My neurodoc is used to thinking about something quickly and telling a person to do x, y, z five seconds after you’ve given him feedback, whether you’re research staff or a patient. I’m not used to taking orders sans explanation. But sometimes I’m just too tired to care. Of course, that only lasts for so…
Tag: Brain Treatment
Slower and Reading Out Loud Leads to Less of a Headache
I managed one moment of working on my reading last week with all the emotional upheaval I was in. Emotional upheaval really stalls one’s recovery. I also went over the advice I received from non-experts and forwarded it on to my neurodoc then discussed it all with him. His first comment: do you think you’re…
What’s it Like to Recover from a Brain Injury?
What’s it like to recover from a brain injury? Well, it leads to odd moments like this: Therapist: Give yourself credit. Me: For what? Therapist: For booking the tickets. Me: *blink* Thinks: I know how to book tickets. I’ve booked tickets since I was so young, I can’t recall when. *scowls* Therapist: You booked the…
PTSD Freezes Reading Homework Out
Relearning how to read comes in fits and starts when you have PTSD in addition to brain injury. Reading is probably more vulnerable to being sidetracked than other aspects of recovery because it is so difficult cognitively and, for me, fraught with issues of loss and identity and being part of mainstream society. One of…
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…
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…
Brain Injury, Brain Healing, and Emerging Personality
I wrote on the back cover of my book Concussion Is Brain Injury that I had died when I suffered a closed head injury, not literally physically died, but the person that I was died that day. Since then, my health care professionals and I have talked on and off about who I am. This…