It is not procrastination. Procrastination means doing something else, anything else, to avoid doing the thing you don't want to do. There's a certain feeling to it. My fave way to procrastinate is to clear my desk. Since I've never been a big procrastinator, my desk doesn't get cleared as much as it should. I say should because I do function better without visual clutter. Being a blob on a rock, you don't even have enough thoughts in your head to want to procrastinate.

It is not avoidance. That too has its own feeling to it. I know the things I want to avoid, and writing ain't one of them. Sure, writing sometimes scares me — do I know what I'm doing? am I ready? — but I don't avoid thinking about it. I don't feel like a skittish dog who turns his head to avoid seeing something when I think about writing or marketing (which I hate, but that too is not avoidance). Avoidance may be so severe that you don't know what you're avoiding until someone mentions that dreaded subject to you. But that's not blob-on-a-rock-ness. When someone mentions what I'm supposed to be doing while I'm being a blob instead, I go, “oh yeah…” with that vague feeling of I should care but not caring.

Anyway, after the third screen during this week's LORETA neurofeedback training, I felt my mind brightening, beginning to engage, to care about the movie. I wanted to see what was coming next. Phew. Blob-on-rock feeling abated for now. I am drafting this post without anything or anyone, including myself, telling me to do it. So not only is low motivation reversed (for the moment) but also initiation deficit. Failure to initiate action was also picked up by LORETA, which it has been every week.

Other things picked up: problems with concentration (that must have been in later screens because during the first few screens, I wasn't being distracted but was later on in the session), sequential planning, anxiety, executive function, multi-tasking, obsessive thoughts about self, perception of letters, receptive language, short-term memory, slowness of thought-easily confused, and spatial perception. Some showed up in all the screens; some did not. I didn't do as well as last week because of a couple of tough anniversaries five days apart this week. They said, given the week, I did well. Don't be tough on yourself! Yeah, okay.

I did six five-minute screens like last week, but I also did an extra three minutes because three minutes into my first screen, the program crashed. Changed batteries in the device that connects electrodes to computer, check cable connections, and restart first screen. All was okay after that, and we redid the first screen though picking up in the show where we'd left off. The data from the first three minutes was lost. So I guess that was warm up!

Since we had finished the Kratts Brothers DVD last week, we began a new DVD this week. I can't remember the name; it was a National Geographic show on the Inca. I asked for English subtitles to be turned on because I thought if I had to read something during LORETA, whether closed caption or translation subtitles, maybe that would shove the networks involved in reading into action. And as you can see, some of those networks — perception of letters, receptive language, short-term memory — were engaged and picked up by LORETA.

It is interesting how my conscious mind doesn't remember things, like big-anniversary-day things, but my heart always does. It was a little faster than my normal fast and harder to bring down. But SMIRB and reading came to the rescue after three screens of gamma training brought it down somewhat. (So far, my heart rate during the HRV screen before LORETA is 10 to 20 beats lower than before gamma training, which is encouraging because it means the effects from gamma training lasts days not just hours. Now to get it up to weeks.)

Nothing much else to report new today, other than my mind was really wandering during the reading portion, and I had to focus hard to get myself to read one word after another, one sentence after another, one paragraph after another, not to keep bouncing back and trying again. Maybe I need to find new text to read or skip ahead to the good stuff. Or just admit it’s hard to focus when one’s mind is occupied by a whole host of things that the LORETA training is bringing out, the anniversary today being just one blip in that host.

I borrowed this from the library. Good reading, although it was amusing and confusing to see the name of the inheritor change occasionally from Karn to Kara as well as the various other typos. It was authentic to the time! The other authenticity was the vocabulary, with several words being unfamiliar to me. Even Overdrive’s ebook dictionary hadn’t a clue. But Rex Stout’s writing is such that the context helps the reader figure it out. My English prof back in university always said if you’re going to use a big word (or in this case, a word peculiar to the time) make sure the context defines it for the reader. Not everyone wants to haul out a dictionary to read a book. Fortunately, in today’s ebook insurgence (yes, I’m sure that’s how a few troglodytes feel ), a dictionary no longer has to be hauled out but simply brought up with a tap of the finger.

The plot was good. The story breezy. Archie Goodwin still young in his creation. Nero Wolfe doesn’t change a bit, really, but Goodwin does mature or move with the times as the series goes on. It’s interesting to read him as he was near the beginning.

My favourite part though was the introduction by Dean Koontz. I have been struggling with my reading since my brain injury, but I’ve also been struggling to try and make the health care professionals understand why reading — and reading voraciously and omnivorously — is so important to me and necessary, not just as a reader (I know, a few of you are scratching your heads now, wondering why anyone has to be convinced that reading a lot is normal and necessary) but moreso as a writer. Koontz wrote spectacularly well what I’ve been trying to say for so long. I want to copy it and hand it out every time someone says to me, you know, 39 books a year is fine, or I don’t read that much and I’m a reader so why you stressing over it, or I’ll look into it and a year later is still saying that, or just doesn’t get that I should be able to read at the level I’m writing. Luckily, the psychologists involved in my care understand that need to read, and maybe, just maybe their solution will work. Let’s hope. Meanwhile, Stout’s books continue to be worth reading, no matter one’s skill level.



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This week, we watched the lemurs episode of the Kratt Brothers Be The Creature. They were cute. I did six five-minute screens for the second week in a row. I began not as fatigued as last week, but as usual tired with each screen; then by the fourth screen, I began to brighten mentally. The dichotomy between bright brain and fatigued self was not as dramatic as after the first session. But it's still there. After all, I'm typing this while my body wants to have a nap.

I learnt a bit more about the LORETA training. It’s used primarily for complex cases like diffuse axonal brain injury (me) or stroke or even autism. The computer tracks amplitudes of the various brainwaves; coherence between many different parts of the brain and also within each brainwave band; and phase between brain areas and within each band. So the list is long, to say the least. To keep it simple for us humans, the trainer notes which coherence pairs are problematic but does not narrow it down to the brainwave band as well unless the same band keeps popping up. In other words, maybe Brodmann areas 9L and 10R* are going above 2.4. But that could be within the alpha, or the lower Beta, or the Theta bands. Unless it's always within, let's say, the Theta band, the band won't be noted down, only the coherence pair that caused the DVD to disappear.

The same networks kept popping up. This week the big ones were blurred vision (not last week), executive function problems, failure to initiate action (this was primarily in Theta band last week), speech articulation problems (not last week), sequential planning problems (not last week), multi-tasking problems (this was primarily in Theta band last week), and auditory sequencing problems (not last week). (Last week but not this included short-term memory, word find, mood, and spatial perception problems.) I was fairly consistent too. Working on these networks did not adversely affect my mood, and I remained in the happy gamma mode from my gamma brainwave biofeedback session earlier this week. Thank God!

The only side effect I had was being dizzy on the highway drive back. Sensory overload! Tired brain! But as soon as I had my cupcake and iced mocha, I was fine. I had had a healthy protein bar right after, but let's be real: an injured brain that's had to work hard wants glucose, its fuel, not muscle food.

*These are in the frontal lobes, one on the left and one on the right.

It probably didn't help that in the PZ-O1 position, the what-I-call happy gamma effects weren't as strong as when done in the CZ position, until this week that is. What a relief to experience that effect again. Not only could I feel the PTSD triggers receding under the soothing waters of gamma, but I could also feel the desire to write increase gradually. I am drafting this post on the subway, and I didn't have to make myself do it.

