Monday, July 29, 2013

The Butt Icon




Am I the only one who has taken Savant Syndrome, put Acquired in front, and abbreviated? Of course I want to be an ASS. Who cares what it stands for. I just want to be a certified ASS.

I'll have to change my icon. I found a tomato that looks like a butt. Instead of a brain, I can have a tomato butt.

So...

no more



Instead



LMAO

Thursday, July 25, 2013

What I Have Learned



[This goes  with http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2011/08/description.html. "Developmental stability" is a doozy.]

I have learned I am not conscious. I don't say "unconscious." There is conscious and unconscious. Then there is this third state. A vegetative person has their eyes open, has sleep and wake states,  and a lot of brain damage. They are not conscious. After a  year in this state it becomes permanent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_vegetative_state  So I am permanently not conscious.

I'm going to contradict this. I have always been conscious. I was unable to move to respond to my environment. This even includes blinking. I have recovered somewhat, but I am still unable to move in some aspects.


Not being conscious is the main problem. It prevents further study because I am permanently not conscious and will have no improvement. So no time, energy, or money should be spent on me for recovery (and somehow this is also translating to research).

Lucky for me this is what I used to do. I am with myself 24/7. I'm just not as mobile. I can sort of provide therapy, at least the early therapy. (I did  ages 0-5.) I used to think I just needed to get myself to a toddler, developmentally. Well I mostly talk and push to a stand. Sounds like the development of a toddler. I do this all non-consciously, though. No therapy can make you conscious.

I'm either savant or very smart. The savant has incredible neuroplasticity. "Savant syndrome, both in the congenital and acquired types, provides compelling evidence of remarkable brain plasticity." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677584/  I continually have made progress. I have never "plateaued" as the therapists say, or my condition never reached no improvement.


At some point, I should have gone from PVS to  MCS.     



"...some of them might recover...and not get adequate therapy." Not getting adequate therapy is what I am experiencing now.

This also happened...  "The minimally conscious state (MCS) denotes a specific level of functional recovery of severely brain-injured patient." http://www.jci.org/articles/view/27021 "The nerve fibers from the cells were severed, but the cells themselves remained intact." http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-07-03-brain-rewired_x.htm What appeared to be dead wasn't. The wiring was just gone. It has just taken this long to rewire (and maybe other things.)


I do know this is slow. I'm on a glacially slow track. If it has taken me 10 years to get this far, then where will I be in 10 more years? I do know  that this "savant syndrome" or whatever you want to call it is not fully formed yet. If it's like the other, then I have a  few more years. That's okay. I can use the  extra neuroplasticity.

(Extra neuroplasticity is a therapist's dream. There are no plateaus. Just keep doing the exercises until the next developmental level is reached. No exercises is no progress.)
  
----------------------------------------------------

Then there's this medication that was given to me.... It's suspected of causing brain growth. It's also suspected of causing increased cognition. I was in a controlled environment. My diet is controlled as I receive  a prepared formula via a feeding tube. That sounds like a human trial. Someone just needs to put it together from my medical records. The hard work is already done.

 ----------------------------------------------------

Neurogenesis may have happened. This is where a new brain scan would be handy. Then you could see what part of the brain is functioning. Remember I was in a coma and on a ventilator. Only my heart was beating. That indicates only part of my brain stem worked. (The brain stem also does breathing, and I could not do that.) So, I only had brain stem as functional brain.

If all of this that I am doing comes from my brain stem, then that re-wired to do everything...including speaking and standing. That would be a first, but I doubt that.  More likely it was neurogenesis, or my brain regenerated and is doing this. That would also be a first. Both situations have never happened before and this is why people who know me are in awe.

Pushing to a stand and slowly learning to speak indicate brain growth. It is something we see with children. The brain stem does not do this. This is what I see happening in me. It is different from childhood growth in that it is much slower and the sequence is a bit different. This would be neurogenesis at a low level and then the brain growing slowly as it does.






What a long strange trip it's been. I can only document it.



 
----------------------------------------------------

8/27/2015
 
Instead, I am going from PVS straight to consciousness. That's like going from 1 to 5 and leaving out 2, 3, and 4. MCS, Minimally Conscious State was in between. It completely gets left out now. I did go through it, however.

