Topic: these trails I've walked
Life post-brain injury is funny. Your body is often very different than it was beforehand. Sometimes, you don't even realize how different it is until...well...you do.
I'm well-aware of the fact that I'm much more prone to tripping now, simply because the sensation in my left foot - in the entire left half of my body - is delayed. When pressed to describe it, I tell people: "You know that feeling when you wake up and find out that you've slept on your arm and it's 'asleep?' That's ultimately how the entirety of my left side feels. It varies in degrees of numbness - my pinky finger is the worst - and the sensation when I unwittingly sit on my foot or sleep on my arm and then attempt to shake it out is pins and needles to a tear-your-hair-out degree."
Other things, though? They take a little longer to come into my awareness. I first heard the term "Left Neglect" weeks after my brain hemorrhage. I was putting on my coat at a restaurant as we were leaving, and - as the term suggests - I completely neglected to put my left arm in the sleeve. Even more disturbing? I hadn't even realized it, and I probably would've walked out into the midwestern winter like that had my dad not stopped me. That was the first and last time he mentioned Left Neglect.
Fast-forward 13 years. About a week ago, I read a book called Left Neglected by Lisa Genova, which is a story about a woman who is completely unaware of the left side of her body and world after a car accident leaves her with a brain injury.
It was uncanny how many of her problems I could relate to! Was it possible to be so unaware that I was unaware that I had Left Neglect?
I looked it up online, and the phrase essentially a failure to pay sufficient attention to sensory input jumped out at me. I remember the last three days.
I'm at the grocery store, in the cracker & cookie aisle. I pick up the Town House crackers and the wafer cookies, but only when I'm several aisles away do I realize that the granola bars were in that same aisle. I go back. The other two items I picked up sitting where I remember them to my right. Where are the granola bars? Oh. On my left.
I'm on break at work, and I have just finished my lunch. I walk to the trash can to throw away the various sandwich bags and paper cup. I walk away from the garbage. Look at my hands. The cup, which had been in my right hand is gone. The sandwich bag, however, is still crushed in my left fist. Really?
I'm making a pizzas at work the next day. Pepperoni mounded in my left hand. I get called to do another task, turn my hand over to presumably empty it of meat. Before I move to the other station, I look down just to make sure. Five pepperonis sit stubbornly in my palm.
And then, there is the kicker. Last night, I wake up at 3:30 as I apparently have the bladder of an ant. But something's not right. I can't get out of bed. My brain struggles against sleep to figure this quandry. As a last-ditch effort, I survey myself in the muted glow of the streetlights. Wow. When I turned over to sit up, I have somehow - and really, don't ask me how - managed to bury my left leg from toes to upper-thigh underneath the fitted sheet that on its normal days, is snug over my mattress. I stare for a few seconds, then disentangle myself. On the toilet seconds later, I shake my head. My sister now laughs whenever I enter the bedroom.
In the last week, I've been made ridiculously aware of this thing. Aware of my naughty left side and what it does if I'm not looking. And as it is virtually impossible to be privy to its constant sandwich bag-hoarding, pepperoni-stockpiling, sheet-burrowing ways, I'm looking for a sitter.
Any takers?
I'm well-aware of the fact that I'm much more prone to tripping now, simply because the sensation in my left foot - in the entire left half of my body - is delayed. When pressed to describe it, I tell people: "You know that feeling when you wake up and find out that you've slept on your arm and it's 'asleep?' That's ultimately how the entirety of my left side feels. It varies in degrees of numbness - my pinky finger is the worst - and the sensation when I unwittingly sit on my foot or sleep on my arm and then attempt to shake it out is pins and needles to a tear-your-hair-out degree."
Other things, though? They take a little longer to come into my awareness. I first heard the term "Left Neglect" weeks after my brain hemorrhage. I was putting on my coat at a restaurant as we were leaving, and - as the term suggests - I completely neglected to put my left arm in the sleeve. Even more disturbing? I hadn't even realized it, and I probably would've walked out into the midwestern winter like that had my dad not stopped me. That was the first and last time he mentioned Left Neglect.
Fast-forward 13 years. About a week ago, I read a book called Left Neglected by Lisa Genova, which is a story about a woman who is completely unaware of the left side of her body and world after a car accident leaves her with a brain injury.
It was uncanny how many of her problems I could relate to! Was it possible to be so unaware that I was unaware that I had Left Neglect?
I looked it up online, and the phrase essentially a failure to pay sufficient attention to sensory input jumped out at me. I remember the last three days.
I'm at the grocery store, in the cracker & cookie aisle. I pick up the Town House crackers and the wafer cookies, but only when I'm several aisles away do I realize that the granola bars were in that same aisle. I go back. The other two items I picked up sitting where I remember them to my right. Where are the granola bars? Oh. On my left.
I'm on break at work, and I have just finished my lunch. I walk to the trash can to throw away the various sandwich bags and paper cup. I walk away from the garbage. Look at my hands. The cup, which had been in my right hand is gone. The sandwich bag, however, is still crushed in my left fist. Really?
I'm making a pizzas at work the next day. Pepperoni mounded in my left hand. I get called to do another task, turn my hand over to presumably empty it of meat. Before I move to the other station, I look down just to make sure. Five pepperonis sit stubbornly in my palm.
And then, there is the kicker. Last night, I wake up at 3:30 as I apparently have the bladder of an ant. But something's not right. I can't get out of bed. My brain struggles against sleep to figure this quandry. As a last-ditch effort, I survey myself in the muted glow of the streetlights. Wow. When I turned over to sit up, I have somehow - and really, don't ask me how - managed to bury my left leg from toes to upper-thigh underneath the fitted sheet that on its normal days, is snug over my mattress. I stare for a few seconds, then disentangle myself. On the toilet seconds later, I shake my head. My sister now laughs whenever I enter the bedroom.
In the last week, I've been made ridiculously aware of this thing. Aware of my naughty left side and what it does if I'm not looking. And as it is virtually impossible to be privy to its constant sandwich bag-hoarding, pepperoni-stockpiling, sheet-burrowing ways, I'm looking for a sitter.
Any takers?