So does this mean I should write after a session of gamma brainwave biofeedback and before LORETA neurofeedback (the latter is followed by a session with my neurodoc poking at the bad stuff too)? Should I switch my writing times to when I'm not drowning in triggers and memories? Yet how can I write when I'm fatigued from the therapy and schedule? On the other hand, LORETA seems to be increasing my energy once the added fatigue from the actual work goes away. So maybe I will be able to. Who knows!

The problem isn't the memories per se, I don't think. At the time of the remembered events my emotions were shut off because of the brain injury. I'd maybe have a burst of emotion but then bounce right back into neutral-don't-care mode. Even though my emotions began to return when I started brain biofeedback back in 2005 (and boy, wasn't that fun — not), I guess I didn't process them properly. Is that why I'm reliving those things with the emotions attached that I should have felt at the time but didn’t? Anyway, at least in the moment I was drafting this post, it felt like gamma enhancement had soothed and smoothed all that. Relief.

It hasn't been usual for me to see improvements after the first session of a brain biofeedback-type treatment either. My theory for this anomaly with LORETA is that it's because gamma brainwave biofeedback has somehow primed my brain to be able to profit from whole-brain biofeedback immediately.

But the theory I was given is that I'm highly tuned to my body and brain so that I notice changes most people wouldn't. I don't know about that. If you're used to waking up each morning thinking, God, is it morning already, do I have to get up? and then one morning you wake up as eager as a puppy for walkies, you're gonna notice, no matter how unself-aware you are. I'm sure.

The only caveat to that is in the first few months after a brain injury, when your perception is so whacked out of joint that you perceive the moment is how you've been your entire life, you may not notice a big change as a change but as how you've always been. But that warped perception does improve back to normal over time, and even if it doesn't, single-electrode brain biofeedback will, at least partially. And as I understand it, people only do LORETA neurofeedback after doing a stint of single-electrode. So I could see people not noticing subtle changes, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who would notice some of the big changes I've had. Too bad they've lasted only days or minutes. But at least the potential is now proven to be there.

Maybe you need to be in the right mood to tolerate the volume of verbal violence and the never-ending angst — I mean seriously, people, stop whinging and be a man — of the characters, but I found it a little tedious. Maybe it helps too if your life is tickety-boo and not full of your own angst! So trying to set that aside, I still liked the book. The characters emerged from the book as fully-formed alive individuals, and the plot was suitably convoluted with wonderful huge, honking clues that could or could not lead you down the right path. I figured out fairly quickly where to look for the who in whodunnit. But I was pleasantly surprised at the final reveal. I say pleasantly because a good mystery is one where the writer stays ahead of the reader or enough ahead that at least you don’t solve it in chapter one.

Even though I had not read the previous books in this series, it didn’t make a difference other than I knew I was missing the continuing story of some of the regular characters. But they’re drawn so well that you could follow along well enough.



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My cockiness got a real whooping after that. This past week marked a change to the new brain biofeedback regimen. One day I have single-electrode biofeedback, and one day LORETA. You’d think it would be the LORETA that would knock me over. Nope. It was changing that single electrode from CZ (middle top of head) to PZ-O1 (left back, sort of halfway between top of head and bottom of skull and to the left of midline). They had changed the location because CZ was assessed as normal in my EEG back in March, while PZ-O1 was busy taking a permanent break from working. It overproduces alpha waves; that may be why I continue to have trouble reading and learning and with language.

Well. PZ-O1 most certainly did not like being woken up. I probably didn’t have such a problem the first time we tried this location in the first week of April because I had received direct stimulation of the brain via transcranial direct current stimulation. And although it was in the F3-Fp3 position, somehow it helped the training in the PZ-O1 position so that it wasn’t so tiring. This time, there was no stimulation because it had been too much for me. And, as well, we were working on slightly different frequencies than the first time. Now, we will continue to enhance gamma brainwaves while inhibiting alpha waves in the 8-10 Hz range. We want me to continue to produce high-frequency alpha waves; that’s why those aren’t included. We are also monitoring busy brain and brainwaves in the 2-4 Hz range.

My heart rate dropped with each three-minute biofeedback screen, and reading dropped it even more, just like it did in the CZ position. But reading didn’t produce my best gamma output, maybe because this area is directly implicated in my reading issues.

After that session, I was visibly tired to everyone, really thirsty, and starving, and I went to bed very, very early. I have not gone to bed that early in eons. I slept a long time for me.

My second LORETA session was a bit of a kerfuffle because they were using a different machine and hadn’t realized that its DVD player had long since decided to retire. And so instead of watching a DVD, I watched biofeedback AVIs, which loop. I watched a different one for each of the five five-minute screens I did, with the last two being four minutes in length, meaning they only began to loop once. The third and fourth AVIs included text; the former as a short story a la Star Wars intro, the latter as credits. I tired quickly during the first couple of screens. But somewhere in the middle of the third or fourth one, my brain opened up. It was like someone had taken a can opener and let the light in. I continued to feel tired, yet I was alert and brighter. At the end, my trainer looked at the scores while I gazed around the suddenly-to-me-brighter room in wonder. She noted that she’d never seen anyone in the second session steadily increase their scores with each screen. People get  tired, performance drops, scores go down. But not with me. Heh.

When the AVI disappeared during my training screens, it was because the neuronal networks involved in executive function, short-term memory, failure to initiate, and/or word find went down. The word find was particularly noticeable whenever I tried to read the credits in screen 4. The AVI during screen 3 also disappeared like a shot every time it looped to the text and I tried to read it. It had to loop many, many times before I was able to keep it full screen long enough for me to read a sentence here then another sentence in the next loop, and so on.

I asked her about my vision change. I know that brain training will make your vision clearer, things will be sharper, but it was also brighter. It was like someone had turned up the lights. She noted that with LORETA, physical, not just in-the-brain, changes can occur with vision. Mind. Boggled. I was also seeing much more. My field of vision had widened, and I hadn’t realized how narrow it had been. I think this big picture awareness is translating into when I read too.

But in close-up work, it’s like my lens forgot where my focal point is. It’s like it’s saying no, that text is too close, move it farther away, no that’s too far, closer, no, that’s no good either, a little further — would you make up your mind! I felt like screaming. Over 48 hours later, and it began to settle down. The vision and perceptual changes have reverted somewhat to “normal” now. And my sleep sucked after the neurofeedback. It was like skimming on the crests of dreams.

I was hoping to experience normal reading again, like I had the Saturday after the first LORETA session. But nope. This time, I read faster than I could keep up, and I got a concentration head-ache, which I haven’t had in a long time. I did however feel great eagerness to read when I awoke and did start as soon as I could. So I think that was a spurt of initiation — my Go button turned itself on. I also felt quite engaged while watching the first TED video in the Neuroscience iTunes U course. My mind may have wandered once or twice briefly. In eighteen minutes, that’s pretty good.

So week one of the new regimen done. It will continue like this for a little while.

So. I survived my first LORETA neurofeedback session. In some ways, it was familiar. Familiar office where I go for my assessments at the ADD Centre. Familiar start with HRV (heart rate variability) training. Familiar scrubbing of earlobes. But the 19-point EEG cap didn’t feel the same because she wanted to make it un-hugging so that it wouldn’t feel like it was there. Totally unlike the EEG cap for assessments — tight! Not possible, I said to my LORETA trainer. I’m too sensitive to touch, I said. But the cap she chose was pretty good. Felt like it was going to fly right off and not give me a headache.

