If I Only Had A Brain

My bleed started in the cerebellum. It would have been contained to this one area if it had been discovered soon enough...but it wasn't. Other problems happened along the way. By the time I got somewhere that could deal with me I had "blood extension into all ventricles," from a hospital summary. That was my whole brain.

My whole brain was soaked with blood so it was dead. Recovery was not expected. Death was.

Wait! I now talk and wrote this whole thing. Something must have happened.



"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 [part] brain stem as functional brain." http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2013/07/what-i-have-learned.html

The entire post discusses what may have happened. http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2013/07/what-i-have-learned.html

Take the word "neurogenesis" and break it down. "Neuro" would be the brain. "Genesis" is to generate or the beginning. Basically, my brain regenerated.

I used to think "dead brain" and left it at that. Then Dr. Morse made the following statement in a blog, "Think of all those miles and miles of myelin sheath Ms. Ronson had to laboriously re-knit to heal and reconnect her severely damaged brain." That's tissue. I don't know if what is there is dead or alive. 

What this means now is that it needs to be studied so doctors can do it again. Is there brain tissue in my head and is it alive? If doctors learn how to make a person react appropriately to their environment again, then the brain can be managed and maybe helped to fix itself. (It will be a management process to heal. It won't be instant, but take years. Also, developmental skills need to be present prior to brain injury, even if they are lost due to the injury.)

I slowly get better and it has been years.