brain injury (links)

I had a car wreck in April of 1998 and when I woke up and could really understand what happened, they told me I hit my head so hard (the seatbelt broke) that my brain was split in 3 pieces and I was put into a coma.  To repair this damage, I was kept comatose for (I don’t really know) about a month, using an experimental treatment for brain injuries.

(Hyperbaric treatment)

(reading this wikipedia entry, above, 12 yrs later…it worked for me)

(I myself have contributed to the study and treatment of brain injuries, then, in 98, an obscure branch of medical studies.  Since 2002, and the US involvement in wars in the near east, brain injuries are the most common injury.  I have, I think, contributed some small amount of knowledge about how to treat traumatic brain injuries)

One of the things I want to tell you about brain injuries is that the human brain is very complex; it make this computer I’m typing on look look like a wind up toy. That also means that the brain is the least understood organ.  I want to tell you that it’s a miracle that I am mostly the self that I was before the injury.  I want to, but the docs would vehemently tell you it was no miracle, it was their skill and maybe a little bit of my determination. ( I never accepted that I was in any way impaired… but on the other hand, well, I was severely damaged.  7 on the Glasco Coma Scale)

Ok, all of that is a lead up to this:  Right now I am watching "Transformers" on ABC TV.  I have seen it before; my friend A rented it when it came out in 2007.  I saw it on the tv line up tonight,and thought about not watching it – I had seen it before – but there was nothing more interesting on, and time drags sometimes for me.  TV helps that.

So, anyway, I’m watching this movie, and it’s all new to me, again.  I remember the car – first view of the new Chevy Camaro, and I certainly remember Megan Fox (HOT!), but I don’t remember very much else of the movie.

It’s kind of a neat thing, not remembering movies, and it’s kind of a drag.  My visual memory was damaged.

(I could not complete my Japanese classes in college because I could not (and probably cannot) remember the Kanji, the symbols that make up the written language of Japanese)

I’m making the best of this- I know a bunch of movies that I liked and know are "good".  For example, I saw "Avatar" three or four times before I felt like I had indeed "seen" it.

"Transformers" I have seen only once, and it’s all new to me (except the cars and the babe).

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A person with a moderate or severe TBI may have a headache that does not go away, repeated vomiting or nausea, convulsions, an inability to awaken, dilation of one or both pupils, slurred speech, aphasia (word-finding difficulties), dysarthria (muscle weakness that causes disordered speech), weakness or numbness in the limbs, loss of coordination, confusion, restlessness, or agitation.[34] Common long-term symptoms of moderate to severe TBI are changes in appropriate social behavior, deficits in social judgment, and cognitive changes, especially problems with sustained attention, processing speed, and executive functioning.[27][36][37][38][39] Alexithymia, a deficiency in identifying, understanding, processing, and describing emotions occurs in 60.9% of individuals with TBI.[40] Cognitive and social deficits have long-term consequences for the daily lives of people with moderate to severe TBI, but can be improved with appropriate rehabilitation.[39][41][42][43]

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