Surviving the Storms of Combined TBI and PTSD

This has been an extremly trying week for me. No, make that ten days. The storms that buried many parts of this country in ice and snow have been very challenging, yes, but my responses to them have been even more of an issue. I’ve been “going off” on people around me and being a raging terror to the people closest to me, and I feel even worse than I would if my life were just complicated.

I’ve been shut down, unable to communicate, unable to ask for help, unable to logically parse through the events around me and come up with common-sense responses to events around me. I’ve had an incredibly short temper, I find myself flying off the handle over every little thing, I haven’t been sleeping, and I haven’t been able to think past the next half hour. All this, over lots of ice and snow and the power going out.

I know that I live in an area where I am safe. I know I have a job that will pay for all these expenses. I know I have friends and family who can come to my assistance. But my body is telling me I’m in mortal danger, and I’ve been alternately freaking out with the stress, on and off, for the past week and a half. My PTSD has blown my responses way out of proportion, and it is taking a toll on my self-esteem and my ability to cope. It’s also worrying, that I should have so much trouble with such simple, basic stuff, and it makes me fear for my life, should something really bad and really serious happen. It’s worrying.

Now, I’m very grateful, that the past week or so hasn’t been a truly life-threatening situation. My mind knows it hasn’t. But to my body, it sure feels that way. And I’ve been managing a level of panic that hasn’t taken over me for quite some time. That rising, falling, ebbing, flowing sense of impending doom that sends my adrenaline pumping and slowly fries my ability to think clearly, has been a constant companion for the past 10 days, and that doesn’t make me happy. It makes me jumpy and frazzled. It makes me way beyond irritable — it makes me extremely volatile and it makes my temper outbursts frighteningly violent.

And my diminished ability to cope with even the most basic demands (like carrying an armload of firewood in from the wood pile) without melting down, makes me feel like a wuss and a coward and a pansy-ass. It makes me feel incompetent, deficient, a loser. I feel like such a simpleton, when I end up spinning my wheels and unable to think through a logical progression of steps, during such a simple thing as the power going out. It just makes the more complex tasks (like having to relocate and keep my life on track) that much harder. It makes me feel like a total loser, to be churning and churning and not able to deal with the simplest of tasks, like shutting down the pump and furnace in the proper order… draining pipes and keeping up with my tasks at work and keeping current on paying my bills. It makes me feel like a freak, that I can’t keep my head on straight and just work my way through things.

I wish my mind were clearer — ten years ago, it would have been — even five years ago, I’m certain that I could have just dealt with all this in good form. But that fall down the stairs in 2004when I hit the back of my head, had such an effect on me. I can see it now in living color. Where I was once able to really embrace this kind of situation, roll with it, cowboy up and ride into battle with all flags flying, now I find myself cowering in a corner, struggling to sort through the different pieces of information I have, unable to prioritize, unable to think things through in an orderly manner, unable to discern the relative importance of different events… getting more and more panicked all the time.

Should I turn off the water again? Should I drain the pipes? Should I turn the heat up? Should I call my relatives? Should I worry about the health and safety of the older animals we have? Should I be this worried? Should I…? It’s maddening, but I can’t seem to make head or tail of things, at times. And that drives me nuts. All the while that my brain is trying to sort through things, my panic level is rising. I can’t seem to put my reactions in perspective, can’t seem to distance myself from what I’m feeling, can’t seem to hold back the waves of anxiety and fear that rush through me without warning.

If anything, the intense responses that I’ve had to the power outages and the disruption to my daily schedule have served to make me feel even worse than I “should” feel — I know I am not exactly in mortal danger, I intellectually know that I probably will get through this all in one piece, and I am well aware of how lucky I am to have the resources and community support that I have — but there is a part of me that gets so freaked out and starts to flail… while my mind sits back and says WTF — what is your problem? What are you, some kind of retard? What’s gotten into you? You can handle this? Why are you being such a friggin’ loser?

I have spent a whole lot of time beating myself up over this… feeling stupid, feeling ignorant, feeling incompetent. I can’t seem to care for my household. I can’t seem to keep up with the most basic elements of providing for and protecting my own family. I can’t even keep my own shit together, let alone care for the ones I love. It’s so fucking debilitating, sitting and watching myself lose it over stupid shit that didn’t used to bother me. And I wonder if I’ll ever be the person I once was… if I’ll ever be fully functional… or if this brain of mine, this spirit of mine, is so damaged beyond repair, that I’ll live out the rest of my born days as a shadow of the person I once was.

And I understand all too well, why soldiers back from Iraq or Afghanistan, who are dealing with the after-effects of TBI and PTSD end up killing themselves. I totally get it. Your brain isn’t working the way you need it to — you can’t even tell that it’s not, half the time. All you know is, things are not clicking right, and you start to panic. The adrenaline gets pumping, the cortisol gets flowing, the body kicks into high gear, trying to respond to a perceived threat that the brain can’t quite comprehend… and the biochemical onslaught slowly but surely erodes your capacity to deal… to think… to manage your own emotions…

Time after time it happens… the downward spiral, the fear, the anxiety, the feelings of hopelessness and the inability to parse out just what is happening in your life, to your life, to your body and mind and spirit. And with each successive onslaught of biochemical assault, you become a little less capable of dealing effectively with the world around you. You get a shorter fuse. You get a faster, more sensitive hair-trigger. You explode more violently. You freak out more embarrassingly. You just can’t deal… you just can’t deal… and you don’t know why.

All you know is, this downward spiral doesn’t seem to have an end.

You’re totally screwed.

The thing is, it’s not necessarily true. It feels that way. It may even seem that way. But I have to remember, in my own case, when things are at their worst, it’s often because my brain is not telling me the truth. In fact, knowing that my brain is broken, can be the best defense against doing something rash that would devastate my family and friends. Killing myself is NOT the answer. For me or for the ones I love. I frankly could never do that to the people around me — it would be too awful for them. I have a hard time, sometimes, believing that anyone could care enough about me to miss me when I’m gone, but when I think about the stigma and humiliation that my suicide would cause my family… well, from that standpoint alone, I have to stop the thoughts of ending my life.

Seriously, I have been on the brink so many times in my life, but it never seemed like it was fucking worth it, to kill myself. First, I might not succeed, and then I might end up either horribly disfigured and/or incapacitated and even more of a burden to my family and friends. Or I would find out, after killing myself, that I was stuck for eternity in purgatory. Or hell. And I’d be unable to redeem myself from the other side. Death is so final. So irreversible. At least, while I’m alive, I’m able to take action to make amends. Or I can at least have a chance STOP the behavior that’s getting me into trouble, and I can look to someone who knows better than I, what should be done. And then take order from them.