They schedule about a half-hour to set up. A little less time to remove everything. That’s why the LORETA appointment is an hour and a half. I had answered a questionnaire about a list of symptoms prior to my appointment. Dr. Michael Thompson and Andrea Reid-Chung had put them into the computer, added my EEG assessment readings, and then tweaked it manually when they set up the LORETA neurofeedback program to address everything I had rated a ten, meaning what really, really bothered me, things like executive function, fibromyalgia (the closest to fatigue symptoms in the questionnaire), reading… And so when I got there, the training program was ready to go. All I had to do was choose a movie to watch. I decided on Kratt Brothers Be the Creature — something familiar and fun.

While she injected generous amounts of electrogel into the 19 electrodes of the cap, I did an HRV screen with only the breathing belt and heart rate monitor on. The idea was to induce relaxation. I’m not the only one who arrives nervous. But even once you know what it’s like, it’s good to have a few minutes of decompression with HRV, of transitioning between the busy world outside and the intense brain training.

She used the same head diagram as they did during the EEG assessment to check all the connections were good. The connections only needed to achieve 10 k(omega) resistance for LORETA neurofeedback, a little less sensitive than the assessment. I didn’t need to keep on the breathing belt and heart rate monitor for the neurofeedback because the program doesn’t include them and to run them separately requires too much extra computing power on the system. It’s a bit weird to rely only on me to know if my breathing is okay — not too deep, not too rapid or slow. I no like. But I had to.

The normal setup for my single-electrode gamma brainwave biofeedback is two screens and one computer hidden from view. The second screen is sometimes for a two-screen biofeedback screen but most of the time for recording my data after each training. Here, for LORETA neurofeedback, it was a laptop and a screen. I watch the screen, and the trainer keeps an eye on my readings on her laptop.

Instead of playing a game on my screen, I play the movie I chose. What happens is when the networks in my brain are working and the designated brainwaves are achieving the target amplitudes and it’s all in phase, the movie fills the screen and plays. When my brain gets tired and stops making the desired connections and producing the wanted frequencies at the desired amplitudes, the movie goes away. It shrinks into a tinier and tinier square until finally it disappears. Then all you see is a big, black screen. Intimidating. Frustrating. When your brain begins working again the way it’s been trained to, the movie appears as a teeny square that grows larger and larger until it fills the screen. No matter the size of the square, the movie continues to play. Sometimes it starts to shrink then refills the screen. Sometimes it starts to reappear after disappearing but doesn’t make it all the way back before it begins to shrink again. It can get a bit dizzying, but it rather effectively tells you how you’re doing.

The readings the trainer monitors are divided into amplitude, coherence, and phase and within each is a list of the various frequencies in the various Broadmann areas. The movie plays on my screen, and every time it stops, she checks which reading is going red and compares it to the 10s on the questionnaire I filled in.

While I play a game for three minutes during single-electrode brain biofeedback, during LORETA I watch a movie for five minutes. I was told that if five minutes was too long, then I can go down to four. Or if I can go longer, then next time we could set it to six minutes. We repeat that six times, or up to eight times, or as few as four. And the resting interval in between running the movie with your brain is for however long you want — well, within reason, as you should finish before appointment end. It can’t go on forever and ever! Needless to say, you’re not going to get to watch an entire movie or even much beyond the opening scenes in one session. So don’t get too involved! Another reason I chose Kratt’d Creatures — you can stop that show anywhere and won’t feel like you’ve been cut off just as the story was getting good.

At the end of the first five minutes, she stopped the movie, and she asked me if I knew why the movie had disappeared. Yeah, I replied, my brain was tired. Later, she asked me how I got it to play again. That was tougher to answer. But the closest way I could explain it, was that I stared at the centre of the screen where the movie had shrunk into a tiny square and then vanished until it reappeared. It’s staring, but not just staring. It’s like sharpening the eyes and focussing on the spot. And boom, there comes the movie back into view. Beyond that, I found if I worked to focus and engage, trying to take in the details, not just watching passively, it kept the DVD playing in full size. Yet sometimes, I didn’t know why it played. It didn’t feel like I was doing anything.

It turns out that most of the time when the DVD vanished, it had to do with executive functioning — the frontal lobes. The main area of injury. Surprise, surprise.

The way we gauge progress is different than with single-electrode brain biofeedback. Here, it’s points. The more seconds you keep the DVD running and visible (in full screen, I think), the more points you earn. You compare the number of points you earn from session to session. So you see the number for each five-minute play plus the total of all the screens at the end. You can see how you do within one session and from session to session.

I began with 184 points, then 180, 180, and lastly 182. I was only able to do four screens. I got really hot at one point, but when she opened the blinds and let the sunlight in, I felt better. I like to look out a window or sense natural light. I find it difficult to work in a windowless(-like) room, and somehow the trainer realized that. She’s the same! I had a total of 726 points. The goal for next time is to increase my points. Since I had so many questions during the training and was just getting used to the procedure, she didn’t give me a lot of feedback in the intervals. Next time, it will be a regular type of session where tell them how I did after the previous session and then I receive feedback during the intervals in between neurofeedback screens. I will play a movie, take a break, get feedback on which areas went red, play a movie, take a break, get feedback on which areas went red, repeat three to five times more.

The day after my first session, I felt no different, but for what it’s worth: my athletic therapist said my posture was much improved over the last time he saw me two weeks earlier; my head was straight; and my shoulders were no longer up near my ears. My doc told me I looked like I was in a good place and didn’t want to disturb me out of that by talking about the traumatic memories (that had surfaced a couple of weeks ago). Both made these comments sans prompting from me.

And then on the Saturday I had my first ten minutes or so of normal reading since my brain injury!! Holy —-!!!

I am absolutely not going to get excited about 10min of normal reading in case it's just a blip 13 yrs aftr #braininjury wrecked my reading.

— ShireenJ (@ShireenJ) April 20, 2013

I am not going to get emotional about it either. No way jose. No, just no. Nope. Nope. Nope. #braininjury #reading

— ShireenJ (@ShireenJ) April 20, 2013

Well, that was a bummer. I borrowed the ebook from the Toronto Public Library, dug into it on a weekend I think, enjoyed what I read hugely, then promptly forgot about it after my week began. And so the library borrowing period expired, and the ebook vanished from my OverDrive app. I’ll have to put it on hold again. The problem with popular ebooks though is by the time your turn comes up to borrow it, you’ve forgotten all about it and it’s a very inconvenient time too.



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Wow. I’m still reeling and trying to process what just happened at the end. This is a book that keeps on giving right until the last page, and it doesn’t use any ridiculous tricks to deceive and artificially heighten the tension either.

The first unusual aspect of this book I noticed was the setting. As The Crime Vault told me on Twitter: it’s tricky. It seems like it’s set in Europe. But then there are a few Americanisms tossed in here and there, infrequently enough that they catch you by surprise, making you wonder what kind of Europe it’s set in. Certainly, not the kind we here in Canada would imagine, I wouldn’t think. The character names are all over the map, and so they give no hint either. I think the effect is that this could happen anywhere. Don’t feel comfortable.

