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Showing posts from February, 2014

Amnesia And. brain injury

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amnesia  ( æmˈniːzjə; -ʒjə; -zɪə ) n 1.  (Medicine) a defect in memory, esp one resulting from pathological cause, such as brain damage or hysteria * Progression of Anoxic Brain Damage   Copyright © Nucleus Medical Media, Inc. Definition   Anoxic brain damage is injury to the brain due to a lack of oxygen. Hypoxia is the term to describe low oxygen. Brain cells without enough oxygen will begin to die after about four minutes. I haven't been diagnosed with either. In fact I can't get any medical people to do anything or say anything about this. After my SCA we knew my brain was fuzzy, things like not knowing pizza existed, or knowing about friendships, or friends dieing. But overall it was reasonable. But after my near fatal collapse from the blood infection I had huge chunks missing.  Significant portions of time. Significant events had disappeared from my memory. None of this has t

Memory and muppets

A couple nights ago I was watching Muppets Take Manhatten, with my son. Kermit the frog gets injured, has amnesia, forgets everything, then miss piggy decks him and he gets his memory back. If only it was that simple. The loss of long term term (2009-2012) for me, then the SCA fog, and subsequent broken short term memory has severely impacted all aspects of my life. Doctors say, what I get back in two years is what I get back, but that's so not helpful. But that huge three year hole in my life is so detrimental. It's like I went to sleep with a 6 & 9 year old and woke up with a 9 year old and a teen. Friends died, babies were born, people married or divorced. I met people, friendships ended. And omg technology advanced. I bought furniture, and clothing. And really it's like I walked into a strangers life the day I left the hospital. For as much as its hard or inconvenient for those around me, it's absolute he'll on me. Every single minute.  It doesn't go aw

Two moments of full clarity

Today I had two complete moments of clarity.  Unusual for me, but I had them. 1) Toothless - little black dragon, from the movie how to train your dragon.  I've loved him for the last year.  Something Austin and I watched together.  I bought myself a little figurine of him on my birthday.  Cute little dragon. Kids were bugging me that the show wasn't called Toothless but Dragon Rider.  I said its Toothless.  Kids are Ask why I like him so much.  They are throwing reasons at me from all directions.  He is cute, he is a dragon, you can ride him.  No, no, no. So why? I like him because he was broken and someone took the time to fix him. The kids never said another word. 2) a friend 4 years after her SCA went back to her old job.  I told her I  was proud of her.  Very very very proud and I am.  BUT: I realized that I'm proud that she took the risk to try.  Not that her short term memory was good enough to do it.  I don't know how to explain that to her. The clarity

Happy Birthday

Today is my birthday my real one. I'm 47, I'm now officially closer to fifty than forty....lol. I hated turning 45, I thought the world was ending.  I wrote about it in my journal I keep.  At 45 I was closer to 50, I thought it was horrible.  I wanted no acknowledgement of that birthday, no cake, no presents. I wonder if I was fore-shadowing events yet to come. Just five months and three days later I died.  For the first time.  The next three days saw me have more sudden cardiac arrests. I don't remember any of that year.  I don't remember the angst of turning 45, I've just read that journal I kept, talked to friends, and loved ones. I didn't want to turn 45. Now two years later, I'm grateful I'm here to celebrate 47. I'm enthused I'm here to celebrate it.  I want to infect everyone with my enthusiasm.  I could scream it from the rooftops. I want to shout, and dance and be doted on, and showered with hugs and kisses, and hearts and presents

Hearts, heart and more hearts

Growing up I hated the over- objectification of a heart in February, hearts on valentines day.  I could never understand what a dang heart even had to do with it.  It didn't look like a heart. It didn't resemble a heart.  It was a weird shape.  It looked like I was destined to have to tolerate hearts on my birthday though. Now that I have (you guessed it) a heart condition, I really want a non heart birthday.