Feeling better and getting frustrated about my brain haemorrhage

Another new week begins with a new dosage of my anti-seizure drugs – epanutin – I am now down to half my original amount and consequently full of hope that I am on the mend.

So far I have had no really dramatic symptoms and I feel pretty good.

In case you haven’t been following this, it is now 10 months since I had a brain haemorrhage which was life threatening but which has still not totally resolved itself.

I am tired a lot of the time, miserable at times, careful about moving my head too quickly and limiting my alcohol consumption to three glasses of wine or beer a week.

Apart from that, I am feeling good.

Good enough to be starting to analyse any mannerisms which might be caused by brain damage and to see if I can do anything about them.

I have a stammer now which trips me up a bit in most things I say but which I am learning to live with.

I have developed double vision at certain distances which is irritating and very off-putting especially when doing kungfu.

I fidget more than I used to and find myself constantly rubbing my index finger against my thumb on the left hand and involuntarily forming a fist with my right hand.

Oddly I find myself struggling to open packages even things like crisp packets.

I also wonder if I am having problems in my learning of Mandarin Chinese because I have a blockage now when I try to speak it even though, two and a half years into taking it up, I used to be at least passable in simple conversations.

Somehow, in a way that is difficult to define, some forms of concentration throw me. It is as if I am having to find lost links up there in my head and as if I am processing information form the past into a digestible form in the present. This can make remembering events from before my illness feel like I am looking at them through a veil.

That is about it – not bad considering what could have happened to me that day on the 30th. October last year.

During the time since I started writing about my illness, a number of people have got in touch with kind remarks and helpful suggestions so if any of them are out there with ideas of how I can minimise these minor examples of brain damage, I would be really interested in hearing from you.

I have got to that stage in my hoped for recovery when I am impatient if not slightly angry about it all.

Feeling mostly much better than I have been all year, I am now deeply frustrated when I turn suddenly and get reminded all too clearly that I am still suffering from a major brain injury.

The reality, I suppose, is that I am recovering from the side effects of the anti-seizure drugs and my brain is still injured and I will not know what condition it is in until I have my next brain scan in October.

Feeling good is obviously better than feeling ill but then I felt really good on the morning of the 30th. October last year.

None of this stopped me though from having a really enjoyable kungfu lesson this morning on my new Chinese sword pattern – I just had to pause every so often when my brain told me to slow down.

So there I am – the Wolf is mostly feeling happy but irritated by what appears to be a new stage in the great climb back. Brain haemorrhages though, I have to tell you, are no fun.