And, in fact, this is not a book to read at night — not because it’s creepy but because it plays with your mind and incites dreams. Not good. Well, good for the writer, meaning he’s pulled you right into his story.

The characters are well drawn and come to life. The plot is convoluted as hell, although I think if I read The Whisperer again, I would probably find it is deceptively simple. To help the reader yet hinder you as well, the author uses some familiar formulaic devices mystery writers oftentimes use, but he turns them inside out. You think you’re reading one thing. But you’re not.

At the end of the book, two themes come to their end. One is obvious and is the mystery. The other grows from nothingness to completely dominate the end. And that’s what ends up going round and round in your mind. It’s a cleverly constructed and well-thought-out book. I can see why it was a hit.

This is the second of ten books I won from The Crime Vault in a Twitter contest. The first one I read was Nothing But Trouble.



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I'm a bit nervous. Will I have the stamina to play a movie (or not) with my brain for that long? Will the treatment work? Just how exhausted will I be after?

It was comfortingly familiar to do my usual brain biofeedback routine first this week. In future weeks, I will continue to do the current single-electrode method as well as the new LORETA. And with the single electrode we’ll move back to PZ-O1, now that I've done two CZ sessions to recover from the too-much push of a couple of weeks ago.

My book Concussion Is Brain Injury is number three in Neurology and number four in Neuroscience and surprisingly number seventy-six in the large Reference/Biography & Memoir category, for ebooks listed on Kobo. And surprisingly in Neurology, I’m ahead of a book by Oliver Sacks. Not bad!

This was my first virtual book tour, and it was a tad confusing for me at first. The Starter Kit seemed to lose its way to me in cyberspace. But once I got it, the details were clear insofar as what I needed to do to prepare: answer interview questions, write guest blog posts of about 500 words, and announce on social media that my book tour was coming up. There was a fair amount of writing to do, but the questions were interesting and got me thinking. And the guest post topics were challenging for me as I normally don’t write about writing. I like a challenge. As I was answering and writing, I had to keep in mind which book of mine I was promoting. When I went to do the same for my next book tour for Concussion Is Brain Injury, I had to shift focus from being an author of a novel to being an author of a non-fiction medical memoir.

Once I sent off my answers and posts, I noted the start date in my calendar so that I could be ready to tweet and/or blog about the tour events. I also noted down the dates of the #TwitterViews so that I could answer the questions as they were tweeted. They came at the rate of about one question every half hour over several hours. Much easier to do in real time then catch up later. Plus less overwhelming for your Twitter followers. In the Starter Kit they include the URL of your Author Page. You can see it immediately, well before your tour start date. The first few dates are filled up, and then … nothing. I wasn’t sure if that meant they hadn’t found bloggers to fill the rest of the dates or what. But on the first day of the tour, all those empty dates suddenly got filled. So fear not empty days, they shall be filled. And, as I discovered with my second tour, the dates or events can sometimes change. For example, one day was supposed to be an Author Interview, then it was changed to Book Feature. The Book Feature is your book cover, your Amazon blurb, social media links, buy links to Amazon and Smashwords, Amazon author page and your website, and rating and genre info. It’s a bit disconcerting when you don’t know what to expect, but once you get into the tour, it’s okay. And any time I had questions, I received a reply pretty quickly. That went too if by the end of the day (they ask you to wait to see your event show up on a blog because of time zone differences etc.) I hadn’t seen my guest post or interview, I emailed to ask where it was. They’d reply by the next day at the latest with the URL.

One thing to note: book reviews may not show up until the end of the tour. The Book Feature will show up on the day scheduled for the review — that’s your cue that a review is being written and will be posted later. Some reviews appear on Goodreads, some on Amazon, and some on both. The book club ones follow a short question-and-answer format. The individual ones vary with the blogger’s style. I was really pleased with the number of reviews I received (even if some had spoilers, oy!). Between March 7 and 25, twenty-one new text reviews were posted on Goodreads, five new text reviews on Amazon.com, and one new one on Amazon.co.uk. Of course, being a Canadian author with a book set in a Canadian city, one cannot expect any Canadians to review it! Ahem.

And so after all that, I had great reviews, plenty of buzz about She, and very, very few new sales. Oh well. I think I’ll do another Goodreads giveaway anyway.

It’s been a bit of a tough week. I returned to my medical routine, and my brain biofeedback was changed up. As I wrote earlier, we’d added transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the mix. Well. Even though I felt nothing at the time, except tingling on my scalp, the morning after the two sessions, I felt it. You see, the area it was stimulating into activity is related to emotion and memory. And that’s what came through big time: bad memories and traumatic emotion. So I had meself a bit of a PTSD moment. The storm part lasted too many long minutes, but the fragile part has lasted days. I informed the ADD Centre soon after the memories were triggered, and we’re putting a moratorium on the tDCS for now. As I know from past experiences with medications and other therapies, I’m sensitive. It doesn’t take much dosage or acupuncture time or biofeedback to effect a result in me.

But as I told my neurodoc, I need to have my working memory and my long-term memory. The problem seems to be that when I work on that, these memories will come springing out like some evil jack in the box too. Clearly, I need to work on the PTSD more before we can return to the tDCS. So he had to do something. Time for history taking is over. It’s time for treatment. And so in a way, this awful experience was good. It made people sit up and finally take notice enough to help me. He did some sort of semi-hypnotic thing and said it would take a couple of days to take effect. In the past, I’ve done visualization exercises and other things I’ve forgotten. They’ve worked but not enough to prevent or resolve PTSD. I hope this is a good first step. In the meantime, the tDCS did seem to enhance the return of my photographic memory, in the short term anyway. And best of all, my parents sent me these cheery Spring flowers. They’re not only happy-making, they gave me a reason to pull out my camera and snap a few.

After my 19-point EEG, evoke potentials study, and earlier computer assessments last month, we’re now adding some stimulation, specifically transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).

You may have heard of those big, round magnets doctors put over the heads of people with depression? The magnets create an electrical current, which penetrates 1.5 to 5 cm into the brain and changes the activity of the brain. I've never seen repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in real life, but in pictures the magnets look huge, and I’ve heard the repetitive clicking sound and seen the forms patients must fill in every time they go to the Toronto Western Hospital. Well, tDCS is the tinier, friendlier version.

tDCS comprises an active electrode and a reference electrode (the Wikipedia article on tDCS is flagged for improvement). The inactive reference electrode completes the circuit and, with the device used on me, is placed on the shoulder opposite to where the active electrode is put. The active electrode can be an anode (positive) or cathode (negative). I understand the anode is usually used. As Dave Siever, CET, wrote in his paper on tDCS:

“... anodal stimulation depolarizes the local neurons from their typical rest- ing potential of 65 mv, by 5-10 mv, to 55 mv, which in turn will require less dendritic input to fire (depolarize) the neuron. The negative electrode, termed the cathode, hyperpolarizes the neuron slightly and it will require increased dendritic input to fire it.” (NeuroConnections, Spring 2013, PDF)

Siever wrote that according to one study, the anode decreases GABA in the area it stimulates, while increasing blood flow and beta and gamma brainwaves.

tDCS has a wider area of influence than the electrodes used in brain biofeedback. Still, it seems to be smaller than rTMS. This is important. As the ADD Centre told me, we only want to work on those issues the client finds troubling and not affect anything else. Even if the tests show anomalies in areas that the client says no prob for them — they don't complain of corresponding symptoms — then they won't work on those areas. In other words, people are entitled to their quirky parts.