I did get classified as something that can fit, but it's not official, "semi-vegetative." If one is only part vegetative, then they have to also be part conscious. If you ask me, it sounds the same as MCS. It's easy for someone to say I went from part consciousness to being fully conscious.


Friday, July 19, 2013

I Want To Be A Rock



Since when has consciousness been associated with memory or movement? There is even a philosophy that gives a rock a soul.



 






So a rock is conscious, but I'm not. Go figure.


updated  11/1/2015

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

I Was Crowd-Sourcing


.



Crowd-sourcing is, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing



Did you  know that when you type a captcha you are helping to digitize a book? You are just one of many people who are doing this. When some of the older texts are scanned it looks like a photocopy of a photocopy. Computers can't read them...but humans can. So that's where those words in some captchas come from. When you type what you see you just digitized a word for someone like me. Many people have a different captcha. Now a whole text is done. The problem of digitizing all those words was solved with crowd-sourcing.    
 
A little bit for an individual...BUT, put all the people together you have "communal value."


    
Here's the same idea only with money...


He channeled all those half-cents to his paycheck. He was one happy employee!

So, every little bit adds up. Look at his paycheck!




My diagnosis didn't seem right. I didn't expect any one person to get it. I needed many.
 

I've pretty much have done the same with my diagnosis. I knew it was wrong, but no one could tell me  what was going on. By putting everything on the internet, it became a communal problem. I got "communal value."

All the ideas came in.... People knew of all sorts of stuff, but no one person knew everything. I had to take all that stuff and make sense. Now I have something. Crowd-sourcing helped me solve a problem.


To everybody:








Sunday, July 7, 2013

Proof of Limbo


UPDATED   9/13/2016
People don't understand when I say I'm not conscious. There is conscious and unconscious. Then there is a third category- vegetative. I had a brain injury, then surgery, and then a coma. When I opened my eyes, I was classified PVS, persistent vegetative state. I did not talk and stared off into space.  At the last hospital I was in I was put with all the "semi-vegetative" patients. This mental state is eyes open but not conscious. (Sounds like a zombie.) Obviously you are reading this, and can see I have gained back mental function.

A person usually dies before they can get better in this state. This happened to me so long ago, and I eventually did get better (very slow and I did not die). Problem now is this condition was made permanent. So I am permanently not conscious.

Acquired savant syndrome is caused by a brain injury and is very rare. This can't be confirmed in me as I am not conscious. Savants are in such great need, yet politics interferes with this, too. I can't be studied until I am conscious. This "story" is #123. Yes, there is a massive amount already. I manage to type all of this with one finger. Again, this would be like a savant. Not studying sounds like "cutting off one's nose to spite the face." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_off_the_nose_to_spite_the_face

Recently an experience was "debunked," http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/07/proof-heaven-author-debunked/66772/ To each his own and the freedom of speech. Experiences are experienced by a single person. I wouldn't want to be the one who comes along and says there is something wrong with what you experienced. You are basically saying there is something wrong with the person.  I can only attest to my own experience. I don't want to ruin a person's understanding of their self. That could be detrimental.

I would say I am conscious. I have been all along, even when I couldn't move. I would also say I am doing extraordinary things. That is not the case, though. A letter was even sent to Social Security back in 2003 by a doctor, http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2012/11/competent.html They deemed me still to be vegetative, but I could handle my own money. I couldn't talk then. I talk now. I'm still vegetative. I live on my own. I'm still vegetative. I write these. I'm still vegetative.  I somehow managed to get custody of my children and not be conscious. It's funny a not conscious person can follow those rules. I'm still vegetative.

I invite "debunkers" to look at my case. Problems will be found with it...but not with me. Problems shouldn't be found with my experience. Oh, I may have spelling or grammar errors on stories. I may have some of the  biology/neurology or law wrong. If it's real bad I can be a weenie and say, "What do you expect from a not conscious person?" That is the problem. I am not responsible for what I do or say. I am vegetative.











"Limbo" is a place between Heaven and Hell in Catholicism. It might be a reference to the book Proof of Heaven. "Limbo" is also a game.