By's Musings

Condition

By 6 Comments

Aphasia Is Not the End of the World

I admit that at times I need to remind myself that my mild case of aphasia is not the end of the world. Really, the only things I’ve lost are just some words, and usually it is only a temporary loss. I still have the things that really count in life. I still have my loving and supportive family. I still have a compassionate and praying church family. I still have considerate and helpful neighbors. I still have concerned and respectful colleagues and friends from more than forty years in higher education. I still have a team of knowledgeable and caring medical personnel. All of these people are individuals on whom I can lean. I have a real social network, not a virtual one. In addition to all these people, I still have my mind. A piece of advice to caregivers and friends, I really do not need sympathy. Please just be there when I need you, be supportive and encouraging at every step of the process, that’s the best gift you can give, and the thing I need the most.

When I run into road blocks on writing projects, I have learned that I can put those projects down and return to them later. I have also learned that after I have made a real attempt, I can then ask for help at any time. After several attempts when the words don’t come, I have also learned that it is okay to completely walk away from some projects. It’s not the end of the world.

Aphasia is not the end of the world. I am still alive and I am still me.

By 2 Comments

We Are All Different

Living with aphasia and epilepsy has reminded me of a very important lesson in life. That lesson is that: “We are all different. One individual is not necessarily better than another. He or she may just be different.” What am I talking about? Four incidents in my life have reinforced this lesson. You might say that I have been a slower learner.
The first incident was an automobile accident more than thirty years ago. I was stopped waiting to make a left-hand turn and I was rear-ended by a car doing forty miles per hour. Due to the whiplash caused by the accident, the back of my head struck the head rest, breaking it off. In doing so, I suffered a serious concussion that permanently affected my sense of taste. Ever since that accident, everything has tasted salty. For more than thirty years, I have not had to salt any food at the table. For a short time after the accident, I had a memory of what food “actually tasted like.” After thirty years, the memory of “true taste” has faded away. What should have this taught me about the difference in people? We observe the world through our senses. My sense of taste is different from yours. Because they are different, that doesn’t make one any better than the other.
The final three incidents are all related to just one episode. A blood vessel in a benign tumor in my brain burst, giving the appearance of a stroke and leaving me with many of the same after effects as those of a stroke. The first of those effects is that my physical ability to get around has been diminished. Prior to this episode, I was considered athletic. Until my knees gave out a couple of years ago, I had played fairly competitive basketball and softball for more than fifty years. Over the years, I had four different college basketball coaches invite me to come in and teach their teams how to set picks. Today I need a cane to walk about outside our house. If I am going to walk any distance, I need a stroller with a seat in case I must sit down. Today I have a handicap parking hang-tag to permit us to park in those special parking spots. Was the athletic me any better than the challenged me? I am still me. I am just different.
A second result of either the burst blood vessel filling my cranial cavity with blood or the subsequent removal of the benign tumor is a mild case of aphasia. Aphasia literally means “a loss of words.” It is a communication disorder which affects my ability to use or understand written or oral language. It hasn’t affected my mental capacities, just my ability to use words in a timely fashion. I can still analyze situations as well as I did before. I just can’t respond to them as quickly as I previously did. I know what I want to say, I just can’t find the right words to express it quickly. I need more time to write articles like this, but I can still write. Was the old me better? I am still me, I am just different.
Also as a result of this episode, I had four grand-mal seizures and am now labeled epileptic. Although I am on anti-seizure medication, my wife and I must be on guard for the signs of another seizure. Since not enough time has elapse since my last large seizure, my driving privileges have been taken away from me. Does not being able to drive make me less of a person? I don’t think so now. Prior to this happening to me, I might have thought so.
Before these incidents and after effects, I know I thought differently. I now see why we need to do everything we can to “even out the playing field” in school and work situations for people with challenges. I am more sympathetic to students who need extra time on tests and assignments. They are not lesser persons. All of their capabilities have not necessarily been affected. They can be just as smart. They may just be a little slower. They may even see or taste things in a new and different way that can lend a new perspective to a problem and lead to a new and different solution. My continual salty taste has had one advantage. Coffee that tastes bitter to other people actually tastes okay to me.
For people who see differences as signs of being less of a person, I am not recommending that we need to beat them up one-side of their head and down the other until they change their mind, even though that’s what it took for me.

By Leave a Comment

Momentary Absences: Epilepsy, Aphasia or Senior Moments?

Momentary Absences: Epilepsy, Aphasia or Senior Moments?

Have you ever had one of those moments when you are not sure of where you are? They are sometimes called momentary absences. Or you know someone just asked you a question, but you didn’t understand the question or you can’t think of a reply, or you know the answer but can’t communicate it? Or you were doing something and you seemed to doze off? For those of us who are slightly age challenged, and have been diagnosed with epilepsy and aphasia, we have three conditions upon which we can blame these momentary absences. If they become more frequent, it behooves us to try to determine the source or sources of the absences.

When many hear the term epilepsy, they have a picture of violent convulsions or an attack of unconsciousness with either stiffness or floppiness. What is epilepsy? It is not a disease. According to the Encarta Dictionary, epilepsy is a medical disorder involving episodes of irregular electrical discharges in the brain and characterized by the periodic sudden loss or impairment of consciousness. These episodes are called seizures. Seizures can be large with total loss of consciousness and accompanied by convulsions, rigidity or floppiness, or small with what appears to be a momentary absence of some or several body functions. Some individuals are born with the tendency to have these irregular electrical discharges and hence, seizures. For others these irregular electrical discharges and hence, the seizures, begin after a traumatic brain event, such as a stroke, injury or operation. My seizures began after the removal of a benign brain tumor which was discovered when a blood vessel in the tumor burst, filling my cranial cavity with blood and causing all the symptoms of a stroke. My seizures most likely are a result of the scar tissue left after the removal of the tumor. I had four grand-mal or total generalized seizures within a 30 minute time-frame. I was hospitalized and stabilized. I was put on anti-seizure medication and I have not had any large-scale seizures since those first four.  I can’t tell you if I have had any “mini-seizures.” My neurologist has done several EEG’s. After one of them, she said that it showed lots of spurious activities. (I jokingly remarked, “So what’s new?”). When we asked her what that meant, she said that it could be a sign of lots of mini-seizures or the prelude to another major one.

I have come up with my own way of identifying my moments of absence. If I start to do something and before I can do it or finish it, I get sidetracked, that’s a senior moment. If I can’t remember to do something that I am supposed to do, again that’s a senior moment. If I find myself struggling in a conversation to find the right word or expression, that’s the aphasia. If I can’t understand the telephone answering tree when I call a company, that’s the aphasia. If I can’t understand and follow written instructions, that’s also the aphasia. If I am sitting in the lounger in the living room watching television, reading the newspaper, doing a crossword puzzle or a Sudoku, and I seem to zone out, then that’s probably the epilepsy. Of all the momentary absence, these scare my wife the most because she says that what happened in our car just before the first grand-mal seizure. One moment she was talking with me and I was slow responding to her. I was staring straight ahead with a blank expression on my face. Then I didn’t respond at all to her question and I became stiff and lost consciousness. When I zone out now, she keeps pumping me with questions to make sure that I am in there somewhere. Most of the time, I respond by her third question. Except for the dangers of seizures, it is convenient to have three excuses for unresponsiveness and lack of completing tasks. I used to have only one excuse, which was “selective hearing.” Occasionally, I still pull that one out of my back pocket to use.