What Do You Do With a Broken Brain? Part I

Forget all about asking what do you do with a drunken sailor and consider what one is supposed to do with a broken brain that hides its secrets from CT Scans and MRIs. Having no visual cues, Neurologists must depend first upon what the patient describes as symptoms and then secondly on what symptoms present themselves through various tests. I find it all tremendously fascinating.
The Neurologist impressed me from the beginning.
I told him my symptoms; he told me exactly what other symptoms I had and gave me a general outline of what was wrong with my head. In addition to knowing these things by seeming supernatural ability, he also told me a few things about my past with all the confidence and  genius one might attribute to Sherlock Holmes.
He told me that I was born early and probably didn't really catch up developmentally until after the first or second grade.
I know I must have been staring at him. I said, "As a matter of fact, I was born three months early, and I repeated first grade."
"But you've got a high IQ so your grades didn't suffer after that."
Well, give credit where credit is due and all. This guy must be a genius to identify my genius.  "I was good in school unless it was a math-related subject. Science I got Bs in without even studying, but in everything else I got As."
"Your GPA?"
"I think 3.6."
He sat back cooly and observed, "It would have been higher if your family life weren't so strained."
Seemed like quite the risky and tactless assertion to make, but as I've always thought that was the case myself, I didn't argue with him.
"What about when you were in college?"
"About the same. It was a 4.0 until I took that crazy History and Construction of the English Language course. And then recently I'm working on my Master's Degree in Curriculum Design and Evaluation with a reading endorsement, and some special education credits so that I can work well in integrated classrooms."
He made a note and remarked, "Your IQ is probably around 125, 130 --" He got out a list and a sliding scale kind of protractor and then added slowly "We'll give you some leeway and say... about 125..."
He sat back again and explained, "Women are smarter than men. It's a proven fact. Girls, for instance, when born early, almost always bounce back by first or second grade, whereas the males of the species generally take until they're about fourteen or fifteen years old to catch up. For you, being a woman, and being highly intelligent anyway, it should be a lot easier for your brain to repair itself over time."
I was tickled both to be called highly intelligent and to be told that women are smarter than men. Just as I have always suspected. Ha ha
I asked him to elaborate on that point, and he readily did so. He said that whereas men have a sort of credit card-thin slot in their brains that hold their memories and accept them "Ka-chunk! Ka-chunk! Ka-chunk!" one at a time and of the same general variety, women, on the other hand, have an entire War and Peace novel up there with many pages, many different kinds of slots, and many different types of memory including all the sensory details, ambiance, feelings and reactions in minute detail. Additionally, there is a thin wall through which thoughts pass in a man's brain from side to side, whereas a woman's middle wall is so thick that their thoughts have to travel around and around the brain in order to make their connections.

"So you're saying that all women think in circles?"
"No, I'm saying that all women's thoughts encompass the entire length, width and mass of their minds, and that is why, if you tell your husband or boyfriend out of the blue that you just had a thought the other day about how the blue rug in the dining room was the perfect illustration of what you were saying about that issue in the kitchen, he is going to respond by saying 'Huh?! What does the blue carpet have to do with... what?!' Not because he wasn't listening to you or doesn't care, but because he literally does not have any idea what you're talking about...I really ought to write a book one of these days. I'm sure it would be a best seller."
I can't tell you how highly amused I was. All I can say for sure is that I would certainly buy that book, and share it with as many people as possible.

