Where I'm Going

That's where I'm going.

I Walk Alone

I Walk Alone

It was proposed that something unusual happened in my brain, "functional neuerogenesis." Sounds like no big deal, but maybe my mother's words of firsthand observation will, "brain regeneration."

I address this in http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2012/03/new-brain.html

I've said I would have the most rewiring ever. Well, if 80% of my brain "neurogenerated", then 80% rewired (being optimistic and theoretical; 80% is the number one doctor uses). Most who had a brain injury and are on the internet have considerably less. Even in hospital care, survivors had less damage. These people also had the "semi-vegetative" classification. Most could not talk. Almost everybody was tube-fed (I saw only one eating. He could talk, but didn't always make sense, and he was on a ventilator.) In the intro of this a friend tells of how he first met me. http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2012/02/angela.html I was placed with people supposed to die.

I use "80%" because that's how much damage I had. We don't know if all 80% repaired yet. Also, I'm still alive, so my brain can't be autopsied and removed to cut it up and see. So we can only go by observable behavior. More than half my brain was involved. I shouldn't have made it. I did have some brainstem as my heart kept beating.

Technically  if you use right now as the half-way mark, then I have 9 more years to go. So stick around for 9 years. I don't think it will be that long, though. I don't really know for sure, but there's a sensation that I associate with neurogenesis that doesn't strongly occur anymore.

Some of the most important things have already completed. One being I breathe. This would be one of those few things that can be explained by neuroplasticity, a theory. Another big thing is that I talk. I couldn't find an explanation for this until "functional neurogenesis." Functional neurogenesis already occurs in babies. Like babies say their first words, so would I. It has only happened in childhood and is thought not to happen again. So this would also be a theory.

I have tried to present only facts, but in my case it has been theory. This concept of "rewiring" everyone is talking about is a theory - neuroplasticity. What's taught in medical school is your brain is hard-wired. There is no adaptation. Once damaged, that's it. That's a view I strongly disagree with. Now I add functional neurogenesis to my repertoire.

Functional neurogenesis is another theory. I believe it to be more common than thought, which.would be the optimism from the Special Education in me. As if Psychology wasn't enough, Special Education comes along and says, "It will happen. Just give it some time." (Special Ed teachers will work for years on the same student.)

So mine is coming....

Not there? Where is she?

 
The lights are on, but nobody's home.

7 year coma-it could be more because of the government definition, but Dr. Morse doesn't agree. Would you? I'd still be in a coma if you use their definition. [It will be 15 yrs in Dec 2017.]
 

About 2 months after my injury I opened my eyes. I was determined brain dead and life support to be removed. I did blink right before that, though, appropriately in response to questions, so life support was left. Life support was a ventilator.
 

Eventually, I was diagnosed PVS. About 6 months later I started making sounds. This was unusual, but my insurance ran out and the government took over. Then it was nothing. Therapy was limited to something like 30 days and a bit longer if the therapist did an extension.
 

I taught myself to talk. I rehabbed my left hand by moving marbles. (A person where I was had a container.) I typed this with my left index finger. Now I'm working on my right with pegs (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=274789875943573&id=1064010358). I don't have parallel bars, but I do have a walker. I have it so it won't tip over. I've taught myself to stand-up. I can't remain standing, yet, but I know that this will come.  Although I received no out-right therapy, my background and training afforded me that. Others aren't so lucky. If a patient does survive, therapy is usually stopped.
 

The whole time I remain PVS because the government says so. The one who you can compare me to is Terri Schiavo. Remember how some doctors thought she could be rehabbed but it would take a long time? I'm that long time. I still have that diagnosis she had, as she was stopped at the beginning. This year will be 10 years for me (and I'm not done yet). I'm not done, but able to communicate.
 

So 7 year coma it is. No one knows what to call it. My eyes were open, but I wasn't there.
 

UPDATED 11/13/2017

New Brain

Dr Morse's blog, http://spiritualscientific.com/DrMorseBlog/2010/11/08/angela-ronson-part-2-consciousness-heals-the-brain/ can be quite confusing. I'll pull out something that is quite astonishing:  "Functional neurogenesis means that new brain cells grow deep within an area of the brain called the hippocampus, and then migrate to specific areas of the brain where they are needed.  These new brain cells then permit new functions or repair damaged functions in the brain." This is the process he believed happened in my brain.
 

I have a new brain? Not exactly. When you have a cut, new cells move to the area and repair it. You see a scab and eventually skin. Something like that happened, but with my brain.
 

Recently there has been a woman in the news who re-grew her breast, I re-grew my brain. If this is true or not is to be determined, but it took me more than enough years.

Not Done Yet

 

 

My sister was visiting. "You're talking better than last time."  I should have improvement. Just because I was "found" doesn't mean I stop. Let's look at a phrase, "is even starting to walk again", http://spiritualscientific.com/DrMorseBlog/2010/11/08/angela-ronson-part-2-consciousness-heals-the-brain/  That right there means the process isn't done.

