i have brain damage because of a seizure disorder and a tumor in my left amygdalo-hippocampal(sp) region ... they didn't find my tumor until i was about 27 (i think), but they think i may have had it my entire life....
i had just absense seizures as a small child, and then partials when i hit puberty (around 16 or so)... and in my mid-20s i started having the grand-mals and that is where i lost the time...
to this day, i am *still* hearing about friends i had (that i have no memory of), and i have a horrible time of recognising names and faces (and it doesn't matter how much i like/love a person, they can still be gone from my memory)....
i lost a lot of english too, from the damage done by the seizures, and it took me a couple years to relearn some of it... and i am still slow to talk if i am having a "bad head day"... i can *type* faster than i can talk actually...
brain damage, EVEN THIS LITTLE BIT I HAD is a very very scarey thing.... i can remember the first time my little sister asked me about a friend of mine in NC, and i didn't know who she was talking about, and she said "that gay kid, Nick, Christ you two went *everywhere* together"...
apparently he and i were inseperable.. for the 6 months or so that i was living in Wilmington, we were constantly on the fon and going out together... but when i left NC, i had cut off all contact with him, and never spoke to him again, and forgot he EXISTED even until this day... because even though my sister has told me a lot about him, i have no memory of ever being with him, and i can't remember his face....
when i first heard about him, i just got the chills.. and i sat and shook for almost a half hour because it just seemed like such a horrible thing for me to do, to cut someone off like that... but before i started on meds for the seizure, that was just life for me...
i've lost a *lot* of people this way...
once i started on the meds (once they found something that *worked* for me), i can remember going into the bathroom one day, to pee, and just glancing into the mirror and nearly screaming... because i was a 30 year old woman.... i hadn't had any conscious memory of my face for at least 6 years or so... so i had not seen my face gradually aging, in my memory... all i knew was what i looked like younger, and so when i looked into the mirror, *that* is who i expected to see...
and yes, i know, a lot of people have a sudden eureka moment like that, where they will look into a mirror one day, or a foto of themselves, and realise how they've aged... but this was different... i have little memory of any of those years... i was lucky to go through the motions of living while i was sick with the grand-mals... i'd have 2-3 a day.. and in-between, i might eat or sleep, or *maybe* try to talk with a friend... but nothing else... its just really scarey....
and whenever i hear about coma patients waking up after so long, i just get the chills and think "god, i'm so sorry".... i know it sounds evil, but sometimes i just think it is better for people's bodies to be allowed to die, than to have to suffer through a life with brain-damage...
when i was last talking to my neurologist, we were discussing the brain-damage that i would recieve when the tumor is removed... and i was doing pretty good for a bit (i.e. no crying) ;-) but then i had one question to ask him, that made me get very shakey, i said: "do you know how many times i have died?........ can you tell me who is going to wake up from the surgery?" and he couldn't answer me, (of course!), he just looked at me, a little sad... and i added "Dawn is dead" (Dawn is our birth-name) "I'm Julie now.... is *Julie* going to wake up from the surgery, or will *she* be dead too?"..... and he said "honestly, sweetie, i can't tell you that... nobody can."
no subject
i had just absense seizures as a small child, and then partials when i hit puberty (around 16 or so)... and in my mid-20s i started having the grand-mals and that is where i lost the time...
to this day, i am *still* hearing about friends i had (that i have no memory of), and i have a horrible time of recognising names and faces (and it doesn't matter how much i like/love a person, they can still be gone from my memory)....
i lost a lot of english too, from the damage done by the seizures, and it took me a couple years to relearn some of it... and i am still slow to talk if i am having a "bad head day"... i can *type* faster than i can talk actually...
brain damage, EVEN THIS LITTLE BIT I HAD is a very very scarey thing.... i can remember the first time my little sister asked me about a friend of mine in NC, and i didn't know who she was talking about, and she said "that gay kid, Nick, Christ you two went *everywhere* together"...
apparently he and i were inseperable.. for the 6 months or so that i was living in Wilmington, we were constantly on the fon and going out together... but when i left NC, i had cut off all contact with him, and never spoke to him again, and forgot he EXISTED even until this day... because even though my sister has told me a lot about him, i have no memory of ever being with him, and i can't remember his face....
when i first heard about him, i just got the chills.. and i sat and shook for almost a half hour because it just seemed like such a horrible thing for me to do, to cut someone off like that... but before i started on meds for the seizure, that was just life for me...
i've lost a *lot* of people this way...
once i started on the meds (once they found something that *worked* for me), i can remember going into the bathroom one day, to pee, and just glancing into the mirror and nearly screaming... because i was a 30 year old woman.... i hadn't had any conscious memory of my face for at least 6 years or so... so i had not seen my face gradually aging, in my memory... all i knew was what i looked like younger, and so when i looked into the mirror, *that* is who i expected to see...
and yes, i know, a lot of people have a sudden eureka moment like that, where they will look into a mirror one day, or a foto of themselves, and realise how they've aged... but this was different... i have little memory of any of those years... i was lucky to go through the motions of living while i was sick with the grand-mals... i'd have 2-3 a day.. and in-between, i might eat or sleep, or *maybe* try to talk with a friend... but nothing else... its just really scarey....
and whenever i hear about coma patients waking up after so long, i just get the chills and think "god, i'm so sorry".... i know it sounds evil, but sometimes i just think it is better for people's bodies to be allowed to die, than to have to suffer through a life with brain-damage...
when i was last talking to my neurologist, we were discussing the brain-damage that i would recieve when the tumor is removed... and i was doing pretty good for a bit (i.e. no crying) ;-) but then i had one question to ask him, that made me get very shakey, i said:
"do you know how many times i have died?........ can you tell me who is going to wake up from the surgery?"
and he couldn't answer me, (of course!), he just looked at me, a little sad... and i added "Dawn is dead" (Dawn is our birth-name) "I'm Julie now.... is *Julie* going to wake up from the surgery, or will *she* be dead too?"..... and he said "honestly, sweetie, i can't tell you that... nobody can."
blech.
(sorry for rambling so much in your LJ)...
Juju & Co.