Progress

When I first came to this house, I was only speaking single words and short phrases. I commonly lost my voice and then I couldn't talk at all.

Time went on. I've said I was slowly progressing. This couldn't immediately be seen. It would take months and by then it would be a different professional, if I even had one at the time. My voice kept getting better. If you compared this to when I had no voice, then there is major improvement.

 

 

Recently, I was asked about progress since the time of that first video. My slow progression hadn't stopped, and you can see that yourself.

 

 

You can hear the talking is much more smooth. I didn't have to practice what I would say. This was originally an update for a friend. I had no intention of making it public. Later I've seen the importance of doing so.

I move my other hand now. That wasn't supposed to happen. I don't get Occupational Therapy (OT) anymore and it's good that I knew a little bit. Now I do that. That and speech have been my strongest areas. I do both.

Improvement hasn't immediately been seen in my case. Now that I think about it, the case is similar to that of Terry Wallis. 

"The nerve fibers from the cells were severed, but the cells themselves remained intact." Nerve cells that have not died can form new connections. It goes on to say, "The new research suggests that instead of the sudden recovery Wallis seemed to make when he began speaking and moving three years ago, he actually may have been slowly recovering all along, as nerves in his brain formed new connections at a glacial pace until enough were present to make a network." http://braininjuryknow.blogspot.com/2013/04/getting-there.html

My nerve fibers weren't "severed" but saturated with blood. Saturation is associated with death. These nerve fibers died. My cells, though, remained in tact. It sounds really close. (Scientists will say my cells were also saturated. For this there was DNA replication, http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2013/08/an-exact-copy.html If a virus from 1918 can be brought back, http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v11/n11/pdf/nm1105-1154.pdf?origin=publication_detail so can a brain cell be brought back. )

Wallis took a long time before improvement was seen. All that was happening in him was not seen. Improvement was happening all along. This is why case management is needed. Case management would have ordered screenings and tests that would have picked up on biological changes, the things that can't be seen with the naked eye.

I've most likely have had small biological changes all along. It wasn't 'Boom! She's all better.' My progress has been so slow, yet my cognitive skills are so high, it will, and already does, look comical to leave me at the lower level. That error is in the set-up. It has happened before and will most likely happen again since correction isn't taken. (The difference here is the patient has phenomenal cognitive skills and can point out the error.)