Treating TBI

Treating traumatic brain injuries @ the LATimes

They can’t be set like a bone or staunched like a bleed. They can be difficult even to detect, but the military and others are working to improve care.

Larry Ewing’s life changed last year on a construction site in Victorville; Larry Carr’s changed in 2004 on a road in Iraq. Unlikely brothers in arms, both men now share the same invisible wound — traumatic brain injury.

They tire easily, forget often and lose their balance and concentration without warning. They struggle to make peace with personality changes that have made them barely recognizable to loved ones.

Read the whole story here

How to ask for medical help

It’s only taken me 20 years, but I’ve finally figured out how to ask for help from medical folks in a way that not only lets me sound halfway intelligent, but also helps them to help me.

I had a very positive and productive interaction with an individual at a hospital the other day. I had undergone some testing a few months back that came up with inconclusive results that didn’t help explain some weirdness I’ve been experiencing most of my life. So, I need to get some more testing, but I’m not sure if my insurance will cover it. So, I had to contact this hospital to find out what billing codes they use and then call back the insurance company with the info. I didn’t have high hopes of getting very far — most of my interactions with hospitals have been tremendously frustrating for me.

But this time was different. There was no fussing. There was no confused back-and-forth. There were only questions and answers — the right questions, too — and positive results. It was so positive and productive, it left me a little speechless. This is a new experience for me — usually, I flounder and flail and can’t figure out what to say to medical folks, and then they get mad at me for not making their jobs harder. But the other day, I managed to conduct a level-headed, objective, intelligent, mature interaction with someone who actually helped me.

The things I did were so basic, so simple, I feel a little stupid talking about them. But not everyone knows how to do this — including me, for the past 20 years. Here’s what I did:

1. I identified myself with my name
2. I identified who my doctor is
3. I gave a brief overview my background — I had some tests, and I need to have more.
4. I identified the issue to solve — I have to figure out if my insurance will cover these tests.
5. I identified where I was having trouble solving this issue — my insurance company needs certain billing codes for this test
6. I identified what I needed to solve my problem — could they tell me what the billing codes were?
7. If they could help me, what were those codes?
8. If not, did they know who could tell them — and yes, I would hold.
9. I got the details from them and wrote them down
10. I repeated the details back to them for confirmation
11. I got their name and their telephone number
12. I repeated once more what they had told me and identified my next steps
13. I thanked them for their help and wished them a good day.

It sounds so simple… but until the other day, I had rarely managed to conduct any kind of conversation in this systematic a manner, and it always went poorly. I got turned around and angry, and the people I was talking to always got a bit beaten up in the process.

But the other day, that didn’t happen.

Now I know how to do this.

Magic.

Normal MRI and EEG… or not?

One thing that has saved me from obsessing about my job situation is my neuropsychological fall-out from my TBIs. Not only did my partner finally (after more than six months) get to sit down with my neuropsych and start to ask questions from a qualified health care provider, but my copies of the MRI and EEG results/interpretations came from the hospital, and it appears that my tests were not 100% clear of all disruptions.

It’s been an exquisitely excruciating balance of good news and who-knows-what-kind-of news. And it has totally kept my mind off my job situation, which in my more vulnerable and fatigued moments just drives me ’round the bend. As much as I want to focus on my strengths and keep firm and steady, I still have a tremendous amount of insecurity around how my TBIs have affected me, work-wise, and I have deep-seated reservations about how well I’ll be able to perform, if I’ll be able to keep up, if I’ll be able to be the kind of team player I was before my fall down the stairs in 2004.

But things are moving along with regard to the neuropsychological exam, and good things are brewing there. That promise of improved coping abilities and good information made available in a way I/we can use it… as well as finding out I have a small pineal cyst, and learning that there was some rare theta slowing in one of my temporal lobes, have pretty much eclipsed my vocational concerns.

On an up note, my partner and I had a great session with my neuropsychologist last week. From the mouth of a professional, descriptions of my situation and my “challenges” sound a whole lot less scary, and my neuropsych had straightforward answers and suggestions, where I generally get turned around and agitated and even sometimes a bit combative when pressed for information. My partner got to ask the questions that have been burning in their mind for months and months, and they got total access to the doctor sitting across the desk from them. They got to see that my folder about my testing is 4-5 inches thick, and there are tons of tests I took, all of which rendered pertinent results. They got a real sense for how complex my situation is, and how good my doc is — how they really take their time and make sure they’re thorough and cover all the bases, which is a good thing.