 

Here it is in full context, "Yet she has made a full neuro-psychiatric recovery, with her personality and memories basically the same as prior to her massive brain injury. She speaks, can use her arms and fingers, and  is even starting to walk again!" I only made "recovery" enough to be declared "recovery." That doesn't say "all done."

 

There could be many more years or just a week until I'm "all done".

 

"Probably,  since time doesn’t exist in this all knowledge state, Angela didn’t realize that it would be seven long excruciatingly difficult years to fix her brain." http://spiritualscientific.com/DrMorseBlog/2010/11/09/angela-ronson-part-3-how-our-brain-is-connected-to-the-universe/ It could be 7 more years for the whole process to be done. I don't think so, though. That's just professional opinion as a developmental specialist. We see cognitive skills complete, with lacking in motor. "Talking sounding better" would be improvement in oral-motor skills, and probably maturity of the voice and vocal production. I would doubt many more years, but I can only work so fast.

 

 

Dualism: The Mind and The Brain

 THE MIND AND THE BRAIN

I can say they are definitely two separate things. How? You are reading this.  You have to know my story. In the past, someone in my condition wouldn't be able to communicate with you. But technology is changing that. Look at this video, but watch how he is communicating:  
 

Just because his body doesn't work doesn't mean he can't think. I used to have something similar to that computer set-up. A dot of some sort of material was placed on my forehead and I'd play a game to learn how to manipulate a cursor on a computer screen, a head mouse! I've been in the same boat. As time went on I didn't need that. I started making sounds which led to talking, and it has been documented that I now type with one finger. "Angela Ronson suffered a major AVM bleed and stroke with massive injury to her entire brain.  She was in a coma, semi-coma, and ultimately the “locked in syndrome” for a total of 7 years.  Yet she has made a full neuro-psychiatric recovery, with her personality and memories basically the same as prior to her massive brain injury. She speaks, can use her arms and fingers, and  is even starting to walk again!" http://spiritualscientific.com/DrMorseBlog/2010/11/08/angela-ronson-part-2-consciousness-heals-the-brain/

So, I obviously had ideas in my mind, but not the brain capacity to get them out. They would have to be two separate things then. It has been taught, "The brain is the mind." I say that is only part of it.

What is the soul? According to dictionary.com it is "the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part." I don't think of the soul as thinking. I think of the mind doing that, though.

So all this time I was in a body with no working brain (other than bodily functions), yet I still had thoughts and ideas in my mind. That makes a strong case for two separate things.

 

***
Brain injury,
I am saying your mind is still the same. Your brain is different.  

Updated  12/11/2018

 

Neuroplasticity Created Rain Man

NEUROPLASTICITY 

CREATED RAIN MAN

I have increased knowledge after a brain injury, when many do not. This happened due to the rewiring process. The following is an excerpt of a conversation on a social network. I worked with this person. I used to advocate for individuals with disabilities in a former job position. The kind of knowledge needed for that was quite extensive.The quote shows just how far this knowledge goes now.

--------------------
Angela Ronson
Long time no hear from. Anyway, remember how I had all that disability law knowledge? http://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2012/03/vegetable-not.html (Obviously I still have all my faculties.)

Hi Angela! Yes I remember. And I think your knowledge regarding disability rights has increased since then. I've been reading your blog and posts. I'm in absolute awe of you! And I'm fascinated by your journey. There is so much we don't know about the brain and neuroplasticity. Your continued recovery is a good example of that. You my dear need to write a book.

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Back in my 1st yr of Psychology I remembered something about multiple copies of a memory are made and are stored in various places of the brain. We don't use all these copies, hence a lot of information is forgotten...but it is still there. (Remember that grade school teacher who said "Apply yourself"?) Now in neuroplasticity the brain will rewire. Since I lost the original wiring to a memory, my brain rewired to a copy. There were many copies, though, so my brain just rewired to all of them (at least most). This would explain my increased knowledge. I didn't learn anything new. It was always there. (I'm finally applying myself.) This also explains a great deal of music, movies, and TV programs being mixed in. There was a great deal of this in my childhood, therefore a great deal of multiple memory copies. (Let the TV be the babysitter.) Neuroplasticity also rewired to these. I really don't have "increased knowledge", rather an increased use of knowledge.

Also, since the rewiring happened directly, something unusual occurs: "...allowed Peek’s neurons to make new and unusual connections between his right and left hemispheres." This is about Kim Peek http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-did-the-absence-of-the-corpus&WT.mc_id=SA_Twitter_sciammind  Peek had no corpus callosum. Memories were directly wired. This explains why I  have some of his qualities. I discussed this issue and didn't know why I was so much like him. (note: I don't remember as many facts, because I never learned them.)

1/1/2013

The multiple copies theory of memory is widely used today:  http://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-redundancy-in-human-memory

10/18/2015
updated