The ADD Centre felt I would benefit from active stimulation of certain areas that are busy snoozing right now or at best chillin’. They use the Canadian-made Mind Alive device for tDCS. For me, they chose to put the anode over F3-C3 and the reference electrode on the shoulder (wipe off that arnica cream I just slathered on my skin!). The battery-operated device powers the anode. It freaked me out a little having a spongy anode create an electrical current in my brain, but my trainer said: Look, it's just a battery powering it! Oh, OK, if you put it like that. She continued: You’ll probably feel nothing, but a few can feel tingling.

Raise your hand if you’re surprised moi did feel that tingling. A lot. But that wasn't the biggest problem. The biggest problem was keeping the stretchy headband that holds the anode in place on my head. My hair is rather silky, and headbands have a habit of popping or sliding right off. I finally adjusted it to where I knew it would stay on as long as I held still, and I held on to it while she tucked the anode in place. Ten minutes later (of chit chat and questions and trying to breathe deeply), she took it off, and I immediately scratched my head where the anode had been. A common reaction, apparently. But one vigorous scratch, and I was good.

The next change for the first day back to biofeedback was switching the electrode for brain biofeedback from CZ to between the O1 and PZ positions. That’s left back on the head. Needless to say my vision became real sharp. (The occipital lobe is where the visual cortex resides, although my vision improved in my left eye even though one would think it would be only the right eye.) The sharpness began diminishing about a half hour after my appointment but the clarity didn't.

For the first day back, they wanted to see only what would happen if we reduced 7 to 11Hz in order to determine how to proceed in future. We still had gamma being measured and enhanced, and so, in a way, the training of it continued. My muscle tension wasn't great, but I did get it down to 2.

I didn't think I was ready for the first day back. But a change is as good as a rest, and I'm excited again (it helps I survived my brain being stimulated with no side effects but that temporary itch).

So the second day back was the start of the new brain biofeedback routine. The ADD Centre people had discussed the results of the first day back and had slightly modified things.

We will begin the hour with tDCS, remembering to clean the arnica cream off my shoulder if we want to get a connection! Then the trainer will hook me up to the computer: breathing belt, heart rate monitor, skin temperature monitor, electrodes on ears, and the scalp electrode now at the PZ-O1 position (which takes a bit longer to locate than the old CZ position but should become easier over time). We will first do the usual three-minute EEG assessment, though it’s really three minutes and eight seconds to ensure the CardioPro program will analyze the results fully to monitor my heart and to see if we’re getting improvement in HRV (heart rate variability; I’ll write more on this later, but basically by activating the brain at PZ-O1 hopefully we’ll access the insula [Wikipedia article] and get it to wake up so as to allow my heart to work properly. Maybe.)

The PZ-O1 area of my brain on the 19-point EEG was very much hanging out in the alpha zone so we want to wake that up. If that area is more active, hopefully that will mean I’ll be able to integrate and synthesize info when reading. If it activates the insula indirectly: bonus.

That’s why the training is now focussing on reducing 8 to 10 Hz while monitoring 2 to 4 Hz and enhancing gamma.

The tDCS is placed over areas to do with working memory, short-term memory, impulsivity, co-ordination and should help with my reading, as well as to balance out the right side in order to generate positive emotions.

I don't really feel any different after stimulation. I'm getting the usual post-gamma happy. But whether the stimulation is contributing to that I don't know. My chest did feel lighter after the second session, and I tolerated the pre-rush hour crush on the TTC better than when I was on my way to biofeedback. It’s like I could tune out the annoyingness. And like after the first session, my sight was better.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I won this book in a Twitter contest held by the UK’s The Crime Vault for for “What would you name your series character?” I came up with Inspector Everlast Forlorn. And I won ten books! I read the descriptions of all the books and chose to read Roberta Kray’s first.

@thecrimevault Inspector Everlast Forlorn. Lots of ways to play w that kind of character: deceptively pessimistic, nvr quit. #CrimeVaultcomp

— ShireenJ (@ShireenJ) January 17, 2013

I’m not familiar with Kray. I didn’t know if this book was the start of a series or mid-series or what. But it didn’t matter. She weaves in memories of previous cases so effortlessly that a new reader would learn some of the backstory while old hands would not be bored and start flipping pages to get to the new stuff again. By the end of the book, I still couldn’t say definitively that this book is part of a series, but I did feel like I was in the middle of a story about the main characters. It would be interesting to see what happens next.

I liked the characters. It took me awhile to get to know them, and I felt like sometimes they bordered on the stereotypical. All in all though, I was left not quite knowing enough about the crime solvers and thus wanting to know more.

The plot was convoluted. And this is where my brain-injury-imposed reading limitations put a serious dent in my ability to solve the mystery. I didn’t. And even when it was solved in the book, it took me awhile to piece the picture together in my poor head because it’s not a simple crime. I never fully understood the final motive (I wonder if I missed the explanation that some authors include, or if there wasn’t one), and I think that’s because the reader needs to sink right into this book and be able to follow the characters and build up the big picture and put the pieces together like one does a jigsaw puzzle. And I couldn’t do that. It’s a book for rereading and for engaging the mind, for sure.

View all my reviews

• The Reading Cat — Review (tiny spoiler)
• Book Lover’s Dream — Interview and Book Feature
• Need to Stop Reading (love that blog name) — Guest Post and Review
• Talisman Book Publishing — Book Feature and Review
• Reading My Addiction — Review (tiny spoiler)
• My Love for Books — Interview and Review

“She deserves someone to love her unconditionally.” (From My Love for Books Review)

And the Concussion Is Brain Injury tour has been appeared on Twitter a few times, including a #TwitterView, and at these blogs:

• The Bunny’s Review
• The Reading Cat — Guest Post
  
• Author’s Friend — Interview
• We Fancy Books — Interview, Guest Post, and Book Spotlight

Each blog has posted an interview with me, a Book Feature, and/or a book review. Click on the links to see more, including giveaways for a $50 Amazon gift card during March (not all have the giveaway).

“What is your favourite quality about yourself?” Click to find out my answer to this and other questions!

What makes your book stand out from the crowd? #TwitterView #Orangeberry #AmWriting @excuseproof @shireenj

— OB Book Tours (@OBBookTours) March 23, 2013

As I write this, I’m mid-answering the questions as they appear on my Twitter timeline. But no need to go searching for my answers on my timeline. For your convenience, I’ve created the widget below where you can see all the questions and my answers all at once, beginning with my first #TwitterView!

Tweets about "@ShireenJ #TwitterView"


Concussion Testing Method Diagnoses Traumatic Brain Injury with Heart Rate, Blood Pressure bit.ly/YUNO2D

— Medical Daily (@medicaldailycom) March 20, 2013

“Their research shows that autonomic reflex testing, which measures automatic changes in heart rate and blood pressure, consistently shows changes in people who suffer concussions.” (Ashik Siddique, Medical Daily, 20 Mar 2013)

Neurologists at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona were looking for a biological marker for concussion and found this connection. But what is an autonomic reflex?