I think it was a total relief for my partner, who was starting to think — I believe — that my neuropsych was lolly-gagging and taking their sweet old time. One other thing that was very beneficial was that the doctor had to take a call and talk someone through the steps of tracking down a loved one who was impaired, and keeping them from being a danger to themself. I’ve had appointments canceled and rescheduled with this doc numerous times, due to things like this, and my partner was thinking I was just being brushed off. When the phone call came in, they got to see the doctor in action and just having that experience really did a lot for their confidence in them.

I think my partner and I both have more good info to work with now, in regards to our marriage, and they can see that the problems I’m having are not necessarily due to my being deliberately stubborn and trying to yank their chain and ignore them. Yes, I can be difficult, but I’m a lot less deliberately problematic than my partner believes. I’ve been catching crap for years about being too inattentive, too oblivious, too lax, too lazy, too unmotivated, too absent-minded, too flighty… and now, at long last, I’m somewhat vindicated. They were told explicitly by the doc that I have trouble understanding spoken language in the moment, and it takes me longer to process information when someone is talking to me. All those times that I’ve gotten raked over the coals for not being responsive enough quickly enough can now be put behind us. We don’t have to do that anymore. And we can slow down. Something about having a doctor communicate the information I’ve been trying to convey over the past year is helping. I’m not going to question that. I’ll take it — it’s a gift.

On the other hand, my other doctor — the neurologist I saw in January and February — seems to have mucked things up a bit. I got a copy of the MRI and EEG analyses, and while they may read as “normal”, they are not without event. My MRI shows a small pineal cyst, and my EEG shows some theta slowing in one of my temporal lobes. In both cases, the anomalies are not great enough to warrant all-out alarm, but they are both something to keep an eye on.

In addition, the neuro wrote up notes from my visit and sent them to my PCP, and their description is not 100% accurate. They focused a great deal on the “rage” issues I’ve been having. I wouldn’t necessarily call them “rage” — just abrupt swings in emotion, in all directions. And they also mis-characterized my family history, making one of my relatives (who has had a lifetime of symptoms and experiences similar to my own, in some respects) look and sound like a rage-a-holic.

Oh        my        God…

Now I have to back-pedal and compose a letter to both my neuro and my PCP correcting the record. It sorta kinda freaks me out a bit. I’ve had so many unproductive relationships with doctors, I can’t even begin to say. Now, I finally managed to find someone I can work with and with whom I have established a decent rapport… only to have this neuro mis-characterize me and potentially undermine that relationship.  It’s bad enough that the neuro misunderstood me and is working off bad information. But now they’ve dragged my PCP into it, too. Ack.

So, my next steps are to communicate my situation in writing. I am going to:

1. Work through this with my new therapist, who is a neuropsychologist themself, and who knows about TBI and can help me think through my response. I need to correct the record very thoroughly in writing and compose a letter to that effect.
2. Send the letter to this neuro and my PCP.
3. Follow up with my PCP about what to do with all this new information. I may need to do damage control. I want to keep the lines of communication open with them and make sure I’m not digging myself yet another hole.
4. Probably find a new neuro. I really liked dealing with this one, for once, but they clearly were not present and were not dealing with what was in front of them. I’m not sure where they were, at the time we were talking… But no matter. They are so fired, and I’m off to find another neuro.
5. Check in with my new therapist a lot through the whole process, to make sure I’m not making things worse for myself. That would be all too easy to do, and I want to do things different this time.

What this experience has really taught me — and there are some vital, valuable lessons here — is that I really need to approach my health care with my TBIs in mind. The biggest problems I’ve been having with health care, throughout my life, have revolved around communication. I have never had an easy time of describing my symptoms to doctors, nor have I done a very good job at collecting and analyzing information from them. I can see now that I’ve had a truly terrible time understanding what doctors are saying to me, parsing through it all, and then retaining it to act on it later.

And because I’ve had such a terrible time — all the while looking (to the untrained eye) like I should be more “with it,” so what the hell was I being such a freaking space-case about? — and I’ve got a history of various trauma with plenty of PTSD to go along with it, I would get all revved and anxious and become either overly withdrawn or combative in this exaggerated fight-or-flight dynamic that probably every TBI/PTSD person knows all too intimately. And I would either come across as hostile and aggressive, or I would retreat into my shell and not speak up about what was going on with me.