If you’ve had a TBI and you’re dealing with PTSD, believe me, I can relate to what you’re going through. I may not have been on the battlefields of Afghanistan or Iraq, but I know very well what it’s like to have your body sending you messages of HIGH ALERT, driving you to do and say extreme things that frighten and alienate and harm others… when your mind is either too confused to understand what’s going on, or it thinks things are okay and can’t figure out why you’re constantly on edge. I know very well what it’s like to have no fucking excuse for being so screwed up, and be convinced that there’s something deeply wrong with you, tho’ you’d never tell anyone else you feel that way. I know what it’s like to have no excuse at all for your shitting attitude, your bad behavior, your defiance, your violence, your uncontrollable outbursts, your desperation, your depression… but still have it all piling up, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after fucking month.

I’ve been there, too. I am there, too.

And trust me, killing yourself is NOT the answer. Not for you, not for anyone. Not for your friends, your family, your buddies, your colleages, your brothers in arms, your commanders, your dependents, your employer… not for anyone. So long as you’re alive, there’s always a chance of redemption. There always is. I don’t care what anyone says. The world is a big place and there’s lots of room for improvement all across the board. And life never ceases to surprise. You may — and probably will — suprise yourself, in fact. It’s impossible for life to do anything BUT surprise us. After all, we’re not perfect, we’re not all-knowing. We’re not God. And we don’t have the right to play God… especially when it comes to our lives.

Believe it or not, you were brought into this world for a reason. A very special, important reason. Maybe that reason is actually going through everything you’ve been through and showing the world that it can’t get the best of you. Maybe it’s going through all the shit you’ve endured, so you can learn how to handle it… and help others who are in the same place as you. Maybe it’s just showing up at the right time and the right place and helping out in a way that seems small to you, but is huge for another person. I, myself, have been in that situation a number of times. And I had the opportunity to help people who could not help themselves… just because I noticed they had fallen or were nearly unconscious when I passed by them. As of this counting, I have been able to run and get help for at least four different people who were either trapped or had fallen or were unconscious. I may have saved the lives of some of them. Or, maybe they would have been fine without my help. All I know is, if I had ended my life when I wanted to in the past, I never would have had the chance to help them. And they might be dead, too. Or irreparably injured.

So, never underestimate your ability to contribute to the world. The times when I did the most good, were often times when I was just walking along and paying attention to what was going on around me. I wasn’t “at peak function” and I wasn’t “performing at top capacity”. I was just walking along and almost barely noticing the world around me. But I was able to act. And that was enough.

On Pushing Through the Post-Traumatic Stress

The past week’s events have really given me a great opportunity to examine my brain’s responses to intense stress, under somewhat “safe” conditions. Despite being relatively safe and with access to help and shelter and the company and assistance of friends, my TBI-addled brain is not functioning properly, and I’ve had a slew of post-traumatic responses that have not made my life easier.

I’ve pushed through the events… I’ve soldiered on, just putting one foot in front of the other… I’ve really tested myself, taking on more things that needed to be done, than was probably safe, at times.  I should have probably taken more frequent breaks during my work — both at home and at the office. I’ve really taxed my system, and now I see that it’s not been very productive. If anything, it’s really slowed me down and diminished my coping skills.

Now, some people I know tell me that my urge to push through is about avoiding dealing with my feelings. That I just don’t want to face my fears and anxieties about possible damage to the house, possible injury to myself, possible impacts to my job performance. Maybe that’s true. Maybe I haven’t wanted to face the fact that I’ve been scared half to death, on and off, for the past ten days.

But I really think there’s more to why I have been pushing through, than just avoiding my feelings. What I’ve noticed about myself is that when I’m under duress, when I’m dealing with a crisis, I sometimes actually feel better than when things are normal and uneventful. I feel more focused. I feel more clear. I feel alive. It’s not just that I’m high on an adrenaline rush — although at times I am. I actually think better, when I’m under a certain amount of pressure and the stakes are high.

I’ve always been this way. I’ve always been inclined to seek out risky situations and push the limits — taking up with questionable people, taking professional risks (like assuming more responsibility than I was up to at the time), pushing myself to continue, even when I’m exhausted and not doing well. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve continued to work or play or drive when I was almost too tired to stand. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pushed on, to get my second wind, and then kept working when I should have quit and gone home to sleep. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taken risks with physical labor — going up a ladder when I was dizzy and lightheaded and not balancing well.

But contrary to what my psychotherapeutic friends may say, the times I’ve done that, were not necessarily times when I was hell-bent on self-injury. It wasn’t that I was trying to hurt myself or run from my feelings or avoid dealing with other aspects of my life. Those times actually made me feel better — they made me feel focused, alive, alert. They helped me STOP the constant onslaught of stimuli that tend to overwhelm me when I’m in a relaxed state. They helped me parse through my surroundings and relate to the world around me in a much more stable and calm way.

The times when I’ve been most tested, physically, have often been the times when I’ve been the most clear, mentally.

The only problem is, the times when I’ve really pushed myself, I’ve also hurt myself. Accidentally. Without realizing what was going on. I got into car accidents because I was overtired. I had bad collisions while playing sports that knocked me silly and made me get up slower and punchier than before. I also fell down the stairs in 2004 and hit my head hard on the top 3-4 stairs, because I was pushing myself too much. I was so busy doing and doing and doing and making progress, that I wasn’t paying attention and I slipped and fell.

And that was the beginning of the end of a lot of things I didn’t want to lose — like my job. Like my retirement savings. Like my ability to cope with things like extreme winter storms.

I really think that people need to stop treating the urge to push on through like it’s some kind of psychological disorder. I believe there’s a physiological aspect to it — some of us just function better under high stress, because we need that kind of environment to function at our best. Some of us actually think better, we act better, we understand better, when we’re “high” on adrenaline. Our brains need the biochemical cocktail of high pressure, in order to function at our peak level. It’s a physical need we have… a valid and justifiable need. It’s not that we’re emotionally or psychologically impaired, as some folks I know would say. We’re just built to function better with a certain amount of stress.

But those of us who have a need for stress, who exhibit risk-taking behavior, who are danger-seekers, also need to realize that this physical need can cloud our judgment. It can make us disregard the logical limits of our bodies and our brains. It can make us choose poorly. It can exhaust us without our realizing it. It can make us do and say and pursue things that we really should not. It’s not that we’re deficient. It’s not that we’re any less “manly” because we “can’t keep up.” It’s just that the very thing that feeds us, also can deplete us. And that without our knowing it. Especially if we’ve got a TBI in the mix that clouds our judgment to begin with.

