• Neuropsychology - (To check my mood during my treatment. I think I did okay with this as it was but it’s part of the program for just about everyone)
• Occupational Therapy (To be sure my day-to-day activities and responsiblities could be maximized and potential compensations for any supposed or indentified deficiencies be brought forth)
• Physical Therapy (To be sure my energy level and my body was performing as normally as possible)
• Speech and Language Therapy (To help in areas related to visual scanning, language processing, and deductive reasoning) In actuality my OT and SLT sessions sometimes overlapped and my therapists threw several curve balls my way to be sure I could reach my fullest potential. As self-revealing as that was, it was very effective

There were other experiences that led up to this point in time, but suffice it to say, I’ve been performing well. My supervisor and co-workers have been very supportive. My clientele routinely tell me they can’t tell me any difference in my personality. That’s an inside-the-box, vs. outside-the-box perspective issue. The charts and graphs of my cognitive rehabilitation exercises show that considerable progress was made. In order to justify considerable, the tasks that patients in this program all go through include doing paper-pencil exercises and other tasks that stretch and bend your mind so that new neural pathways can be made and if not, what compensations could be made.

As part of all this, one of my new side-projects I’m taking on is to take some of the assessment tools and exercises I was given as paper-pencil tests and try to digitize them into programs that anyone can do online at home. My platform of choice is likely going to be Adobe Flex/AIR as that is what I’m most familiar with. I’ll keep everyone updated as I progress.

A looong while ago, I made reference to something I coined "steroids for thinkers." In my view and opinions, the human mind is a special muscle for our bodies. It isn’t responsible for tactile or gross movement of limbs. It may tell other organs that they should do what they do, but ultimately it is the specific muscle that does the movement. Likewise the autonomous functions (respiratory, digestive, etc.) depend on the central nervous system to do what they do.

What I’m referring to here is a ‘muscle’ that’s by design the gateway into all our experiences, and dedicated to absorbing anything it possibly can.

If you’ve been reading, my brain’s a little broken right now. There have been improvements over the last 2-3 months, but I’m most interested in getting myself back to where I felt I was in December 2008…and quite possibly before that.

Brain tumors depending on where they are located affect the individuals they’ve become part of in different ways. My particular tumor was invasive-meaning that bad tumor cells (although benign) were occupying the space needed by normal cells. They were integrated so to speak in a way that the treatment was total gross resection of the tumor material and some of the good tissue around it. What was left is a tumor bed which is literally a large hole in the vastness of space in my skull.

During the time in my recovery, I’ve noticed that my personality (including behavior) isn’t 100% how I’d like it to be. I can still operate a computer, type, exercise, interact with people, find humorous situations, and spend time with those I care about. However, I’d like to be able to address the issues of learning on a personal level since I’ve declared myself a life-long learner and I’ve got lots more to do.

At least one reader made a comment a while ago about some personal views of one of my favorite educationists and took time to correct me in my abilities to convey his original thinking. I must reiterate that my intentions at the time were based on the information I had available to me at the time and the amount of time I had to put it together. My assertions were also based on my previous recovery 5 years ago of my ability to perform work and academic tasks at hand based on my certain academic discipline and subject area. Therefore I have no scientific proof for my views, other than it be my personal experience only. Wouldn’t it be nice if a formal study of such work could be done and made available? Well, maybe for a later time.

Tomorrow I get to visit my doctor who is serving as my neuro-rehab specialist for an initial consultation. I’m very interested in the types amd methods going to be used to help me get back to my former self. The prevous neuro-psyche evaluation a couple of months ago was enlightening to say the least. I scored high on some batteries of tests, but not as high as the staff would have liked based on someone my age who has not had brain damage. The specific area I didn’t do as well as they thought I could have was putting things in contextual order. (Truly that test was interesting and very challenging at the time) One of the areas they suggested as a form of therapy was speech or language. The justification or reasoning was because it can help with that contextual order deficit or whatever they wish to call it. In hindsight/retrospect, if I had the time and methods to go back to that conversation I would have been to retort to the doctors, "Backwards but talk don’t I!"

Alas, the seriousness of the situation probably wouldn’t have allowed for it. Ever since my first resection 5 years ago and subsequent recovery, my speech has never felt better so I’m interested to see what will come of it. I’ll post on the progress as the therapies are laid out.

Anyway this is the last link in letting me return to my normal self, I suppose. So I’ll let everyone know how it all turns out.