Which never made for very good doctor-patient relations, I can tell you.

Now I need to take a different approach. Put the facts of my situation into writing. Take it slowly and deliberately and seek out help. Because at least that’s a way I can communicate with my doctors with 100% accuracy. And the next time I deal with any doctor, I’m going to summarize in writing my issues and give them to them — along with a note from my neuropsychologist that explains that no matter how bright I may look on the outside, no matter how extensive my vocabulary may be, no matter how conceptually “with it” I may be, my speed of processing is slower than one would expect, my ability to process spoken language in the moment is impaired, and my short-term memory is for shit. And I don’t mean to come across as hostile and argumentative — I just have a hard time dealing with my “asymmetrical” challenges.

The next thing I do  — after I correct the neuro’s info and send it to them and my PCP — is get a brief summary letter from my neuropsych explaining both the strengths I have and the limitations. I cannot see any more doctors until I have that in hand and I can give it to them in advance, so they can understand I am not malingering, I am not deliberately being difficult, I am not trying to make their lives more complicated, I’m not a malpractice risk, I just need help when it comes to communicating, and I’d appreciate it if they wouldn’t jump to conclusions about me, just ’cause I fell down and got hit on the head a lot over the course of my eventful life.

I am so done with dealing with doctors who don’t have all the information and can’t use their heads to observe what’s right in front of them. Maybe that’s not how medical professionals do things, but God gave them two eyes,  two ears, a nose, and a mouth, and it seems to have worked well for millennia, so why not avail oneself of one’s native abilities?

I’m also fed up with not being able to “read” what they are trying to communicate, and being held back by my broken brain’s penchant for meaningless detail. I’m tired of struggling with something I “shouldn’t” have problems with, getting lost… and not realizing I’m lost till several hours after I leave the doctor’s office.

I’m sick and tired of this whole hidden disability trip, all the ignorance, all the half-assed information, all the bias, all the cluelessness… and how the lowest common denominators seem to drive the situation. I’m tired of having to navigate the seas of truly debilitating difficulties, without anyone else realizing they’re a problem for me — and giving me shit because they are.

I am also fed up with doctors who don’t take time with me. I need to figure something out. I had considered double-booking appointments with my doctor — reserving twice as much time with them, so I don’t feel as rushed and I can ask all the questions I need to ask at a speed I can actually sustain. Either that, or I’ll get an “interpreter” to go with me and help me understand what the doctor is saying to me — and who can help me get them to slow down and stop rushing me. I think that having another person in the room with me to help me sort things out may be the way to go.

Honestly, does my health need to suffer, just ’cause someone doesn’t want to slow down? The rest of the world may think so, but I don’t. I’m just not going there. Something’s broken. And I’ve got to fix it.

Diving Into My MRI

I spent time yesterday studying my MRI, comparing my brain with pictures of normal MRI’s I found online at Google images. What a treasure trove Google is! Just being able to find pictures of what “normal” looks like has been a great boon to me.

Looking at MRIs can be very trippy, and looking at my own brain is kind of spooky. From looking at it, the untrained eye could easily become very disoriented and alarmed. But knowing what other normal MRIs look like is very helpful. How else would I know that I’m not a freak of nature? The brain is just so fascinating!

It’s so great to find descriptions of the normal brain MRIs, since it can be hard to figure out what you’re looking at. I’ve got a used textbook on neuroscience I picked up, as well as a copy of Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy, which is a hefty tome of highly detailed drawings (done by Dr. Netter) of virtually every part of the human body, which also have every little piece clearly marked and labelled. I look at my MRI, then I consult my Netter’s book, then I Google the part of my brain that I think I’m looking at and read about it, and then consult my neuroscience textbook, to read more in-depth information that’s at a student level. Fascinating.

But I’m surprised to be having such a hard time finding information on reading MRIs. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places. Maybe that type of information is too advanced to be safe to release into the public, lest we all fire our radiologists, start reading our own MRIs, and jump to conclusions about ourselves. I’ve already had people look askance at me, when I told them I was going to be studying my MRI. They clearly seemed to think that I’m not qualified to do it, but I figure, why let that stop me? I’m not getting paid by anyone to ply that trade, and I’m only interested in my own situation, and it’s really just for my own gratification, so I’m not letting their skepticism stop me. It’s my body. I’ll study it to my heart’s content.