Yes, those of us who thrive on stress do need to give ourselves permission to have the need to push through, but we also need to recognize our own limits. Get enough sleep — especially those of us with TBI after-effects — eat right. Keep tabs on where we’re at, and how we’re doing… And remember to check in with someone who doesn’t have cognitive/behavioral issues (if there are such people) — or, perhaps better said, check in with someone with a different/complementary set of cognitive/behavioral issues — to make sure we’re not getting off-track and we’re not endangering ourselves and our loved-ones with our deficits.

Push on, yes. But know when to say when.

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When PTSD and TBI Intersect, Hide, and Exacerbate Each Other

I’m not much in the mood to post, these days. I’m still fried from my last 4 days of being assailed… seeking shelter… being displaced… being at the mercy of the elements… and knowing that the winter is just starting. But I haven’t posted in about a week, and this PTSD+TBI business is actually something I need to write about.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about this, and it won’t be the last. One of my first posts here, as I recall, had to do with how post-traumatic stress/PTSD and TBI can be interrelated, and TBI is often misdiagnosed as PTSD (which delays treating the TBI symptoms).

What I’d like to talk about is how I’ve been seeing a whole lot of interaction between post-traumatic stress and TBI in my own life, lately. A couple of weeks ago, I overheard a very heated conversation about someone’s trouble with neighbors. There was some problem with boundary issues and noise problems at all hours, and one of the guys I heard talking was just going off about this neighbor of his who was overstepping his boundaries. It was really getting heated, and the more he talked about it, the angrier he got, and the less clear he got in his reasoning. Then, I heard him say that when he was a kid, he had his nose broken a bunch of times by someone who used to beat him up — badly.

I got to thinking… this guy really got the crap kicked out of him, and the only way you can break someone’s nose is if you hit them in the face — that is, in the head. Plus, the fact that he got the crap beaten out of him repeatedly tells me that he probably has some level of post-traumatic issues going on, too. I’m no doctor, but listening to him was like listening to myself on a really bad day. Reasoning (or lack thereof) all over the place… getting set off by character traits of the problem individual (who may have reminded him of the person who’d beaten him when he was younger)… getting really worked up… going on and on about the same stuff over and over… and just not holding back. No impulse control. Hostility. Anger. Threats. Frustration. Hurt… the works.

Some of the stuff the neighbor was doing was on the fine line between agitating and infuriating — the operative factor was this guy’s capacity to deal with it… which was close to nill. I could totally see how even a little bit of PTSD and TBI could concoct a really volatile situation.

I just hope he doesn’t/didn’t act on any of his threats. It was not good.

And then we had the ice storms last weekend…

I was in an area that was pretty hard-hit (though not as hard as others) by the intense ice storms last weekend. And the house where I was staying was in the middle of the woods. All night, last Thursday night, I lay awake in bed, listening to trees and limbs crack and crash and fall and splinter not far from the room where I was supposed to be sleeping. Every 15-20 minutes, something else would break or fall, and I’d be listening hard to tell how close it was to the house… if it was coming my way… if it was coming through the window or the wall or the roof… listening to stuff hit the roof, hit the ground around the house, hit the ground in the woods not 20 feet from the bed where I was huddled. It was no war zone, it was no combat situation, but I swear, several times an hour, I wondered if I was going to make it through the night in one piece.

The adrenaline rush was intense. Just wave after wave of overwhelming fight-or-flight pouring through me like one flash flood after another. I’d hear a slow cracking off in the distance that got louder and sounded like it was coming closer, and the adrenaline would shoot through me, waking up every cell in my body, all my senses on high-alert, the blood pumping, sweat pouring off me, holding as still as I could, till whatever was falling would fall… then I’d listen to see if there was anything more, and I’d peek my head over the window sill to look out, but couldn’t see anything from the rain and the fog… that full moon eerily brilliant behind the clouds overhead… I’d grab my flashlight and call to others in the house to see if everyone was okay, and I’d check around the sides of the house to see if anything had fallen close or had come through a window or a wall. I couldn’t see much of anything, with all the rain and fog and my flashlight not being bright enough. Then, after satisfying myself that there was no damage, I’d head back to bed, thinking things were okay… and I needed to get some sleep.

Back to bed I went… for another 15 minutes, till the next tree or limb went down… Ice cracking and crashing… tops being taken off trees.. branches giving way… stuff just falling and crashing at every turn… There were times I seriously thought I was done for. I was in the middle of the woods, surrounded by 80-100+ -foot trees, in a monster of an ice storm. For all I knew, the end was near.

It wasn’t, now I realize. But it sure felt that way, at the time. And the lack of sleep didn’t help matters. Plus, when it comes to human experience and the effect it has on the body and mind, sometimes a threat doesn’t even need to be that intense or severe, to do serious damage. All that’s required is you think it is — and your body reacts to it as though It is real. At least, this is how I understand things.

Truly, when your brain is releasing all those biochemical reactions to perceived threats — the adrenaline, the cortisol, the glucose, the various hormones and secretions that help us run from charging elephants/bulls/creditors and live to see another day — whether that threat is “real” or not isn’t the issue. It’s how real your brain thinks it is, and how extreme your body’s reaction to it is. If your body is freaking out because of an apparent threat, the power of psychological rationalization tends to decline. And the body has an interesting way of escalating… and escalating… and escalating… so that cycles of shock and surprise and fright and terror diminish the ability to think rationally about a situation, further compounding the effects of shock and surprise and fright and terror… so that with each subsequent wave of trauma, even if each wave is quantitatively “less”, it seems like more — it’s qualitatively more. And the experiences you have — even if they become milder — can take on an inflated nature that defies reason.

So that every little thing makes you jump. And the more intense your reaction — and the less threat there logically is — the harder it is for you to get your mind around it. To the point where you think you’re losing your mind, and you can’t figure out why you’re such a wuss.

That’s the trickiest part of post-traumatic stress for me. The fact that my body can be so fried by my brain’s constant cascades of chemicals, so exhausted from the sudden shocks and ups and downs… yet the reasons I’m jumpy don’t seem like that big of a deal. So, trees were falling in the woods around me? So what? It wasn’t like I was under fire in Falujah. So, I spent the night listening to limbs snap off, wondering if one was going to come through the window. It wasn’t like I was in Bosnia in the 1990’s, for heavensake. My body is indeed exhausted by its own experience, but my mind can’t seem to wrap itself around the fact that I’m entitled to be a bit jumpy, after four days of drama, being low on sleep, rushing around, trying to keep my life going… helping to tend fires to keep the house warm and the animals inside alive… helping so split wood and haul water and take care of sick folks who were wondering if they should go to the hospital to be safe… No, I wasn’t holed up in Afghanistan, but my body and brain took a beating this past weekend, I was in fact traumatized by a constant fear of imminent harm… even death, and it’s going to take a while to recover.

