have to take purchases home and check on a calculator to see if I’ve been cheated! By then it’s too late!
Now I won’t even worry that I have no idea how quickly we’ll arrive at our destination if we are travelling at 60 miles an hour. Who cares!?!
I looked it up online. One web site about discalcula (actually it is properly referred to as dyscalculia – but the definition also accepts the more easily pronounced, discalcula) reads as follows: “Dyscalculia" is a lessor-known learning disability that affects mathatical calculations. It is derived from the generic name "mathematics difficulty".
Seriously – this is what it says. I quote directly. It is totally delicious to me that it has two spelling errors in it. Isn’t that ironic? The writer probably has an inability to spell words – as yet a dysfunction without a name as far as I know. I don’t have that. I’m a pretty good spellar, er, speller. But maybe you bad spellers will find your "dys-ability" one day too!
One thing worries me, though. If the time ever comes for Ken to decide with my medical team if I should go into the memory care home, I know there will be simple mathematical tests that they will want me to solve to determine my level of dementia. I’ve made Ken promise that he’ll tell them that I have NEVER been able to add numbers together, much less subtract, divide, multiply or figure out how many cows Farmer Brown has left.
I’m counting on him.
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