I do not have a history of seizures. I have had a couple bad ones, but don't know why. At the age of seventeen I woke one morning, arose from my bed, and immediately hit the floor in unconsciousness. I remember awakening and realizing my body was and had been violently shaking. All I could do was somehow get back into my bed and fall into an exhausted sleep. I remember the headache I had for days and the painful bites on my tongue. My parents took me to my vascular specialist who determined that I had probably lost consciousness because of the sudden drop in pressure in my head when I stood up, due to poor circulation in one of my legs.
I soon realized the incident was much more than we had thought. I walked into my Chemistry class and realized I no longer had access to that part of my brain that stored all knowledge of the periodic table. In my drafting class I had no idea where to begin, though I had a huge amount of drafting information I had carefully memorized. I knew I still had this information, but I had no idea why I could not access it. My grades in my final quarter of high school plummeted because of that one event. I think my SAT grades came out at something like 1.34.
But I had a high IQ! I had been pulled from classes and tested while still in grade school. My parents were notified of the result, and someone had come to school to photograph me in my classroom. I began noticing other deficits. I had little tolerance for the more intense ultraviolet lights - they would throw my brain into an electrical headache of confusion. On occasion I would be bowled over by a most disagreeable odor - an odor that was non-existant to everyone else around me. And I could no longer accurately hear a conversation if there were other noises in the room.
Time went on and I learned to adapt to these minor inconveniences. I never, ever thought this would happen to me again.
Decades later, I was sitting at a bar in a friend's garage. A bunch of us had gathered there after a large biker funeral. I remember realizing that I could not feel my right arm or leg. I remember perching upon my bar stool, holding my arm while trying to squeeze it for any sensation of feeling. Suddenly I realized that everything I looked at had a yellowish green tint. And I had this crazy surety that I was going to start having convulsions. I do not know how long I sat there, but I do remember looking for a place to escape to, and my plan was to make it across the garage and out the back door. I remember looking at all the motorcycles that were parked between me and that doorway, and I wondered if I could possibly make my way past them without knocking them all down in a domino effect. Then, someone rolled up one of the large garage doors and bright light came flooding in - which signaled my own personal event to begin it's havoc in my brain.
I made it past the bikes and just beyond the doorway, where I stooped upon the ground and held myself up with my hands while long, slow convulsions overtook my body. I remember by boyfriend being at my side, and not being able to speak to him while I convulsed while remaining conscious for perhaps the longest sixty seconds of my life. A couple friends came over, and afterwards everyone busied themselves telling me that this funeral was so stressful because we were burying yet another great friend, and that I probably had neglected eating during these last few days of preparations. Not wanting to disrupt the many activities that were awaiting us to complete this ritualistic burial, I went back to our activities and tried not to think about what had just happened.
But deep inside I knew. I knew that something very wrong had just happened, and that I probably should have insisted that I be taken to a hospital. Almost immediately the headache came from the swelling of my brain, and lasted for many days. Almost immediately, I found myself miscalculating the distance of a wall or object on my right, and running into them. In the years following I must have broken the small toe of my right foot 40 times. I simply could not correctly judge spatial aspects of anything on my right side. I would bang into anyone walking with me on my right side.
And worse, I often could not access knowledge - especially names and places. I could be talking to someone I had known for most of my life, and could not for the life of me remember his/her name or why I knew them so well. I had been an antiques dealer for twenty years, and suddenly had no access to knowledge I knew I possessed concerning provenance or manufacturer. I was constantly misjudging the intent of people's spoken words. Finally, I could no longer access a good part of my vocabulary. I could not remember correct spellings or the rules of punctuation and basic journalism. I was in real personal trouble and at the same time losing my income.
I am known as someone who possesses eloquence of speech. All my life, great minds have crossed my path and shared indescribable bits of valued wisdom with me. I had learned to channel my anger and passions into cautious words of well thought out argument. I had created my own publishing company because of the need to have my thoughts and concerns heard, and to bypass the censorship I would have encountered using other channels. Through my own publishing company I was able to give voice to talented others who otherwise would not have been heard.
I am a Discovery/History/Biography Channel kind of girl. I naturally tuned in one day to a program on the miracles of the brain. I was incredulous to see a brain surgeon who had suffered a stroke, and who had used her experience to have firsthand knowledge about the loss of brain function that before she could only have knowledge of by way of her patients or medical literature. It was fascinating - and just the message I was needing to receive. This brilliant scientist attested to the severity of her brain malfunction while providing graphic MRIs and describing the loss of functions that directly corresponded to the side of the brain that sustained damage. Then, she explained that certain brain transmitters were damaged for good, but that the brain had it's own way of creating new routes and transmissions.
But how did she do that? No mention was made of how she accomplished creating those new routes. I want, with every fiber of my being, to know how that is accomplished. Yet another intensive workout on Google yielded little information. Only that exercises have been created for use in training damaged brains to reroute themselves. I considered contacting my local Stroke Association. I spoke briefly with my doctor about these exercises, only to be told that they must basically be done soon after the cerebral accident.
I had been raised upon a healthy regimen of puzzles and thought-provoking games. I became obsessed with exercising my brain by going back to those simple early lessons. I found myself putting 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles together with my boyfriend's elderly parents. I was forever finding crossword puzzles to complete - an impossible task when it was those very Names and Places that I no longer had access to. And one day, I encountered my first Sudoku puzzle.
I did not need to read instructions - I am a reasonably intelligent person and should be able to figure out the gist of this new mind boggler. Man, I racked my brain trying to figure out the point of these random numbers. Those first few puzzles were a headache so major that I considered never looking at a Sudoku puzzle again. But I enventually figured it out. Then someone gave me a paperback book full of nothing but Sudoku puzzles. I found a million times during the day when I would have a moment to pull that little book out and whip off an easy puzzle, or brainstorm to gain a little bit more progress on a hard puzzle. My little book was nearly completed when I knew I should begin my search for a new book. Then someone else turned me on to the puzzle books that find their ways to the local dollar stores. I was buying five at a time and leaving them in certain places - my vehicle, by my bedside, next to the television remote control...
I spent six years searching for a way to reform my damaged brain, and I spent one year doing Sudoku puzzles and regaining much brain function that I had lost. I no longer break my toe or wander into anyone walking upon my right side - weird, right? I have access to a good portion of memory that had so recently been locked away. My name recall is better, but not yet all there. I guess I will have to relearn the rules of proper English and journalism, but I am getting by in the meantime.
Blah, blah, blah.
Therefore, I shall....
Rock on.
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