I think one of the hardest things about dealing with post-traumatic stress, when TBI after-effects are involved, is being able to get things straight in my mind about what I “should” and “should not” be thinking/feeling/doing. My brain gets fuzzy and one-track, when I’m under extreme stress, and I process things slower. Given that my processing time is slower than I’d like it to be, this adds more stress to already stressful situations, in that I’m mortally afraid that my reactions aren’t going to be quick enough, that I’m not going to be able to respond adequately, and I’m not going to keep up as I should. My brain gets scrambled, and I get agitated, jumpy, angry, hostile… to the people I need to be on good terms with… which adds to my existential crisis, because not only do I not know immediately what I need or what’s going on around me, but I also don’t know how to communicate well — or sustain good relations — with the people who can help me.

It’s a terrible, terrible thing, to be standing across the road from someone with the experience and resources (and power tools) to help you get through a crisis, but not be able to figure out A) what to ask them for/about, and B) how to ask them for what you need. To be that alone and clueless, just an arm’s length away from help, is a terrible feeling. And to be so fuzzy and turned around and fatigued and churned up, that you are only dimly aware that something is terribly wrong, but you can’t figure out what it is, just adds gasoline to the raging fires of anxiety and panic.

This winter is going to be an interesting one, I can feel it. It’s going to be time to tell people I know about my injuries and ask them for help. It’s going to be time to own up to being somewhat impaired and far less independent than I want to be. It’s going to be time to batten down the hatches, simplify my life, and find out who my real friends are. It’s going to be time to make changes — especially with people close to me, who get the brunt of my crushing anxiety when it’s at its worst — and we’re not at our best. I have a feeling it’s going to be time have large helpings of humble pie, suck it up, and forget all about my pride, in the process of just getting things done.

And it’s going to be time to take a long, hard look at my trauma fallout and understand how it intersects with and compounds my tbi symptoms. It’s going to be time to talk to my parents, to tell my family about my situation, and see if/where/how/when they can help me get by.

I hate this. I hate it all with every fiber of my being. But if I don’t learn how to ask for help quick, heaven only knows how long and how well I’m going to be able to make it through.

A weary post after a long weekend

Are we done yet? I swear, this past weekend has been crazy, and I’m just about exhausted. I’ve been fighting the elements since last Thursday night, and I still have a fair amount of work to do — getting my house battened down, checking in with friends who have flooded or are without electricity (I’ve been out of power for days, myself — thank heavens I had the presence of mind to split all that wood last weekend!) It’s more than I can handle at times, I think, and in these instances of extreme duress, I’m really reminded of my cognitive issues. Not fun.

I’m not the only one having a rough time of it…

A rare early December heavy snowstorm hit Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi yesterday, setting several records. It was the earliest measurable snowfall in recorded history at Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Lake Charles. Also, this snow event set the all time record snowfall amounts for the month of December at Beaumont, Port Arthur, Lake Charles, Lafayette, and New Iberia, and was the first measurable snowfall in recorded history for the month of December at Lafayette.

Heavy snow was to fall Saturday in the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest, where Blizzard Warnings were in effect. Rain and areas of freezing rain from the storm were to sweep through the Plains and Mississippi Valley.

To the west, cold air was to lower snow levels to only a few thousand feet for many areas from the West Coast to the Intermountain West. Parts of California not receiving snow were to greet significant rain.

Elsewhere, extremely cold air was to plunge into the Intermountain West and Northern Plains, producing another day of subzero temperatures.

Temperatures were to be in the 30s and 40s in the Northeast; 50s and 60s in the Southeast; single digits and 10s in the Intermountain West and Northern Plains; and 20s and 30s in the Northwest.

Temperatures in the Lower 48 states Saturday ranged from minus 18 degrees at Saranac Lake, N.Y., to 79 degrees at Kingsville, Texas.

Saturday brings heavy winds, cold weather to Southern California

Little rain has fallen, but a second storm front is expected to dump snow at upper elevations and rain elsewhere through Monday night. Drivers should expect ice, snow on parts of 5 and 14 freeways.

And in the northeast…

More power loss possible in ice-ravaged NortheastJAFFREY, N.H. (AP) — Joined by people seeking shelter from the bitter cold, parishioners at the Jaffrey Bible Church on Sunday thanked God for a warm place to sleep and for the utility crews struggling to repair power lines snapped by New England’s devastating ice storm.

“Your fellow Jaffrey residents have stepped up and made this a more bearable situation,” Walt Pryor, recreation department director for the town of 5,700, told the congregation Sunday morning.

Church administrator Rick Needham noted the “terrible devastation in our lives and homes,” recognizing two families whose homes were damaged by falling trees. About 150 people attended Sunday’s service in Jaffrey, about 15 miles from the Massachusetts state line.

The church had been turned into a shelter, with cots and mattresses set up in offices and hallways, and televisions and 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles for children in the basement. Donated food was plentiful, including lobster casserole, pot roast, and barbecued chicken.

The ice storm knocked out electrical service to 1.4 million homes and businesses late last week. More than 570,000 customers still lacked power Sunday afternoon in upstate New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Utilities in hardest-hit New Hampshire said power might not be totally restored to the region until Thursday or Friday.

Officials warned power failures could rise again as drooping branches shed ice and snap back to their original positions, potentially taking out more power lines.

President Bush declared a state of emergency for New Hampshire and nine of Massachusetts’ 14 counties, directing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide relief assistance.

Adding to the misery of downed power lines and property damage, temperatures dropped into the teens and 20s early Sunday, with single-digit readings in parts of New Hampshire and Maine. Fryeburg, Maine, hit a low of just 2 degrees above zero. Warmer weather was on the way for Monday.

The number of people at shelters in Massachusetts nearly doubled to 1,800 Saturday night as people faced another night without lights and heat. Nearly 1,300 people stayed at 56 shelters in New Hampshire.

In Jaffrey, Nancy Caisse tried to comfort her young daughter, who was sick with a stomach virus and fever, while helping elderly shelter guests with their medication.

She was trained as an emergency medical technician and said she was glad to be of use.

“This is a blessing,” said Caisse, 40. “I’d rather be here helping out.”

New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York and Maine declared either limited or full states of emergency Friday. Crews across the region reported the ice had destroyed utility poles, wires and other equipment, but said the extent of damage was unclear because some roads still were impassable.

About 300 national guardsmen were deployed in New Hampshire, mostly in Stoddard, 27 miles north of Jaffrey, to help with debris cleanup.

Despite the difficulties, utilities were making progress with help from utility crews from Canada and as far away as Virginia and Michigan.