Reflexes are like neuronal loops. Stimulus of your knee, for example, sends an impulse up a bunch of nerves to your spinal cord and brain, and they send a signal back, and your leg jerks or not. One reason it may not jerk is because you’ve used your brain to over-ride that reflex. You control it. But an autonomic reflex is a loop through your autonomic nervous system, which controls your heart and blood circulation. Just as you cannot tell your heart to beat or your blood pressure to drop, you cannot control the reflex. Plus it’s all internal. You can’t stick a reflex hammer inside and tap your heart. And so it’s a bit difficult to test it.

According to the Cleveland Clinic’s description of cardiovascular autonomic testing, testing includes four activities:

1. Blow air into a small tube. This is called a Valsalva test.
2. Put your hand in ice water for two minutes. This is called the Cold Pressor Test.
3. You are given phenylephrine to increase blood pressure, and your heart rate and blood pressure will be recorded.
4. You are given amyl nitrite to lower blood pressure, and your heart rate and blood pressure will be recorded.

I had a variation of this test back in 1989/90. Mine included a tilt table (which from what the doc says in the video below sounds like was also done in the research testing). I had it done because I had blood pressure that would drop like a stone under stress and was chronically low. The brilliant woman who tested me and diagnosed what I had died a few years later. Unfortunately, after my brain injury — and even though I was chronically complaining of a permanently racing heart and a yo-yoing blood pressure — I never met anyone as brilliant as she was. And so I didn’t have this kind of test done (not that I would’ve volunteered for it again, as having a needle stuck in your arm for two hours, blood pressure cuff going off all the time for 2 hours, having ECG leads on, putting your hand in ice, and being tilted is awful).

If I had, I wonder what my results would have shown?

The researchers in their video talk about the assumption that post-concussion dizziness is due to vestibular issues. I did have ear and vestibular testing to see if that was the reason for my dizziness. Nope. All peachy keen, and my hearing was excellent too. The researchers dispute vestibular causation and suggest that the symptoms are due to an hyperadrenergic state — basically, too much adrenaline — which I think is a different way of saying the sympathetic system is on overdrive cause of the injury. Yup, that’s me, even 13 years post-injury. Gah! Oh, hey, lookee what they also mention: tachycardia!!! Yup, that’s me. And considerable blood pressure variability!! Oh gee, what a surprise.

They postulate a centrally-located impairment of the adrenergic nervous system (um, I believe that’s the sympathetic nervous system) caused by the brain injury, aka, concussion. And they postulate that the dizziness represents autonomic nervous system impairment, whose symptoms include — wait for it — exercise intolerance!!!! And only a trainer was able to recognize and tell me that people with brain injury can have exercise intolerance. Now neurologists are figuring this out. Double gah!

They suggest autonomic nervous system impairment is common in “these patients” — that includes me. OMG. I’m about to have a heart attack that mainstream brain doctors are actually recognizing what to date only the psychologists and psychiatrist at the ADD Centre and the trainer I met in 2009 have recognized!

Of course, being researchers, they’re only interested in this finding as a biomarker for brain injury. What I want to know is: what now? How does one treat this, FFS?

*Crickets* Sigh. Well, at least a major US centre now recognizes it. Next step is to duplicate the findings with a larger sample size (cause 21 is rather small) and then, you know, work on a remedy.

“Loved the forest scene. Was dark and eerie. Felt like you were right there in the car with them.” (Melody Armstrong on Goodreads)

The one for She has been running a couple of weeks now, and so the book reviews are starting to come in. Some are done through book clubs, and they have a question and answer format. From what I can ascertain, the reader/reviewer of my book picks four questions from a list I assume their book club gives them, and they give brief answers. Then they attach a star rating to it. A few do, ahem, give away a few details. So if you like being kept fully in suspense, skip those. But if you’re the kind of reader who wants to know everything before you dive in, go over to my Goodreads page for She and check out the reviews!

“At a glance, you think you are indulging in a fantasy read but as you go deeper into the story, you see the other side of the story which is how to make a come back after tragedy has struck. This is where the story becomes interesting.” (Vicky Smith on Amazon)

There are also a couple of new reviews on Amazon’s US site. They’re either straight reviews or in the book club question-and-answer format. It’s too bad Amazon doesn’t propagate reviews across all their sites — as a reader, I may want to buy from Amazon Canada but have to go to Amazon US first to read any reviews, skipping over the one-star reviews as they’re usually idiotic.

“When did you first know you could be a writer? I didn’t consider writing a career for me until…” (From interview on Bits ‘n Bobs on Books)

Some of the reviews appear on individual blogs too. Bits ‘n Bobs on Books published a review (tiny spoiler alert: main character name reveal), author interview, and book feature this week. I also continue to have Book Features, the latest on The Reading Cat and Lonely Heart Reviews, and guest posts, the latest on How to Write by the Seat of your Pants on Lonely Heart Reviews.

“I want readers to know that concussion is a brain injury, a serious injury.” (From interview on Mommy Adventures with Ravina)

Meanwhile, my book tour of Concussion Is Brain Injury begins with a book feature on Peace from Pieces and an Author Interview on Mommy Adventures with Ravina (which is also holding a giveaway for a $50 Amazon gift card for the next 10 days).

I haven’t had a leap forward in healing in a very long time. It’s been gradual stuff, albeit accelerated since I began my gamma brainwave biofeedback in June/July, with perhaps a bit of a push from taking experimental controlled-release pregabalin earlier in the Spring, although the drug’s effects did wear off. And so it was a bit of a shock to be settling in to the familiar boring test and suddenly realising I was clicking the left mouse button an awful lot faster than I, the me of my mind, could keep up with. It was like when my speech used to speed up. I’d realise all of a sudden that my mouth was moving quicker than I could keep up with what I was saying. I’d have to force myself to stop talking so that “I” could catch up.

This is why sometimes I think mind and brain are not the same. If mind and brain were the same and brain is driving my faster speech, then mind being brain could keep up. But my conscious mind could not. The same with my assessment on 23 January 2013. My conscious mind could not keep up with my suddenly improved reaction time. I wanted to pause, but you can’t do that mid-test. So I panted along and lifted my finger a little bit off the mouse so that my mind could be in sync with my reaction time driving my finger movement. And I was absolutely convinced my test results were going to be worse because I was making errors due to my reaction time being faster than my mind. (BTW, this is not the same feeling as when something happens and you react quickly, with your mind lagging a little bit. That’s familiar to all of us, I would think. Here, there is a total disconnect and a feeling of being split in two: the function that’s healing in one part; you in the other, slower part. It’s true for rate of speech, thinking, feeling, and now for the first time in me, reaction time)

I told the trainer who was administering the test what had happened when she returned to the room after the test was over. And she looked at me like I was slightly nuts. I didn’t blame her. Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on how you look at it – the same thing happened during the twenty-one-minute TOVA test. The TOVA is so boring, your head begins to swim, your body feels stressed, breathing becomes difficult, and after awhile you soon want to sleep – desperately. Still, my right thumb clicked the clicker clutched in my right hand like it was in a race or something. Again, I lifted my thumb off a bit from the clicker to try and keep up with my reaction time. Didn’t work. Turns out, my reaction time sped up even more.

“Remarkable!” was the reaction from Dr. Lynda Thompson when she saw the results. Yeah, I agree. It isn’t often healing happens in the middle of a test. I was so relieved when the tests were over, and not just for the usual reasons we clients all have.