I know there’s no substitute for a qualified neurologist or radiologist, but I really need to understand what’s going on with me, and nobody seems to have the time to spend with me to make sure I’m clear on what’s going on. It’s very discouraging to have this level of testing done, only to not be able to find someone to help me understand it. The neuro I saw a week ago wouldn’t give me any more information, other than that my tests read as normal. I asked if they could show me the film, but they brushed me off. Maybe they thought I’d be looking for something that doesn’t exist… malingering and all that. I’m not malingering. I’m curious! And honestly, I don’t want to milk this and make myself out to be sicker than I am. I just want to know why my life experience is so different from what I hear everyone else describing. I want to know why I have the many, many issues I’ve got. I want to know what makes my brain unique — and treat that uniqueness as a strength, not a weakness. And having MRI images to help me gain just a little more insight into my situation seems like a great opportunity to learn more… even/especially if what I learn is that my variations on experience are “within normal range” and not the sort of thing I need to be concerned about.

I did find some pictures of my brain that I have questions about. Places where there are asymmetries and/or dark/light spots that might be old injuries or some abnormality. The part of me that’s been on high alert — or hovering around there — is eager to run off to a neuro to get the spots and dots and bright places explained… to explain how the asymmetries in my brain might translate to some irregularities in how my mind works. I know I need to calm down, get some rest, let it all sink in. There’s no tremendous hurry, now that I know that I’m not in imminent danger from a brain tumor or MS or some other terrible neurological condition. I can relax, now. And I need to make more of an effort at doing that.

In the meantime, while I recover from my over-excitabilities, I’ll think about my next steps. Study normal MRIs online, look around, just do the whole visual image thing, getting my eyes used to the sight of MRIs, so when I do get a chance to talk to a neuro about my results, I can sound at least moderately intelligent. I’m thinking about contacting that last neuro I went to see — the one who treated me like I was looking for drugs, who has since apparently recanted their attitude towards me and offered to help me “in any way” they can. I may give them another chance — but next time, take someone I trust with me, and ask the neuro to just walk me through the high-level points of my MRI. There are some things that are grabbing my attention, and I would like a little bit of an explanation.

I really need someone to read it who knows how to interpret the orientation of the images. I think MRIs may give you a mirror image of a body part, so the left side of the picture is actually the right side. At least, that’s the impression I get from reading descriptions of MRIs that show clear anomalies on the left side… but the text talks about right-side issues. It gets confusing. One side of my brain is shaped a little differently than the other, and I’m not sure if my right side is lop-sided, or if it’s my left. I think it makes a difference, too, which side is varied from the “norm” — left and right sides have different functionality, or so I understand, and if I’ve got developmental issues with one side of my brain, then knowing about them might help me better understand and manage my own issues.

It could be that I’m on some wild goose chase, and that all the differences in my brain are in fact quite normal. But looking at my pictures and comparing them with other MRIs, my head is kind of lop-sided, and one side of my brain has a noticeably different angle than the other side — between the lower frontal/parietal lobes and the temporal lobe that sits beneath it. I’ve got some asymmetrical bulges, and in some places, one part of my brain looks like it’s been crowded by another part that is not shaped the same way as others’ normal pix. It is considerably wider and looks bigger than I’ve seen elsewhere, so that just makes me wonder.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing, having parts of my brain differently arranged than the norm. If anything, it’s probably an advantage. Even if my brain developed differently over the course of my life, it hasn’t completely stopped me from living my life, and no one would probably ever guess that it’s developmentally different. I’ve been far too successful in my life, far too resilient, far too capable, far too adaptable, far too effective, all across the board, for any sort of developmental differences to be a liability. If anything, my differences are a strength. And I’d never part with them. Not at all.

Looking at all these “normal MRI” pix, I have to wonder… What is normal, anyway? If you think about it, the chances of anyone turning out the same way as other people are just so slim. The human body is an amazingly intricate and sensitive system that can be impacted by unseen, invisible forces that we don’t recognize for a long time, if we recognize them at all. We’ve got billions and billions of cells constantly growing and changing and multiplying, we’ve got tons of distinct body parts, we’ve got so many different bodily functions, many of them invisible to us. And we’ve got not only our internal world but our external world to deal with and factor in. Some days, I’m amazed that the human race — or, for that matter, any living creature — makes it through a single day.