“Slowly but surely we’re creeping in the right direction,” said Peter Judge of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

In Vermont, Green Mountain Power President Mary Powell toured affected areas, helping distribute lunches to the line crews, and said the damage rivaled or even exceeded what happened during the 1998 ice storm that hit northern Vermont.

“Whenever you get this kind of ice accumulation, there’s just nothing from a utility perspective you can do to protect your customers from devastating damage,” Powell said.

Emergency management officials reported four storm-related deaths. One man in New Hampshire and a couple in New York state died of carbon monoxide poisoning from home generators. The body of a Massachusetts public works supervisor who went missing while checking on storm damage was recovered from a reservoir.

So, we’ve all been getting it… And my neighbors are freaking out, nearly coming to blows over border disputes. My other neighbors are disappearing for heaven-knows-where… and I’m bumping up against the upper limits of my brain’s and my body’s capacities for coping with new and challenging situations.

I am so friggin’ exhausted, it’s all I can do to cut and past news stories from the web… but at least it’s keeping me from obsessing about my neuropsych appointment next Saturday. Imagine, in less than a week, I’ll start getting some real answers about what I’ve got going for me, and what I’ve got going against me.

I’m really, truly looking forward to getting back to work in the a.m. Real life outside the cubicle is way too much excitement for me, these days.

Of pain and agitation and PTSD

I am really excited to report that my pain has subsided considerably. The inflamation across my iliac crest — the top of my pelvis at my lower back — has really gone down, to the point where it’s a little painful, but it’s more discomfort than pain, now.

Also my skin is not as sensitive to every contact, like it was. I still have my moments, when I start to sting and throb and my clothes hurt me, but when that starts to happen, I press the pressure point on my hand that I talked about in this post, and I take a few deep breaths to chill myself out and stimulat my vagus nerve, and I do a quick check-in with myself to see if I’m getting agitated about things.

Agitation really seems to get to me physically. Anxiety, too. When I’m worked up, everything feels more intense. So, calming my system down really seems to help matters.

Looking around, I found a June 2001 post from Science Blog that speaks to this. It’s ‘old news’ — over 7 years old — but it makes for good reading, and it really put things in perspective for me.

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From Texas A&M University

Fear, anxiety affect pain

COLLEGE STATION, June 12 – Human emotion can be a powerful force, fueling everything from improbable sports championships to tragic acts of violence. Now there’s evidence showing how powerful human emotional states can be when it comes to determining a person’s ability to feel pain.

Texas A&M University psychologist Mary W. Meagher, who has conducted pain research for 16 years, says two emotional states – fear and anxiety – have profoundly different effects on a person’s ability to feel pain.

“Fear and anxiety have divergent effects on pain reactivity in humans: fear reduces pain, whereas anxiety has a sensitizing, or enhancing effect,” says Meagher, who holds joint appointments in clinical psychology and behavioral neuroscience.

Her conclusions are based on her and graduate student Jamie L. Rhudy’s recent work focusing on the role of human emotion on pain. Previous animal studies have suggested that fear inhibits pain and anxiety enhances it, but Meagher’s results support the view that emotional states influence human pain reactivity.

“From a clinical perspective, these data suggest that a patient anticipating an unpredictable threatening event will experience enhanced pain,” she says. “In contrast, a patient that has been exposed to a threatening event will experience a fear state that inhibits pain processing.”

Meagher believes previous conflicting reports of the effects of anxiety on human pain were due to a failure to properly distinguish between the emotional states of fear and anxiety.

Fear, Meagher explains, is an immediate alarm reaction to present threat, characterized by feelings to escape and accompanied by specific physiological changes. Anxiety, on the other hand, is a future-oriented emotion characterized by anticipation of potential threats.

Fear mobilizes a person to take action – the commonly known “fight or flight” response – but anxiety leads to scanning of the environment and body, resulting in increased sensory input, she says.

With these distinctions in mind, the conclusions make sense from an evolutionary point of view, Meagher notes.

Confronted with life-threatening situations, which would elicit fear, the body reacts by shutting off the pain response because feeling pain might get in the way of survival, she says. “Alternatively, during times of low threat – those times likely to produce a state of anxiety rather than fear – the chance of survival is increased if pain is enhanced so that behavioral responses can occur to minimize tissue damage,” Meagher explains.

Meagher’s work also shows that positive emotions can lead to pain reduction as long as a minimal level of arousal is reached, but negative emotions only lead to pain reduction when they are highly arousing. In fact, she says, negative emotions can actually facilitate pain if they are only low to moderately arousing.

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This is consistent with my own experience — I can definitely confirm that in my own life, if I’m presented with a situation that involves a specific, verifiable threat, all my systems kick into action and I can actually perform at a higher level, than if I’m just rolling along in a relatively event-free, stress-free life. I can see better. I can hear better. I can interact with the world around me better. Fear actually forces me to focus — that is, if the fear relates to something that is real and significant.

Anxiety, on the other hand, throws me into a panic and sends me spiraling. I can totally see many examples in my life where non-specific threats “triggered” a hyper response to everything and anything around me. It makes me more sensitive, it makes me more jumpy, it makes me more pain-filled.

And thus the vicious cycle begins… because my hypersensitivity causes me to interact with the world poorly — it makes me sensitive to pain, it heightens my hearing, my eyesight, my sense of touch… everything. It makes me avoid situations I shouldn’t, it makes me choose to wear clothing that isn’t the most socially advantageous. (Note: Wearing a sweatshirt and jeans every time I go out in the world is not sending the best message — if anything, it sets me up to not be taken seriously by other people. In fact, I believe that a number of my interactive difficulties, from dealing with doctors to dealing other professionals/consultants, have been made more difficult because I chose to wear well-worn but comfortable clothing, rather than clothes that “sent the message” that I was someone to be taken seriously.) My tactile defensiveness makes me avoid human contact, from handshakes to hugs, which impedes me socially, as well. And it makes me more sensitive to light and sound, which causes me to unconsciously avoid situations that are bright and loud — which is where an awful lot of people hang out, and where an awful lot of deals are done.

But when the offshoots of my socially and physically impactful anxiety result in poor choices or actions that endanger my social standing, my employability, my ability to function in the world at large, it sets up conditions that produce fear. Existential crisis. Serious problems that endanger my job, my house, my family, my safety, my very life. And my sensitivites shut down — they swing to the opposite end of the spectrum. I don’t pick up on clues that people send me. I don’t notice things I should. I don’t realize that I’m falling behind in my work, or that there’s a traffic cop standing in the middle of an intersection ahead of me, waving their flashlight for me to stop. I kind of “click off” in some ways, becoming numb to the world around me, as I deal with my most pressing issue at the moment: I’m late for an appointment that will get me in trouble, or I’ve fallen behind in a task I was supposed to have done by tomorrow, or my back yard is so grown up, the ticks have started to come into the house.