So I guess that is what all that dizziness in the weeks previous to the test and the up-and-down nausea in the days before, were in aid of.

Improvements

Since this is progress time, let’s talk improvements. There are a lot. And since they’ve happened in such a short period of time, people who know me in real life stare at me like I’m something out of a CGI film. So grab a cup of coffee and make yourself comfortable.

The first, most dramatic change Dr. Thompson saw in me was: “You’re spontaneous.” I think that’s because I began talking and just kept on going, instead of waiting for questions. I’m not sure. But tied to that was: animation. That others had commented on that before. And the third change that she remarked on a lot was: “You’re calm” I think when you have a brain injury and are in a state of confusion all the time, you’re a tad agitated trying to understand and keep up with the world around you. Also, feeling overwhelmed from sensory overload is also counter to being calm. Not being in that state of confusion and overwhelment means I’m not on edge, wondering what’s going on, what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling. But also I really believe the gamma brainwave biofeedback induces stress reduction. After a session, I would feel something that was impossible to deal with turn into something copable. After training, I would feel competent and much less stressed. Eventually, that effect lasted longer between sessions. I think that’s why I look calm and why my new animation is not of the manic type but the alive type, with an underlay of calmness.

Specific Improvements

My anger is much less. And negativity is reduced.

I’m calm.

I don’t get overwhelmed anymore as if I can’t cope with something, and there’s too much coming at me. I felt very mildly overwhelmed during the last stressful weeks of 2012, but nothing like what I usually feel.

I’m animated. I don’t talk in a monotone or with flat affect. I did have prosody begin to return to my speech back in 2006, but animation was still lacking. Well, it’s back.

Each session produces an uplift in emotion. The amount of uplift has reduced as the treatment progressed because my baseline was rising. I don’t want to use the word “happy” because that, to me, is dangerous. I might be tempting the gods to swipe me again. Superstitious, I know. But there it is.

I don’t know if this is related to the uplift in emotion, but after biofeedback specifically for gamma brainwaves, I wake up. If I wasn’t talking much before, I will after. If I was talking before, I’ll be talking with more animation after. And even though biofeedback drains me (and over many months, if I don’t take a break, to the point of starting to retain water and feel hotter — sure signs of exhaustion whether doing too much mental or physical work), doing gamma brainwave training will actually give me back some energy. This can be dangerous in a way since I still must rest even though I don’t feel like I need to.

The number of hours I sleep per month has risen though it has become very erratic, swinging from five hours one night to well over eight another night, and I have no idea what kind of sleep I will have from night to night. The overall average per night has risen from 5.98 hours in June 2012 to 7.06 in February 2013.

The number of hours I read, write, and do writing-related work has shown some improvement, but it’s up and down. It will take a few more months to perceive if there is a permanent upward trend or not. And, of course, my exhaustion affects my hours, regardless of any functional improvement.

I’m apparently spontaneous, but that change is so new, it remains to be seen how that works itself out.

I walk and talk. This will need a bit of explaining. It is said that those with mild traumatic brain injury can walk or talk. That is their defining feature. Given the change in me , I’m not so sure that’s entirely accurate. Let’s say instead people with mild traumatic brain injury look like they can walk and talk.

This is how I used to walk:

OK Shireen, you’re heading to the subway station. Where are you going? Right. Down this street. Oops, you’re veering to the road, come back to centre. My right leg hurts. I know. Just keep moving forward: if you stop, you won’t start again for awhile, and you’re late. As usual. Move the legs, one, two, one two. Look up. Check the sidewalk for dog poop. You’re veering to the road, people will think you’re drunk. Come back to centre. Try to walk straight. You’re not walking straight! Pant, pant, pant. My chest hurts something fierce. I’m having a heart attack. You’ve had this feeling for a long time, it can’t be a permanent heart attack. I know. I still feel like I’m having a heart attack! You’re veering to the road! Look up! Where are you going? Oh right, to the subway station. God, I want to stop. But I gotta exercise, and I don’t have money for a cab, besides which, not sure I want to chance it. Are we there yet? No, and don’t slow down. Willpower those legs along. Don’t cross the road cause the light is green. You want to go the other way. But it’s green. Doesn’t matter, it’s the wrong direction. Move those legs, you gotta start again. Look to ensure some moron isn’t going to turn right into you. Move, move, move.

Who walks that way?! With constant self-talk to keep one going, to keep one on the sidewalk and not walking drunkenly to the right and onto the road, to go in the right direction? Well, people with brain injury do. And I got used to it. The problems diminished over time very gradually. My right leg stopped paining me. My chest no longer felt like it was going to kill me. The shortness of breath improved. And I stopped wandering as if I was drunk, for the most part. But I had completely forgotten what it was like to walk normally. Until January 23rd.

I walked to the subway station with an ease of movement and bearing that was simply amazing. I felt straighter; I was doing no self-talk. There was no cognitive effort whatsoever. It was automatic, like it is for every human being once they master walking. I cannot tell you what freedom that is. Simply glorious.

And this is how I talked:

What’s she saying? What do I want to say? I can’t remember. There was something I wanted to talk about. Watch the man sweep the blank cave of my mind. What’s she saying? Oh, I should respond to that. I wonder if he has a cold. I don’t want to get another cold! Yeah, respond. Is that a clock ticking? You gotta speak up to respond. Keeping your mouth closed doesn’t work. Speak, speak, speak. Oh, too late. The conversation has moved on. That clock’s ticking is getting louder, I swear. Focus! Right. Listen, listen, listen. That’s a gaudy coat. Go on, talk already. You know what to say now. Talk! Finally. But what was it I wanted to say? I’ll just keep talking till it pops out. Talk, talk, talk. Try not to see eyes glazing over. Hey, there it is. There’s what I wanted to say. I’m speaking it now. I’m tired. Focus! Right. I’m thirsty. Okay, I’m listening. That sounds interesting. I have nothing to say. The blank cave of my mind is empty. Cute dog. I want to interact. I got nothing. Watch the world pass by.

That improved over time too. I became much less distractible. The empty cave began to fill with ideas. But I still had to deliberately think of what to say before I knew I was meeting someone, yet half the time it didn’t matter. I’d still forget and rely on the other person to drive the entire conversation. And although not nearly as slow in processing, I’d still have to tell myself to respond when I had something to say. The effort of it all is taxing!

Then on January 17th, I realised I was conversing like a normal person. I was responding in real time; I wasn’t cheerleading myself to get me to open my mouth. I wasn’t thinking while I was talking because I was saying what I wanted to say, and I hadn’t forgotten. (No, this is not tip-of-the-tongue type forgetting. This is outright gone and feels very, very different. It’s like you can’t access an entire part of yourself for years.) I suppose that’s the spontaneous thing that Dr. Thompson observed. All I can say is, it’s fabulous. I hope that’s a permanent change.

Showering used to be so slow, I always ran out of hot water. I blamed the size of my hot water tank. No more! No more running out of hot water, no more blaming tank. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have to think through absolutely everything – you can get things done faster, including showering.

My stamina and recovery have improved. I can do things for longer. And I find that some things no longer guarantee a four-day recovery time. However, neither is certain. In other words, sometimes I can continue on a task longer, even difficult ones like reading. But other times it’s like my old-usual. Recovery can occur overnight or take a few days like it used to, as well. But at least, neither is always like what it was.

