Perspective

I often forget how far I have come and sometimes need to remind myself what I have achieved in this period of 'Credit' that I am currently living. I refer to it as life 2.0. My wonderful husband has quite the challenge when I am down to remind me that I can actually do far more than I give myself credit for. As such this post is largely so I  can see what I have managed to do since I started life 2.0.

Christmas Edition

Normally at this time of year I would be writing about how difficult Christmas can be and how it has become once of the most emotionally challenging parts of the year for me. Those who know me and have been around long enough know enough about that.

Yesterday was the Christmas breakup for the Brain Tumour Support group and I was lucky enough to get to spend some time chatting with three lovely women. It was wonderful to hear so much laughter and happiness during the meeting. There were of course some tears.

Two of the women I spent time with yesterday had lost their daughters to brain cancer in the preceding 12 - 18 months. One lady had lost her husband to brain cancer a few months ago. It was heart warming to be able to listen to the stories and the memories they have of their loved ones. It was heartbreaking to hear the stories of the pain of losing their loved ones.

For me it brought up a lot of memories from many perspectives. I have lost both of my parents so understand the nightmare of dealing with government departments and banks in that postmortem space. It really should not be as hard as it is. Some of that stems from a lack of understanding and compassion on the part of the departments that we have to deal with and part of it is dealing with out own grief and loss. I also have great compassion for the people who have lost partners and are left trying to keep their memories alive for their children who are sometimes not old enough yet to really understand what has happened. I have enormous compassion for those who have lost a child. We have lost a child and also grieve for a child who is still alive.

After this very special break up, I was very tired and missed my stop on the bus to transfer to the next one so ended up at the PA Hospital station. I was feeling pretty rough physically as well as emotionally. The trips home on public transport are usually the times I use to decompress and manage my thoughts and emotions after meetings. When I got up onto the concourse at the busway to switch to the opposite platform I found a young man collapsed in the lift with his girlfriend who was having great difficulty coping with it all. We eventually, with the able assistance of Hospital staff, got him off to Emergency.

I headed back to campus and caught a lift home with my amazing husband. I am getting better at 'managing' my energy and the responses my body has to exhaustion. My self imposed hospital/ambulance ban has managed to stay in place and I'm really happy that I have been able to avoid the drama.

This Christmas I will be applying my 'management' of energy and symptoms so that I can get through without incident or burning out like a moth in a flame.

What ever you need to do, do it. Take the time to make beautiful memories with your families and friends and make the most of what you have with what you've got.

Be safe and look after each other xxx

Social and Cultural Psychology - The self: social and cultural perspectives

Having to relearn my life and gain a real sense of self after brain surgery and intraoperative hemorrhage, has been a challenge and at times it has been quite frightening. As time passes and I learn more about myself through daily life as well as through my studies, I often have 'ah ha!' moments which inspire me to think about the things I have gained or lost along this trail.

My brain and memory were so injured by the tumour, hydrocephalus and surgery so much that for some time I was not able to tell if I was awake, asleep or dreaming. I was dissociated and felt like I was floating around outside my body at the same time I knew I was 'in' my body because I could make it move etc. My short term memory was impacted such that I could not remember eating let alone what I had eaten, minutes after a meal.

When I started exploring study, initially to see if I could remember anything long enough to be assessed on it, I had to learn how to learn. I started off by linking things to things I already knew (mostly about myself) to that extent the Self schema was my basis for consciously forming new memories. It is still something I rely on quite heavily. While studying 1001PSY I was able to remember a lot of content because I could relate the things we were learning about the brain, to the injuries and side effects I had experienced with my own brain. The same could be said for Bio psych. 

In the early stages of my recovery and rehabilitation I kept a blog and filled it out each month so that I could evaluate myself and my improvement. I often found that I would be thinking 'Oh! I'm better now, I can take on the world' a month later I would be looking back and realise how deluded I had been. I was 'not' better and could not take on the world. I continued to blog monthly for my own benefit for the first 5 years. It gave me a basis for comparison when I had no 'normal' to use as a yard stick. 

Growth

Something in me has shifted this year.

I am feeling quietly confident about my studies. Until now I would be tied up in knots about failing this or that course and obsessing about the possibility of making into the honours program for 4th year.

I have spent an amazing amount of time in my own head. Part of that has been out of habit. 8 years of living with sudden death hanging over my head, ever increasing symptoms and illness not to mention pain, caused me to be isolated physically, emotionally and psychologically from other people. Some of that extended beyond illness into my recovery as I experienced things I was cognitively unable to express to the outside world, or communication was such a struggle that it was too hard to share with anyone other than my poor long suffering husband.

As I continue to experience these 'light bulb' moments I will be writing them up here rather than talking the ears off my exceptionally tolerant lecturers and tutors!

Anton

ED Observations

Thursday afternoon I had a bit of excitement on the way home from my neuro-ophthalmologist appointment which resulted in my husband taking me to the local ED (ER or A&E).