Still battling on

Well everything is still pretty much the same except I won a major victory of sorts. The insurance company and others all agree that I have had 1-3 mini strokes and suffered head trauma during the care accident. Finally, I am getting some speech therapy and neuropsychology to support my recovery.

I cried my eyes out when the neuropsychologist listed the problems that testing had highlighted. I knew the problems were there, it just upset me that no-one had helped me with anything before. It didn't take any marvelous whizzy-bang test to find the damage, it was always easy to find but no-one bothered to look until I insisted. Also, the neuropsychologist told me that I have enough of my brain left to finish my PhD and plan a career in research because my capacity to learn was untouched by the damage, as were a couple of other things that will help me.

Essentially, my head is like a computer. My brain is like a hard drive. The information in my brain is intact (except for the dead bits) but I can't control the hard drive like I used to. The link between my keyboard, printer, mouse or whatever and my brain is damaged (where its not dead). The psychologist and speech therapist were will support my learning and teach me strategies to further my goals. They were actually pretty impressed by the coping strategies I already use.

Now I go to Physiotherapy once a week and rehab for 4-6 hours a week. I look and sound pretty much the same, but I'm not. Slowly I am beginning to comprehend exactly what I am up against.