My Two Selves- Again

Somehow the original post with this title was deleted during my travel between Word and Blogger,  which disappoints me because I thought it was pretty good; well, at least OK.

Here was that post:

I consider myself two selves; there's my brain self, that is the boss of my entire body, and, my physical self. The brain self has lots of things to operate, like breathing, regulation of body temp, the immune system, and the organs inside the body. I’ve only mentioned a few, but you get the point. Then, there is my physical self that includes bones, muscles, nerves; the apparatus that makes me move. But only part of my brain self is in charge of sending messages to my entire physical self.

Looking back on my recovery, I sometimes wonder why my physical self did not make the same level of recovery my brain self did. But maybe I am sadly mistaken. Some people are certain my physical self has come further than my brain.  But it was my injury so I believe I have the last word.

I feel my brain is miles ahead.  Yes, I’ll say it again; my brain functions better than my body even though I have short term memory issues, and slower processing speed.  My equilibrium really sucks too. On the plus side, my brain doesn’t hurt, it only gets tired.

When I crashed, I hit my head really hard, so my brain self was in tough shape. The unhurt parts rallied and were quick to prioritize, so I stayed alive, which I am very grateful for. 

But after the critical issues were taken care of, what was left of my brain self looked over my entire body and saw there were no motor skills in the right hemisphere (that’s fancy for right side.) My brain knew it had to reassign those jobs, to its unhurt parts. But it realized that it couldn’t tackle the physical issues alone, it was going to need help.

The aid came from my incredible physical therapist, Kyle, at the hospital.  He actually moved my limbs and such, so that new brain parts could, in essence, learn to send the proper messages.  His job was to teach the inexperienced brain parts, how to get my limbs working again.  What was left of my brain self, worked together with Kyle-The-Amazing, long and hard, but I was left with a physical self that remains compromised.  I limp, my left eye wanders (if you look close you can see it’s actually both eyes,) and my stability, while on my feet, is always questionable. The right hemisphere remains weaker, and slower, but I believe my brain self did the best it could.  The hardest deficit to accept is my inability to run.  Initially, I thought I could train myself to at least jog, but there is a definite hitch in my get along and the delay between my brain and necessary parts will always be there.

This is where I say, yes, I’m luck to still be alive.  And luckier still, to have weathered the storm with enough of my old self, to combine with my new self, so that the person here today, is A OK.