I’ve been in more questionable situations than I care to think about, in no small part because I was shut down while I was dealing with some other crisis that took my mind off what was right in front of me. Or because I’d just come off a crisis I couldn’t deal with and that fried my system. I’ve gone walking in areas where there was active hunting going on, following deer paths on purpose, because I was more interested in getting in touch with nature than noticing the hunters around me. I’ve hung out with underground criminals who were obviously and openly checking out my various assets and having side discussions about me, when I was in a totally new area, having just moved there on my own and not having any real way to support myself and not having a clue, frankly, where my livelihood was going to be coming from. I’ve taken chances behind the wheelof my car that almost got everyone with me killed, when I was overwhelmed with coping with some really intense, deep-seated interpersonal issues that were more than I could handle.

And the aftermaths of these times resulted in more anxiety … and behaviors that made it all but impossible for me to deal effectively with the  demands of the world around me. I descended into intense pain. Or I started drinking heavily. Or I plunged head-long into a long period of over-work, in order to block out the drama, the pain, the trauma… the pain.

I think this business of psychogenic pain — that has both logistical and physical causes AND effects — is an area that should be examined more closely, especially by the mental health field. I think that the connection of emotions — fear and anxiety — and the physical results from them, can actually explain a fair amount of how TBI and PTSD can combine and worsen each other. And it could help explain additional sources of distress and trauma for people who are dealing with emotional issues… some of which won’t “budge” despite years of psychotherapy.

Therapists, in my experience, often focus so intently on the emotional root causes, the past events, the sources, of psychological issues, that they miss the physicality of the experiences they’re addressing. And in the process, they overlook both a contributing factor and a symptom of psychological distress and dysfunction. I suppose it’s to be expected, since psychotherapy is about the psychological side of life. But the more we learn about these things, the more closely connected we realize the mind, body, heart, and spirit are… and to discount any of them, in my mind, short-circuits the process of healing and recovery from the rough-and-tumble aspects of life.

I’m working with very limited time, here, so I don’t have all the hours in my day to devote to this study, but I hope someone else out there is looking at this. Or maybe they have, and I just don’t know about it.

One person who is looking at this, I believe, is Belleruth Naparstek, a psychotherapist who works with guided imagery to address effects of trauma and PTSD and other psychological dysfunctions. She’s got a website at http://www.healthjourneys.com/ where she not only has CDs and tapes and MP3s for sale, but she also includes research and articles about the use of guided imagery in healing.

I have friends who swear by her work, and I  myself have used her PTSD and Stress Hardiness Optimization and Panic/Anxiety guided imagery with some surprising results. I’ve never been much “into” guided meditations — people who try to “guide” me tend to irritate the sh*t out of me, and it often feels like this namby-pamby coddling pansy-ass touchy-feely crap that is one of the aspects of “new age healing” that just drives me nuts. Okay, so maybe I’m being harsh and it just goes to show I have plenty of healing to do, but I just hate feeling talked down to an patronized by people who are “more enlightened” than me. I usually feel condescended to ann treated like an infant.

Belleruth’s style, however, is not like that. She seems very down-to-earth to me — at least, in her CDs — and she’s very accessible and no-nonesense. She also strikes me as being very competent and intelligent, which helps. I hate it when dense people condescend to me. It makes me crazy and is a terrible distraction. Anyway, I’ve been very surprised by the effect her CDs have had on me — after being unable to shed a tear for many, many years, I’m actually able to cry. Okay, so I’m not very good at doing it around other people, and it stresses me out when they see me cry, but every now and then, I can really use a good breakdown in the privacy of my own home. And when I’ve listened to the imagery, I can sleep. This is big. I often fall asleep in the middle of the imagery, and then I wake up when it’s done. I suppose I may be getting some benefit while I’m sleeping, but the real boon is that I can sleep, at all. I went for years, after my last TBI in 2004, not being able to sleep through the night, waking up at 3 a.m. regularly, not being able to sleep on the weekends, not being able to really rest… which fried me even more after the fall and probably impeded my recovery terribly.

Anyway, to get back to the point of this post — in tracking the sources of my pain and finding out ways to deal with it, I have to look at the emotional aspects — the agitation and anxiety and fear pieces of the puzzle — and address them. When I address them, through deep breathing, monitoring and controlling my stress, and keeping myself relatively chilled out — or as chilled out as I can be — it helps me cut back on the pain. I also do things like cuss out people who make me angry, when I’m far from polite society — in the woods, or in my car (tho’ I have to be careful when I’m venting in my car)… write letters to the people who I feel have done me wrong, and then rip up the letters (never send them)… try to get more sleep, so I can deal with the physical issues that lead to the emotional ones that lead to the physical ones… and so on.

And I use the pain points on my hands to at least give myself a little immediate relief.

If you’re dealing with pain and you’re looking for ways to deal with it, I wish you the best of luck! Everyone is different, of course, but life is all about cause and effect. Even if what I use to cut my pain doesn’t work for you, if you engage in your own process and just keep trying, you may be able to find ways that you can use to address your own situation, and get more out of life, with each passing day.

Life can be wonderful, if we figure out how to let it be just that.

“Cognitive Disability: A Challenge to Moral Philosophy” Podcasts Available

This past September, the conference “Cognitive Disability: A Challenge to Moral Philosophy” took place, and the podcasts of the speakers are available. When I get some time (hopefully this weekend), I’ll watch them. They are apparently video — mp4 format.

One of the things I like about this, is it took place at SUNY Stony Brook. I was in the SUNY system, some time back. Didn’t manage to graduate, but I did put in some time there (and contribute my dollars to the system).

Thanks to Somatosphere for the tip.

Now, with any luck, they’ll add tbi folks to the discussion next year. After all the press we’ve been getting, in 2008, somebody must take notice somewhere… I suppose.

Medical Humanities has some interesting things to say

I came across this blog yesterday, and was encouraged to see someone talking about the latest reports out from the Institute of Medicine — one report about the length of residents hours at hospitals, and the other about the long-term effects of TBI in (Gulf War) veterans.

I’m glad there are other folks out there who are as interested as I am about these subjects. I know I’m not alone, but it often feels that way, give my limited range of motion.

What’s really exciting about the report about residents’ hours is that it puts out there in a very public way the shortcomings of an existing system. I have a relative who’s going through their residency right now, and I hear stories from them that sound like horrors — just the sleep deprivation alone makes me cringe. And expecting new doctors, who don’t have the wealth of experience behind them in their decision-making, to perform at peak on such little sleep… well, it troubles me. And it makes me want to avoid teaching hospitals with every fiber of my being.