The other aspect of stamina is fitness. I’ve slowly increased my exercise time up to half-an-hour four times per week with no adverse effects. I’m also walking longer – twenty minutes instead of five to ten at most – at least one day a week, and I can now walk up an escalator instead of having to stand on it. This may not seem momentous, but when you’ve been so limited for years and years, this is like a miracle.

The most remarkable aspect of gamma brainwave training is that I feel whole and no longer fragmented. Even though my various cognitive functions remain at different levels (eg, I can write better than I can read), I no longer feel like a fragmented jigsaw of them. I feel – whole. Coherent. And that has either given me greater competence and confidence or allowed me to feel that way (if you get the difference).

Other things I learnt from my assessment:

• You learn best when only one-third of what you’re reading is new.
• Practice sets new pathways, trains the brain.
• People read on average for twenty minutes.
• My reaction time increased during IVA and TOVA (kind of unusual) and is in 99th percentile for my age and gender, faster than a tennis player, though peaks are not as high
• The ADD Centre’s new cardiac software CardioPro will help with assessing the progress of my HRV work.
• PTSD and brain injury are hard to differentiate in an EEG reading of the brain but there is one US doc who can do it. Will look into it.

The nineteen-point EEG and evoke potentials testing was done at a separate time in early March, and I’ll report on those results later when they all come in.

First way: I had had a Holter monitor done at St. Michael’s Hospital just before the epidemic shut down hospitals in 2003. I was able to return the monitor but was barred from seeing the doctor in the hospital. He called me. At that point, I had been living with a brain injury for just over three years, and to say my communication skills — my ability to listen, process, and respond in real time over the phone, never mind face-to-face — was poor was an understatement. Nothing changed in the care of my heart as a result. My GP remained frustrated, and I just tried to get through each day with huge chest pain (plus lots of other problems). Would it have made a difference if I’d been able to see the doctor? Only in my ability to understand him, I think. I’ve had more Holters done, seen the same doctor again, seen other cardiologists, and nothing has changed.

Until maybe recently.

I began brain biofeedback again and part of it included working on my heart rate variability (HRV). I don’t think deep breathing for five or ten minutes as I do during biofeedback or did a few years ago with a behavioural cardiologist makes any permanent difference, but it seems like gamma training has begun to improve things — very, very slowly. Clearly, my heart problem starts in my brain.

I had a new assessment done recently of both brain and heart. This is the first one that states the obvious: I’m at risk of myocardial infarction. Heart attack. Oh goodie. My neurodoc stated that awhile ago; the people at the ADD Centre show concern but don’t baldly come out and say it, being kind; but cardiologists have not once said that to my face or indicated in any way, shape, or form that things are not good. But then none did an HRV assessment of the Holter studies either.

Second way: I was seeing the psychiatrist who diagnosed my brain injury (closed head injury) weekly at Baycrest Hospital in 2003. I was allowed in for that, but only through one entrance. And each and every time, my temperature was taken. A couple of times it seemed like they hesitated over my temp but let me in anyway. It was below fever level but above normal. That was the first time I recognized through what-felt-like-cotton-batting-surrounding-my-cognitive-processing that I really was hot. It wasn’t just “in my head.” Except it was and is. My brain injury has raised my temperature and/or raised the perception of my temperature, but the only health care workers who noticed were the people screening everyone who entered Baycrest. (It also made me, someone in her 30s, feel that much more awful going into a hospital for the very old.)

No doctor would help me lower it or my water retention. I was finally driven to figure out how to reduce it on my own. But it’s still a problem. Reacquainting myself with how the brain controls thermoregulation of the body is on my ToDo list. Clearly I can’t expect endocrinologists, psychiatrists, or neurologists to recognize the problem or, if recognize it, to do SFA about it. So it’s up to me. Gah! Good thing I studied neurophysiology in the dark ages and my memory continues to improve enough to maybe help myself.

Brainy Book Reads wants to know first who my publisher is, then why I chose to write this particular book.

“All my fiction book ideas just come to me, like mist rising up, taking form, and knocking me on my head, demanding my attention.“

Meanwhile High Class Books gets right to the important question: what’s my favourite food?

“Chocolate!“

Friday, @OBBookTours and @kybunnies are sending out a Twitter Blast. Saturday, Dreaming in the Pages has a Book Feature and $50 Amazon gift card or PayPal cash giveaway till end of March. Sunday, Next Big Book Thing also has a Book Feature. Book reviews and more questions for me are to come in the following days.

I borrowed the ebook from the Toronto Public Library, and it’s, um, an interesting book. It has a ton of images in it, which in a regular kind of ebook as this was, are displayed strangely sometimes — image on one page, caption on the next. But it’s hard to position images unless you have a fixed-layout ebook. In any case, I’m not used to seeing images in a non-fiction book of serious intent. Some were helpful; others I wasn’t sure why they were there.

Maybe it’s my brain injury getting in the way, but it took me awhile to understand how he structured the book and what the point of it was. Basically, it seems, each section is on how a particular philosopher — starting with ones from ancient Greece and moving in time towards the present — brings consolation to a particular part of life. So, for example, the Stoic philosopher Seneca brings consolation to those who are frustrated: his brand of philosophy helps a person cope with frustration or become less frustrated.

In each section, the author describes aspects of the philosopher’s life that played out how he (and they’re all “he”) grew his own philosophy and applied it to his own quandaries or way of living. One neat thing about this method is that the reader gets to know a particular philosophy through the life of the philosopher, making it very accessible to the non-philosophy major.

I didn’t finish it because my library ebook expired before I could. And I wasn’t so enthralled with it that I felt inclined to put another hold on it. However, I read most of it, enough to feel I can apply a rating to it.



View all my reviews

Many of the rants were familiar to me, so I must admit I skimmed through those, but the Maclean’s articles were not, and some of the rants I just didn’t remember. I could hear Mercer ranting in my head as I read them. His humour doesn’t grow old, even if some of the topics were a bit out of date. Even so, it was interesting to revisit old controversies. The piece I laughed hardest at was his backstory on the Rick Hansen piece on RMR. I almost fell off my chair.

If you’re not a Canadian and have never heard of Mercer (shock! horror!), you may find some of the stories are obscure, but there are plenty of pieces about political foibles and great characters that will have you rockin’ in your chair.

This is a good read when you need a laugh to break the back of a stressful day.



View all my reviews

First up, a guest post on Author’s Friend.  I offer ten tips on becoming a better writer, and I throw in a bonus tip too.

“Even if [writing] comes naturally, spilling out like a thunderous waterfall, there are things you can do to make that waterfall of prose better.“

Check out my ten tips on just how to make that waterfall of prose better on Author’s Friend.

Next is a new book review on She. Four of five stars!

“Does reading this book change the way you think? In more ways than one.“

Read the entire review on Author’s Friend or on Amazon.com and Goodreads.

And the last event is the Orangeberry Pick of the Week and Sidebar exposure.

Blog-A-Licious Authors asks such questions as, “What genre are you most comfortable writing?” Regular readers of my books will know that would’ve been a tad hard for me to answer. Check it out to see what I came up with!

“The one I most enjoyed writing was a time travel novel“

The interview with Orangeberry Book Tours on Twitter or #TwitterView will be lasting throughout this day. I’ve posted a widget below so you can see my answers so far:

Tweets about "@ShireenJ #TwitterView"