Lots can go wrong. Lots can change us. Lots can affect us and our development. But variations are what keep the human race viable. The healthiest living systems have a lot of variety in them, and I would expect that variations in brain development are critical for a healthy system, as well. Even if those variations appear to be “disabilities” or some other sort of rare deviation. The human brain is an amazing organ, and not only can it do things we cannot even begin to imagine possible, but it can also accommodate a whole lot of additional variations and bounce back from injuries, with neuroplasticity and remapping functions and other mechanisms we haven’t even begun to name. (I haven’t done a plug for The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, in a few months, so I’ll mention it here — if you have doubts about the ability of the brain to adapt, then you should definitely check it out.)

So, even if my brain is developmentally anomalous, and even if it got broken along the way with those hits and falls and accidents, and even if it gets tired and overwhelmed and doesn’t know where it is, sometimes, it’s still mine. It’s what I have to work with. And so far, injuries and accidents notwithstanding, it’s still going strong.

EEG and MRI are both normal!

Woo hoo!

I had a visit with my new neuro on Monday, and they tell me that my EEG and MRI both read as NORMAL.

There is no sign of a brain tumor.

There is no sign of MS.

There is no sign of degenerative disease.

I’m way symmetrical and looking good.

At last, I’ve got some actual testing and numbers to show for all this. Enough of the guesswork — I’ve got plenty of notes and detailed observations about my life, but no doctor apparently has the time or inclination to sort through them all.

Plus, with my over-the-top attention to detail and fixation on things that are experientially important (but probably medically insignificant), who knows if anything I’ve recorded is even any use to them at all?

God, I love minutiae. But it doesn’t love me 😉

Anyway, I’m trying really hard to stay positive through all this. I think that part of me would have liked to see at least a little bit of “variation” on my test results, so I have concrete proof that something unusual is “up” with me.

But this is actually one of the things that makes TBI such a conundrum for folks — both medical doctors and people who experience it. Your test results can come back looking great, your CAT scan, your MRI, and your EEG can all come back normal. But there are real issues hidden under the surface that emerge over time and with varying degrees of difficulty.

And those issues can look like seizures or mental illness or ADD or OCD or some of the other “alphabet” conditions that are swimming around out there.

Or, worst of all, they can be interpreted as a lack of will, being a “bad seed”, being “sinful”, or old-fashioned “character defects” that have little or nothing to do with character and have everything to do with the brain not behaving as it should.

And it can make you crazy. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that mental illness can emerge as a result of the stress and strain of dealing with TBI… with or without knowing it.

Well, I would love to write more… and I really want to. But I’ve got to get ready for work and stop at the bank to close the business bank account I opened back before I realized that I wasn’t nearly as capable as I thought I was, and my MBTI was propelling me forward in life, fueled by anxiety, drive, aggression, and a deep-seated need to prove to myself and the world that I was really doing very well… when in fact, I wasn’t.

I know now that the complicated tasks involved with running a business are well beyond my broken brain. I may be able to get back some of my functionality with some speech/occupational therapy, but that’s a ways off in the futur. Right now, it’s time for me to let go of that unrealistic drive and work with the limitations I have. In a way, it’s a huge relief. There are plenty of other ways I can prove my self-worth to myself and the world that don’t involve adminstrative paperwork and filing quarterly taxes 😉

Note: This was cross-posted at Daily Strength

Prepping for my neuro visit tomorrow

I’ve got another neuro visit tomorrow — this one is finally a substantial one, when I’ll actually be reviewing the results of my MRI and my EEG. It’s been about a month since I got my MRI, and it’s been nearly 3 weeks since my EEG, and the suspense has been really intense at times.

In my more dramatic moments, part of me thinks, “Today is the last ‘normal’ day/week of my life.” And I get all worked up, thinking that these test results might come back with terrible news or some sign of a horrible condition/disease/tumor/whatever that will sideline me permanently — or at least turn my life into one big detour.

I worry that I won’t be fully functional anymore. That I’ll have to invest all this extra time and energy in overcoming a real issue that I’ve blissfully ignored for a long time. That I’ll be officially disabled. That I’ll be “less than human” and have to live a second-rate life as a result of what the pictures of my brain show.

I also worry that they won’t find anything at all… that I’ll turn out to be crazy and people will look at me like I’m just looking for attention… making things up… malingering… defrauding professional service providers.

