Can't You Tell?

"Is your gauze wet?"

"I don't know.  Let me look."

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This is one of those splinter skills and hard for people to understand. I've gotten better and can tell somewhat, but I still need to visually confirm up, down, left or right, etc. I didn't know where my body was in space. This is proprioception, or one of the main senses that isn't taught.

It was common for me to tell physical therapy that I needed to see my hands. I knew bearing weight on them when they were  in the wrong position could cause damage or pain.

PAIN 

I could feel deep pain. I couldn't really feel it on my skin. This was great for IVs, blood draws, and shots. I now feel this on my left side as it should be. I'm starting to feel this on my right, but it is very dull. I can be a human pincushion!

I felt cold first and not with my hands. I feel it in my stomach. Whether stored in the refrigerator or fresh from a new box, I can tell that my formula is cold. Refrigerated is closer to having a milkshake.

I can tell a bit if something is soft/hard by seeing squishiness. Again, appearance can give clue as to texture. A few years ago, I became fascinated with roughness of a towel. Only recently have I felt "soft."

Wet/Dry is just now coming. People are surprised that I can't always tell if something is wet.

__________________________

The sense of touch is peripheral and is coming much later.


I'm trying not to get a sensory processing  disorder. 

I under react. This means socially inappropriate behavior won't be noticed. Sitting quietly is very appropriate. What people may not know, though,  is that I shut down. I seem to respond again once the stimuli are removed, but I got to thinking of my coma. Was this over-stimulation? Had I shut down completely? The shut-down was so severe that biological functions shut down. This will have to be investigated.

To researchers, maybe I already HAD a sensory processing disorder and the high neuroplasticity I have brought me out sooner. I would still be fighting this processing disorder and slowly improving. To the public, this is just speculation.

 

No Pain

"A Canadian man who was believed to have been in a vegetative state for more than a decade, has been able to tell scientists that he is not in any pain. It's the first time an uncommunicative, severely brain-injured patient has been able to give answers clinically relevant to their care."


This is part of a post I made on a social network. I was like this a long time ago. Interest wasn't taken in me. I could blink for yes and no. Eventually my mother figured out that if she spoke and showed me a letter, I could blink yes or no for the letter and a word could be spelled.

When I came home from the hospital 4 years later, there was a white board that had been written on with the wrong kind of pen I found in a box. It  was like a permanent marker and the word wasn't coming off. It said TYLENOL.

I was in pain...in a hospital. Days went by before my mother got there. She was the only one who would take the time to go through the entire alphabet, a few times, so I could blink yes or no to each letter, eventually spelling a word. Hospital staff tried it once, I failed, and that was it. They didn't do one thing my mother did-present it visually.

This is strange, but he says it here (3:48), "central auditory agnosia..."

So this was going on. 

To top it off, "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've been able to progress (rapidly in the eyes of brain injury) because of this. Now I am able to write this...even if it is with one finger.

There is an important thing to remember with that man. He may not have been in pain at that time he communicated, but what about tomorrow? We don't know.