I’ve recently had a few people tell me they’re not experts, as if that’s a bad thing. I bring this up because in the old days, pre-brain injury, I held experts in high esteem. I respected their education and experience and saw them as authority figures. Well, okay, I had no problem challenging them in…
Category: Personal
Early Days in the Reading Homework Trenches
Another reading observation stint. This time an easier article, my neurodoc assured me. The Wall Street Journal piece he handed me was on Rosetta, the European Space Agency’s mission probe to a comet, and her findings. (Aren’t ships, even space ships all female? They do have to be smart and strong, able to ride the…
Gamma Brainwave Biofeedback and the Healing of Emotions in PTSD and Brain Injury
Brain injury can lead to emotions turning off, short circuiting, the frontal lobes not mediating the reptilian brain. PTSD can lead to emotions being blocked. Having the two makes mood and feeling emotions like being on a rudderless ship in an unpredictable gale. So where does gamma brainwave biofeedback fit in? If brain biofeedback or…
Reading v. Learning: A Thought Exercise
Is reading learning? Are the higher cognitive aspects of reading really just learning and concentration? Are my problems only learning issues and not reading ones? If it’s solely a learning issue, then logically I would have the same kind of issue with any kind of learning. If learning is the issue, then the modality of…
Reading Rehab After Brain Injury: More Observing and First Homework Assignment
Reading observations continued this week. I’m getting used to this being-watched-as-I-read thing. First up was a page from the Toronto Sun. Busy busy, visually speaking. Ugh. But as my eye caught the byline “Don Peat,” I exclaimed: I follow him on Twitter! That’s OK, my neurodoc replied; he still wanted me to read the article.…
Talking Reading Strategies Post Brain Injury
After my neurodoc observed me read a portion of a Wall Street Journal article, he discussed the first thing for me to do to at least not make reading harder than it was: relax and bring anxiety under control. We then discussed strategies I’m already familiar with but discussing it in a way I hadn’t…
Reading Ground Zero: Observing my Reading After Brain Injury
My Neurodoc is into the dribs and drabs method the last few months. For most of my post-brain injury years, I’ve roared ahead at top speed, first trying to get back as quickly as possible to my life, then to regain necessary skills as quickly as possible, then to normalize some skills and continue to…
Reading Rehab Take Umpteen After Brain Injury: My Neurodoc and I
A new year, a new blogging direction. 2014 was a shit year, pardon my swearing. But really, I’m heartily glad to see the back of it. Bring on 2015! May it bring hope. My brain biofeedback is continuing as usual, no dramatic changes in me from it; since my neurodoc changed direction right at the…
Christmas Break From Health Care
With the way the Christmas and New Year’s dates fall, I’ll be off from some of my health care appointments three weeks instead of two. Most times I looked forward to a break, some years I even tried to extend it, but it’s a measure of how much my routine sustains me these days that…