"How's your balance lately?" He asked next.
"Um, fine?"
He cocked his head and gazed at me thoughtfully for a few moments and then said, "Come over here to this empty corner with me, please."
 I did.
"Now, stand in the corner with your hands on your hips and your elbows against each wall, facing your body toward me."
I did. Obviously he was about to test my balance somehow.
"Okay, now put one foot directly in front of the other, like you are on a tightrope."
I did. Ta dah!
"Now try doing it with your eyes closed."
My elbows kept bumping each wall as I struggled to stand in place.
When I opened my eyes, the Neurologist was writing on his stenopad and saying "Thirteen... All right, now balance yourself on one foot."
Easy. Again, "Ta dah!"
He smirked at me. "Now with your eyes closed, please."
I nearly pitched forward on my face.
We went back and sat at the table.
"Did your family often note or tease you for being uncoordinated?"
Damn. The man was psychic.
He sat back and crossed his arms. "What about your other concussions?"
"What other concussions?"
"How many other head injuries have you sustained in your lifetime?"
"None that I remember."
"Then how many other accidents have you been in where you lost consciousness? I'm guessing at least one other time."
Suddenly I remembered that roll-over accident I had a year or two before the divorce, when the kids were in the car with me. We'd landed upside down, but I had had no idea that this was the case until I unbuckled my seat belt and fell into a foot of water and had to crawl along the broken windshield to make my way back to my terrified children and get them out of there. Chris had been really mad at me for nearly getting us killed and wouldn't hear of going to a hospital because none of us were bleeding (although later it turned out to be his fault the van broke and went out of control), but I remembered just then that I couldn't remember what happened from the moment the van tipped into the ditch and the moment I found myself sitting buckled into my seat, confused and entirely unaware of how we'd ended up tipped over. Most likely my confusion was due to some loss of consciousness.
"ANY loss of consciousness in any kind of accident is due to concussion," the Neurologist explained. He plucked a kleenex from a box on the table and held it out to me. I took it hesitantly, wondering what he was offering it to me for. Did he somehow know that I was going to sneeze within the next couple of moments?
"Take each end of that kleenex and pull in opposite directions a little bit."
I did as I was told, watching the tissue flex against the slight force from my fingertips.
"Your brain has a certain amount of 'give' to it; it can handle a stretch here and there. Now rip a couple of small vertical lines into it and flex it a little again."
I did. The kleenex still held, but it flexed out a little further than before.
"The more concussions or damage your brain undergoes, the more it loses its ability to bounce back and
recover itself. That's why it's so strongly recommended that people do everything possible to avoid hitting their head again during the first year after an accident. And, in your case --" He held out his hand for the kleenex and peeled the two layers apart, then handed one of them back to me. "--because you've got PTSD, there's a part of your brain that isn't working quite as well to begin with, and it's been that way since birth."
I had never told him that I had PTSD, and he had never to my knowledge had access to my mental health records. I would have had to have signed a release form and been asked permission for him to do that.
He explained that several of my symptoms, combined with my medical history, pointed strongly toward the condition because the part of the brain that affects speech and coordination is also the part of the brain that regulates memory, and fear. Having been born prematurely, I had a greater chance than most to have developed PTSD in my lifetime, particularly since no one is ever born that early without some kind of trauma taking place, and PTSD is born and raised in the undeveloped brain that cannot easily process trauma. My sensitivity to light and noise that I only started noticing since I had one of my first flashback experiences is  a symptom of PTSD which, consequently, meant that working as a telemarketer at a computer screen under blinking florescent bulbs for eight hour shifts had no doubt exaggerated my symptoms, as had the job I held at the factory two summers ago. Additionally, I've been in two accidents that involved concussion, and my most recent one was obviously a double concussion based on the number of times my vehicle had been struck. "Your brain cannot simply snap back like a rubber band every time that area gets injured. It works more like that one ply of tissue paper with the vertical rips in it. However, this kind of damage is not necessarily irreversible. With proper tests to determine exactly which parts of your brain have been injured, and proper rest to your brain to prevent further neurological stress, we will be able to develop a treatment plan to help you heal and adjust to your brain's altered condition."

So maybe the neurologist isn't Sherlock Holmes, but he certainly conveys a sense of knowing what he's talking about and helping me figure out what's going on in my head. He's an MD in Neurosurgery, a Doctorate in Neuroscience and a Doctorate in Neuropsychology. He says that in his day all Neurosurgeons also had to have a Doctorate in Neuropsychology, because the two were considered so closely related.
Next time I post, I might talk a little about the tests. Again, a very fascinating process to me, so much so that I sometimes forget that my life is hanging up in the air waiting for the results. I've had three test dates so far, and I'm waiting for the final one that's scheduled for a month out from now. If I don't come out of this any better neurologically, I will certainly emerge with more personal insight and patience.