It seems to me that one’s residency should be a time of over-rest, rather than under-rest. The brain needs rest and sustenance, when it’s dealing with a lot of input, stress, and new stimuli (even I know that)… so, why wouldn’t we do everything in our power to make sure our future doctors — whom we are entrusting with our lives and our futures — have ample access to hours off… and are not overloaded and/or receive extra help dealing with the additional stressors.

It strikes me that this might be a throwback to the practice of medicine during wartime — the Napoleonic Wars… the Civil War… when “modern” medicine (as I understand it) really got a foothold as an organized practice. It might be a relic of the times when a doctor had to be “on” at all hours because battle conditions required it. And there may be some elements of needing to prove oneself and one’s professional worth (again on the battlefield)… part of a primal sink-of-swim coming-of-age hazing process that cements the members of the profession in a special, unique, and exclusive club.

But these time-honored practices strike me as being closer akin to mind-control techniques used to break interrogants… using sleep deprivation to break down resistance to authority figures and make them more compliant (with the powers that govern the profession)… using trauma and compassion fatigue to reduce residents to walking profiles in PTSD, who are always on and are on constant alert, their limbic systems gradually frying and fusing, their amygdalas so overworked and overtaxed, that they cease to recognize anything that’s not AN EMERGENCY. I have had dealings with doctors who seemed like they were sleepwalking… only half present, when things were going okay… but who snapped into action and came alive when it was a life-and-death situation. One of them is one of the finest practitioners of their specialty, nationwide, and I would definitely want them in the ER, if I were ever there, teetering on the brink of oblivion. But when things are fine, and there isn’t an emergency, they practically fall asleep in front of you. That’s a little distressing, given that my life consists largely of non-emergencies… and I want to keep it that way.

Personally, I think the wartime medicine model leaves a lot to be desired. If doctors are conditioned to respond and function at peak only when there is an emergency, then what hope do we have of being able to live in a world of “boring” health and happiness? If our caregivers can respond effectively only when there is something horribly wrong, then it stands to reason that they can/will/must neglect the well-being of their charges, when things are going well… ultimately creating conditions that produce the circumstances that make them jump into action and charge forward… to aver the disaster that their inattention may have contributed to, in the first place.

Yes, it’s important to have doctors who can deal well with trauma. There are a lot of conditions in this world — even in relative safety — that resemble aspects of war, on some level. Serious car accidents… gang warfare… widespread domestic abuse and violent conflict. But what about practicing medicine in peacetime? What about dealing with patients who are NOT coming in from the battlefield and don’t need to be patched up quickly and sent back out? What about tending to the health of patients, instead of just managing their eventual deaths?

This is what excites me so much about the two reports from the IoM. They don’t only stand around wringing their hands — they make objective, well-researched observations and make substantive suggestions about what to do about it. They mirror my concerns about residents’ hours – and they do it with data and authority I either do not have or cannot convey. And they are pro-active. They don’t just talk about averting disaster. They talk about optimizing physician training and improving patient safety pro-actively. They don’t just say “Oh, how terrible that our vets get injured by blasts.” They don’t just dismiss “mild” TBI because there’s no penetrating wound. They really call out the long-term consequences of TBI in ways that make the data relevant not only to vets, but to others as well.

One example in particular, on pages 304-305 of the report on TBI talks about how job retention among soldiers who sustained TBI was worse among the older population, perhaps because the nature of their work involved more management and leadership — which can be more difficult to do, when your brain isn’t working quite like it used to. This is key for me, because I am in the over-34 age group, and my own job responsibilities tend to nudge me towards management and leadership positions, which I have instinctively avoided for years… without knowing quite why (until recently, when I started to realize the impact that my TBIs have had on me).

This is the kind of data that I can use personally, and I can refer others to, when they start to argue with me about what my instincts are telling me. See, I’m not wrong to be concerned about the potential impact that my impaired cognitive capacity may have on my job performance. I have difficulties communicating my experience verbally to others, and much that I do and experience is actually hidden behind a wall of socially acceptable practiced behavior (and if I do it right, nobody has any clue about my difficulties — that double-edged sword of high functionality). So, I get a lot of crap from people who try to “encourage” me to “get out of my comfort zone” without having any clue how disastrous that can truly be for me, given my limitations. But this report gives me peace of mind, that I’m not just shirking and slacking and avoiding being an adult. It recognizes that people like me, in my age group, have genuine issues taking on (and holding onto) jobs that require increased leadership/management responsibility.

Believe me, I don’t want to be underperforming. I want to push the envelope of my abilities as much as the next person — and as much as the people who love and care for me want to see me succeed and excel. But the impact of my TBIs cannot be understated. They may be mitigated, they may be compensated for. But they are still factors, and as a responsible adult, I need to be cognizant of the limits they may set on me and my abilities, so I don’t endanger the safety and well-being of others because of my cluelessness or my wanton drive to climb to the top.

I detest having these limits on me. But have them, I do. I hate struggling with things that others find easy, like engaging in conversation and maintaining my daily life. But I cannot escape the fact that I have to work a little (sometimes a lot) harder than I would like to. I cannot stand the thought that I am not fully aware of everything that’s wrong with me — especially in the moments that what’s wrong is keeping me from getting on with my life. But I can’t ignore the fact that I have holes in my memory and gaps in my knowledge that impair me in ways I don’t even know.

I just have to keep a level head, try to stay humble, and remember that no matter how irregularly my brain may be functioning, I still have a heart and a spirit and faith and love to guide me.

And I have access to reports from the Institute of Medicine that give me hope.

Better today… pain is a bit less

Well, I got some good sleep today. Woke up about dawn (not what I wanted to do), with my joints — especially my left hip — just screaming with tightness and burning. I lay there for a while, willing it to go away… but it didn’t. I thought about getting up and just getting into my day… posting to my blog, or typing up my follow-up questions for the neuropsych. But I was soooo tired.

So, I did what I had done back about 15 years ago, when I was having a lot of pain issues — I found that acupressure point between my thumb and forefinger — in the soft webbing at the base of both fingers, near where they meet — and I applied pressure on that point. I had been told about this point, back in the early 1990’s, and I had used it pretty regularly to help alleviate pain and inflammation.

Apparently, this point not only relieves pain, but it also can help reduce inflammation, which is pretty huge with me.

I used to use this point religiously, when I was having trouble. Then, I stopped… I think because it worked so well, I didn’t have the degree of troubles I once had. I literally was all but pain-free for a number of years, tho’ recently that’s changed.

Another thing I did this morning, that I had done for years, was stretched. I stretched my hamstrings and my glutes and my hips and my lower back… under the covers, as I was cold and lazy and didn’t feel like getting out of bed.

