Apr11

My Brain Diary, Part 13

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My Brain Diary, Part 13

I went through a long day of neuropsych testing, and it was quite interesting. Obviously, I can’t reveal everything about the experience, because you don’t want people who might go through the testing themselves to know too much. What I can say is that even during the testing, I could tell which areas were giving me particular difficulty – and after the testing, I started seeing some patterns in specific difficulties in performance among different tests.

Some things were obvious. Verbal memory was horrendous. I already knew that I’m having more trouble than ever remembering things that have been said to me, but one test involved repeating a very short story back to the examiner after she read it. On the first go-through, I repeated only the general ideas, and had trouble remembering enough to answer questions about the stories. On the second go-round, I remembered even less, and had trouble answering questions even with prompts. Other parts that required memory were not quite so abysmal, but it was clear that I was having some trouble.

When I went in for the evaluation, the neuropsychologist pointed out that other parts of the tests showed something much more telling – my pattern of answering, and the difference between tests with and without feedback, indicated that I had a big problem with impulsivity that was impairing my performance. Some of the tests were observed and some were just me and a machine of some kind, and the performance differences and the way I responded while observed showed some significant anxiety.

I don’t know if that’s an inherent anxiety, or just the anxiety that’s been overwhelming me for the last several months, but I have to tell you that I thought that I was cool, calm, and collected the whole time.

Some parts of the test were taken from IQ assessments. I performed quite impressively on those – but I’m not surprised because I already know my IQ and I know I’m intelligent. I swear I’m not bragging – it’s just a thing about me that is. But what this meant to the doctor is that my results on the other test segments compared to the intelligence parts demonstrated that I do have impairments that are functionally significant.

We’ve had a couple of counseling sessions, and will continue once a week for a while. Once I have the right medication and get my depression under control, I’ll probably undergo some speech therapy and occupational therapy. Since there doesn’t appear to be any lesions on my brain, there’s a possibility that my brain is plastic enough to re-learn some things.

Patience is not my strong suit. Obviously. But this is sort of like parts of my brain fell asleep from the pressure of the tumor, and the pins and needles stage is going to last for a while. I need to shake it out a bit. And put up with it until things start working again. Also not one of my personal strengths. Since I have no choice, though, I suppose that eventually I’ll learn.

Apr5

10 Things I Have Learned About Abortion from Pro-lifers.

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10 Things I Have Learned About Abortion from Pro-lifers.

1. Women choose to have sex. Men are apparently not involved in this decision-making process.

2. Women who do not use birth control are irresponsible and should never have sex.

3. Women who use birth control are also irresponsible, because they know that birth control is not 100% foolproof and should never have sex.

4. Being pro-life has absolutely nothing to do with religion. It’s just a coincidence that my God is opposed to abortion, and if yours isn’t, then you’re worshiping the wrong God.

5. No matter how many examples you find of God-sanctioned infanticide in the Bible, it in no way indicates that God is OK with baby-killing. Baby-killing on his orders is OK because reasons. If he says it’s OK, it’s OK, but he definitely didn’t say abortion was OK except in the parts where he did.

6. All the aborted babies could have gone on to do great things. None of the aborted babies would have been “welfare queens” or criminals or deranged genocidal dictators.

7. People are lined up to adopt babies. If you give your baby up for adoption, it will find a loving family. It definitely, positively, won’t join the half million kids already available for adoption or be one of the 23,000 who age out of the system without being adopted every year. Oh, and it will be happy with its family, who will never turn out to be abusive in any way.

8. It is never OK to abort a baby that resulted from consensual sex. Conception circumstances are paramount, which is why it’s OK to abort rape babies. Consensual sex babies are alive at the moment of conception because of consent. Rape babies are alive at the moment of conception, too, but it’s OK to abort them because they aren’t the consequences of the choice of an irresponsible woman. Don’t ask me to explain this, I’ve tried and tried and still don’t get it.

9. If abortions are illegal, nobody will need them. Only 1% of all abortions are for high-risk situations like the life of the mother or significant defects in the fetus, and letting women die and having babies who are severely handicapped (even if they’re guaranteed to die after birth) is a risk that people who aren’t dealing with these situations are willing to accept.

10. Even if you are too poor to support a child, too young to be a parent, too ill mentally or physically to be a parent, addicted to drugs and unemployed and homeless, married to an abusive spouse or a pedophile, the baby is a gift from God and all your problems will go away as long as you don’t get an abortion.

Feb26

My Brain Diary – Part 12

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My Brain Diary – Part 12

I’m trying to think of ways to keep my expectations reasonable and realistic. This is really difficult, because I really thought that the problems I had from the tumor would clear up so much more completely after it was gone. What this means is that when I notice an improvement but still have problems, I get frustrated and depressed thinking of the remaining shortcoming and forget about being happy for what I’ve recovered.

Well I was going through photos and happened to find one from a year before my surgery when I had a grand idea that I was going to use Photoshop to try out potential hairstyles. It was pretty bizarre, because I don’t have too many photos of myself, and the changes I saw in the mirror were gradual enough not to notice. I was shocked at the asymmetry, and no matter how hard I tried to make the muscles in the right side of my face mimic the ones on the left, I couldn’t – and I had no idea why this was happening. I don’t know how long I hadn’t noticed it, either. But anyway, the heck with vanity, here’s a side by side comparison of the photo from November 2011 on the left, and 2/26/2014 on the right.

droopface

My surgery was October 12, 2012. 16 months later, you can see that I’m still somewhat lopsided. If a simple muscle function doesn’t return completely, then it’s reasonable to assume that the cognitive deficits are going to fall short of what they used to be as well. I can look at my face and think, “Oh, well, I guess it’s stuck like that.” I think I need to try to change my attitude towards the other things to something more along those lines. I got used to the different face. Even though it doesn’t impact me as much as the different speech and the different memory and the different visual perception, I still need to get used to those being different too. I need to accept them even though I remember what it was like when they were better.

I hate talking on the phone. On the phone, I can’t make gestures to try to get across the word that I’ve lost, and I can’t look it up in Google without breaking up the conversation. I just sound stupid. This is frustrating because I’m just as intelligent as I was before, but you wouldn’t know it if you were talking to me on the phone. In person it’s only slightly better because, you know, I’m forgetting words and playing Charades to try to get you to understand what I mean. This is why those of you who don’t email or Skype me haven’t heard from me in a while. It’s frustrating and embarrassing, and that’s harder to get over than a lopsided face.

The memory and visual perception are easier to deal with, and are also something that the neuropsych will be able to help me with over time. Still frustrating, but easier to use the face analogy to tolerate.

Just complaining. Only a few more weeks before the testing and evaluation. I can show people my droopy face as proof that I’m not stupid, just slightly brain damaged. But not on the phone.