Worst of all, I think, would be getting inconclusive results that will waylay my energy and keep me pre-occupied trying to track down the root cause of stuff that’s been getting in my way for a long time, but I’ve been able to brush off and minimize until the past year or so.

I’d almost rather get no results than inconclusive ones. But whatever happens, happens. And I’ll just deal with whatever comes up. I always do.

This waiting around for test results is really exhausting. Especially since I never got any medical attention for any of my multiple TBI’s, and I don’t have a lot of reliable medical records describing my symptoms and issues in medical jargon-y detail. I’ve never been able to articulate my issues to doctors with any level of accuracy, and most of the time, I’ve just given up and said, “Oh, forget it — it’s not that bad, really…” and went off to lick my wounds where I was safe and warm and able to tend to myself and my problems on my own terms.

I swear, this cognitive-challenge/communication-difficulty stuff just makes me nuts. I have a hell of a time articulating my issues out loud to doctors, who are all too often looking for medical data and/or some Latin-based vocabulary in order to properly assess my situation. I don’t know Latin, and I don’t have medical records that show evidence of my injuries. All I have is my life experience and a muddled, garbled mish-mash of out-loud observations that don’t come across right, when I’m talking to someone who doesn’t know me personally (and even if they do, can’t for the life of them imagine that I’ve actually been injured). Absent concrete data, I’m out of luck… so, I’ve been largely resigned over the years to just being out of luck.

Oh, well… what’s next? Life is waiting…

But tomorrow, I will actually be having a discussion with a doctor about real, honest-to-goodness medical test results. Imagine that. I am really looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to it so much that I’ve been studying up on MRI’s and EEG’s and learning to recognize what they show.

I found a couple of great sites for learning about them — with plenty of pictures, which I desperately need.

There’s the section on Electroencephalography and Evoked Potentials followed by their Electroencephalography Atlas over at Medline. I have been studying the page on Normal Awake EEG
so I know what I’m looking at, when the doctor shows me what’s going on with me. I’m studying the normal EEG, as well as other types, so I can tell the difference — if there is any — between what my EEG looks like and what a normal one would look like.

Normal Awake EEG : A 10-second segment showing a well-formed and well-regulated alpha rhythm at 9 Hz.

I’ve also been studying MRI’s over at Harvard’s Whole Brain Atlas, which shows what a normal MRI looks like — with the different slices — so that when I look at my own MRI, I can see if/how it differs from how it “should” look.

They have MRI slices from different scenarios —

• Normal Brain
• Cerebrovascular Disease (stroke or “brain attack”)
• Neoplastic Disease (brain tumor)
• Degenerative Disease
• Inflammatory or Infectious Disease

And you can look at the slices from different angles, which is way cool!

I’ve been studying the normal brain MRI slices, so I am better able to understand what — if anything — is wrong with my gourd.

Now, on a wireless or dialup connection, the images load a little slowly, but on broadband/cable modem, they’re speedy.

Okay, so I know I’m a bit of a nerd/geek, but this just fascinates me. I’m also studying EEG electrode placement patterns, so when I look at my own EEG, if there is any abnormal activity, I can see what area of my brain it takes place in.

Electrodes are placed on 10-20 different areas of the scalp, and they’re lettered/numbered by position. F means Frontal Lobe, T means Temporal Lobe, O means Occipital Lobe, P means Parietal Lobe, and combinations of them mean the electrodes are getting data from more than one lobe. The numbers are odd on the left side of the head and are even on the right side. Here’s an image I’ve been studying:

I think it’s fascinating. And I have a lot to learn. I think I’ll get myself a balloon and blow it up, then write all the electrode numbers on the balloon with a permanent marker, so I have a 3D version of the placement to take with me to the doctor. I’ll let the air out of the balloon, so I can take it with me easily and then blow it up at the doctor’s office so I can see what’s up, when they start talking about the different readings of my brain.

Of course, this may be moot, if my EEG comes back perfectly normal, but in case it doesn’t, I would like to understand where/how/why things are ‘off’ with me… what it means… and if/how any of my prior TBIs have specifically impacted certain parts of my brain.

This stuff just fascinates me. It’s a lot to take in, and it can actually be pretty serious, but for now I’m going to entertain myself… not to mention distract myself from all the different scenarios my broken brain is coming up with.

Sometimes the inside of my head is a scary place to be.