Well, my intent of edumacating (yes that’s a made-up word) readers on how a grown man deals with life post major brain surgery hasn’t been all that exciting enough to warrant a new post (just yet), so I’m filling a gap with some stuff that went on my other blogs that other friends and family have been keeping tabs on (http://www.spiritualslideshows.ws). Feel free to bury your nose in that blogpile if you really want the history of what’s going on medically with me. If you want the short version, here it is:

• The surgery was successful and now I’m missing a chunk of my right frontal lobe about the size of my fist (about the size of an orange–my fists are under the average size)
• Not only was the surgery successful, but there was too much fluid of the cerebrospinal variety being generated to compensate for the lost tissue and was causing massive killer headaches. A week later I went back to have a shunt installed and that was successful as well, so headaches no more. Injuries caused at the surgical locations where the shunt-work (ha-ha sort of rhymes with stunt-work) was performed now remain as my #1 enemies at this point in time. They aren’t bad but I’m learning to live with them. Soon they will be gone
• Doctor follow-up visits have been positive and further treatments will include radiation but NOT chemo-therapy–thank goodness.
• I’m excited about an upcoming visit to a neuro-psychologist this week. They will help determine what I’m capable of and will hopefully affix a time for me to be able to return to work and resume my normal duties. However, in MY humble, unprofessional opinion, my brain has already been re-wiring itself since it’s been receiving sensory input. Obviously I can still operate a computer because I’m updating my websites, I can hold a conversation and hopefully still sound intelligent (I think so), and I haven’t forgotten how to write code or manipulate media which is important for my profession. What I suppose might be worrisome is my ability to stay on task given longer periods of time sitting down at a desk job, design and architecht software the way I’m used to, and meeting my personal goals of accomplishing helping people learn some of the things I’ve learned over the years so they can be self-sufficient in their approach to computing.

  Now the really exciting thing here is (and I’m not blushing too much hopefully when I say this) is that if I’m able to do all this with part of my brain missing, then that points to lots and LOTS of potential for individuals who have all of their brain tissue intact. As soon as I have my hands on the scans of my brain I’ll post them so that the world can see what I’m missing and what I’m now going to be dealing with for the rest of my life. My neurosurgeon might even let me observe a future brain surgery if I meet the right sort of criteria. That would be WAY cool. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Many of my friends know about this already, but this is in effect a way for me to approach this issue in hopefully a dignified and interesting way rather than depressing. If ever there was a cat to be let out of a bag let this be it:

I’m missing part of my brain about the size of a lemon.

Here’s the proof. I had a resection of a brain tumor about 5 years ago and this was the scan immediately following:

http://oldblog.spiritualslideshows.ws/archives/000363.html

During this time of my life I was still in my undergraduate program in software engineering at Arizona State University. I was paying my own way entirely through school and was fairly stressed out trying to fit school into work and work into school full time. It was very strenuous but I also miss it in some sort of strange way. Anyhow, as a result I had to finish my program with part of my brain missing that helped to control and govern attention. As most students trying to fight their way through school with half their face covered just trying to survive, it was an eye-opening experience dealing with attention problems for the first time and then finding cliche methods to try and get my brain to wire up to be able to finish my degree. Which happened in due time and finally after 8 years of being in school.

Then after I was done and finally graduated, I felt like there was still something missing so I went back to pursue a masters degree now having realized I had a life-long love of learning and a new appreciation for it.

After the initial diagnosis and prescription of treatment which includes medication and observation, I was going to see my oncologist about every 4 months or so with squeaky-clean results. Nothing showed up on the scans. Until…last month I went back for my routine inspection and I just had a feeling something wasn’t right. The scan showed tumor tissue invading normal brain tissue once again.

At any rate, this blog is going to change slightly to reflect what a grown person with part of their brain missing appreciates about life and the secular side of neuroscience and learning…something I wish to continue to learn about in the years ahead if given the opportunity.

If you wish to see more of my personal views and values concerning this subject, I’ve had an incognito blog running at http://www.spiritualslideshows.ws that hasn’t been updated in years. It was never meant as a means of getting attention…just a way of writing down my thoughts and experiences of someone who appreciates learning on all fronts: secular and spiritual.

I go in to surgery tomorrow but will post some information about what had gone on in the meantime. You will likely see some crossover in posts between the two blog because in my opinion the line between learning on a secular level bleeds over into a spiritual one from time to time. Not knowing what my audience is on this, I’m just going to write what I will and see what comes of it.

With that said, how do we best exercise our brain muscle(s)? I’ve been using the Nintendo DS for the last 2 years or so, and I only play puzzle games for that fact. It’s nice to be able to run a few levels of a game before retiring for the night, solve a sudoku puzzle in Brain Age. Am I smarter because of it? Maybe. I get plenty of mental exercise at work, but for those of us who may not have mentally challenging days (or have the wrong types of mental challenges) it may be a great way to break away and justify playing a game or two.

And for those who want to know, my current brain age is 27.