The few loyal followers of this blog who remain will probably have noted my prolonged absence. There were many things that interfered with my ability to post here over the course of the past year or so; the most severe was a motor vehicle accident that injured my child and resulted in some neurological injuries of my own that impaired my language centers, memory, and attention, as well as my sense of balance and the sensation in my hands and upper body. All in all, not ideal conditions to write a blog. I have missed you all, and I apologize for not at least explaining myself better. I had the persistent delusion that I would be able to return to blogging at any moment. I was wrong. I may be back now more regularly. I hope so. There's always the chance that I'm still harboring a delusion.
Still, the whole experience has been an excellent opportunity to explore the mind/body interface, and to learn more about the ways that the structure of the brain affects the function of the mind. It's been an interesting self-study. Apparently, traumatic brain injury (TBI) results in decreased levels of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. My physician started me on Aricept, an acetylcholine esterase inhibitor also used to treat Alzheimer's disease, this week, and I am heartened by the fact that I can sit down tonight and write this, even if it is terribly slow, laborious, and possibly incoherent. I have wanted to write here many times since the accident, but failed to produce anything remotely readable. That I can write this at all is a great encouragement.
It's clear that my initial excitement should be tempered with caution, though. I had ideas tonight for a full week's worth of small April A-Z posts; I am managing this one, and a Flash Fearsday for "F", and I find that the others will either have to wait or have fled my mind completely. "Better" is not "well."
I'll be around as much as I can.
But better is still brilliant. It is coherent, fully coherent, back out ahead again in just how much so. That's a rapid recovery too, if it was late October, early November time. I can imagine it was a major learning experience. Not what we'd want to go through at all, but hopefully a net gain taken as a whole, with more value still to be found.
ReplyDeleteTake your time with the posting, and there's no need to apologise at all, or feel the need to maintain a pace that's forced - the blog is still in the rolls and the followers are still followers, and - observation skills notwithstanding, mine need some work - people will be over to read whatever you have to say.
Good to see you back and posting. Take your time and take care of yourself. I just came back from something a lot less drastic and I'm still having to pace myself. I hope your recovery goes even better now that you're back to writing--and doing a very good job of it as well!
ReplyDeleteThank you both!
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