After a little while of doing that, I got a lot of relief, and I was able to go  back to sleep — till 8:00 a.m., which is unheard of!

Woo Hoo!

So, when I got up, I was still a little creaky, but that’s to be expected from all the yard work I did yesterday, not to mention splitting the firewood. I can give my body that.

I’ve been thinking a lot about pain, lately, since it’s come up with me so much. Thinking about what it means, what it’s like to be in pain all the time, how hard it is on your system, how easy it is to slip into feeling like you’re being punished for something. I’ve read that pain is symbolically associated with rejection and isolation, so when I’m in pain, it would make sense that I feel like the world is against me, and I’m all alone. Intellectually, I know that isn’t true, but my body feels like it is. So, I feel even more forlorn than I already do… for emotional reasons. And I withdraw… which makes me less likely to have contact with others — the very thing that can relieve my pain and sense of isolation.

I wonder if this is widespread — especially amongst folks who have neuropathic pain or chronic pain that comes from tbi or car accident or some other sort of injury. Or people who have a history of child abuse or some other sort of abuse that results in a lot of memories of pain. I wonder if there isn’t a whole invisible nation of people in physically-generated psychic pain, whose sense of isolation is so overwhelming, yet so unexplicable, to them, that they are just shells of who they could be. I wonder if physical pain — and our ability to ignore or mask it with other things, like addictions or hyper-activities or just plain blocking it out — might not be contributing to our collective woes in ways we don’t understand… because it’s literally too painful for us to think about it.

When I think about my pain, when it’s really, really bad, I get so upset. I get angry. I get frustrated. I get furious. I act out. And I feel like I’m being punished — for no good reason.

I think that perhaps this condition got me used to the idea that I was unfairly punished for a lot of things in life, so I lowered my expectations, and became all the more antagonistic to the world around me.

And I wonder about the vets who are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, who sustained tbi’s in the line of duty… getting back to a country that is already foreign to them (tho’ they put their lives on the line for it/us)… dealing with the difficulties of tbi… the twice-hidden disability… and having to deal with pain that has neurological origins. I wonder about them feeling more and more isolated, less and less integrated into society, more and more uncomfortable and angry and, well, in pain… because their brains were changed the day(s) the IED(s) went off near them.

I think of us all… this “tbi nation” of individuals struggling alone and separately, unable to cope effectively because the very thing we need to use to figure out our situation — our brain — is the thing that’s been injured. I think of us all, alone in our rooms in the wee hours of the dawning day, writhing in pain that doesn’t seem to have an origin and won’t let go of us… I think of us struggling with the psychological and emotional impacts of a brain that fails us at the worst possible moments, without our realizing it, and a body that can’t quite seem to get it right, since the accident/injury/attack. I think of us all, lying awake, hurting, angry, confused, desperate, in the wee dawning hours of the day…

And I thank Heaven Above for the point between my thumb and forefinger.

It works for me… and I hope it works for you too.

It hurts like a bitch, the first time I press it, but the pain throughout my body magically subsides, when I do.

I press the point on the side that hurts the most, then I press the other. And I do it again and again throughout the day. I try to stretch. And I drink plenty of water. And I pray. I pray that the relief will continue — at least in part.

Yes, today is better.

And I hope tomorrow will be, too.

Exhausted and in tremendous pain, but feeling great!

I’ve had an extremely full day, today, and I’ll probably pay for it tomorrow… heck, I’m paying for it now. But who cares! I had a great day!

I started out the day reading through my notes from my first neuropsych recap meeting, when the doctor confirmed that yes, there are scientifically detectable issues going on with my brain and my thought process. Some of the things found surprised me a little bit — I had thought I was doing just fine, on some of them, but — as is often the case with me — the very areas where I think I’m doing great(!) are the ones that I’m lagging on.

Things like speed of processing. And memory… short-term recall. Things like how long I can last at certain tasks… things like attention issues… things like language comprehension and learning.

I admit I am more than a little relieved, even if some of the things are bothersome  — it’s not in my head! Well, it is in my head, but it’s not something I made up! As though a lifetime of hassling with all this cognitive-behavioral stuff isn’t proof enough… But for people around me who need a doctor’s opinion to convince them, this should be plenty convincing. I’m so relieved!!!

Anyway, I am compiling question  for the good doctor, which I’ll type up and take with me, so we can both follow along and make sure I don’t miss anything… and the doc will give me more info, and then I’ll come up with more questions… etc., etc. This could take a while, but I’ve been told it’s okay if I take my time. I guess I may need to… tho’ it might not seem to me like I’m being slow 😉

Then, after I pulled together my questions, I actually went for a walk!  Woo hoo. What a beautiful day — clear and crisp and very quiet. I was surprised at how much I saw today. I noticed details about houses in my neighborhood that I never noticed before. I think having the testing out of the way has taken a burden off my mind, which is allowing me to pay attention to more things around me. It feels a little strange to be seeing things that may have been there all along, but at least I’m seeing them now!

It’s been a month or so since I got out of the house on a Saturday to do anything other than errands. I had a great walk in the woods — and I was only startled by one hiker. My hearing has been really acute, lately, though, so the sound of my keys in my pocket and the swish-swish of my windbreaker was pretty distracting. I kept thinking I was hearing the tags of a dog running up to me – I hate when that happens, and I’m taken by surprise – but it was just my keys.

Then I came back home and had some lunch and read some neurology and anatomy texts I’ve had lying around, so I can at least not be completely taken off guard by what my doctor says on Tuesday. When they start throwing around all these terms, I tend to get anxious, if they’re completely unfamiliar. Now, at least I may have more of a chance of not getting spooked by terminology. Sometimes that’s half the battle.

Then I took a nap. Woo hoo! Just for an hour, and I woke up worried and anxious, but at least I did sleep a little.

Then I got up and did yard work… and split the firewood I’ve had my eye on for quite some time. The pile of wood has been sitting under a tarp for more than a year, and I’ve been promising myself I’d split it, one of these days. Well, today was the day. And I did really well — as in, I was careful and methodical and I didn’t injure myself in the process. I took breaks when I needed to, and I stopped completely, when I knew I was tired. Working with ax and maul, it’s important to be careful! I used to use a chainsaw, but I kind of screwed it up when I ran it without oiling the chain. One of those cognitive deficit things, I guess. I haven’t used a chain saw in a couple of years. I figure, it’s just not worth it, to run the risk of doing some real damage to myself — which is entirely possible, given a motor and a rotating chain and my sudden distractability streak.

After the wood was split and stacked, I ate a little snack and took a shower and then made supper. Now I’m suitably tuckered out, aching and burning and sore from head to toe — but in a good way. I’m going to bed early, to celebrate.

It’s the little things, y’know?