Leuty Parker

Tag: #brain

  • Stages of Grief

    So they say one goes through 5 stages of grief, those being denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

    This brain injury & doing this blog has made me a lot more introspective, so it will hopefully make me go through all the stages.

    Amputees, for example, go through the stages of grief for their missing limb. It’s kind of like grief for their missing appendage, instead of a loved one.

    Amputees get the same feelings as people in morning; for their missing appendage. They still go through the process of feeling denial, anger, bargaining, depression and eventually acceptance

    Most people want to know how someone has come to be an amputee, I guess people want to hear the juicy bits.

    There’s so much advantages in prosthetic limbs recently, unfortunately you can’t get a prosthetic brain but there has been a huge advance in technology & in knowledge of the the brain.

  • Parasympathetic Memory

    I found this information on a series on Netflix called “Human; The World Within”.

    Our brain has the synthetic & the parasympathetic memory, these are part of the autonomic nervous system. The synthetic is like the fight-or-flight system. Very quick response.

    A build up of even constant synthetic response causes stress within the muscles.

    Then it’s when your parasympathetic nervous system takes hold, kind of like a last-resort.

    The parasympathetic nervous system helps you do the things that the brain does that we just don’t think of.

    A good example which I’ve used before is blinking or even breathing (I haven’t used that before though).

  • 4/6- My Brain

    I spoke to my speech & language therapist, who shed light on what happened to my brain, I knew little to nothing about my severe traumatic brain injury.
    I had a diffused amoxyl injury. My intervertebral & ventricular haemorrhages, which caused some damage to my brain.

    To get very technical my skull (particularly the C7 spinous process tip) fractured. Bleeds caused damage to my optical nerve so i guess that’s why I’m blind in 1 eye.

    There were many cuts all over my body, so all of them had to heal, but the body cuts mend a lot quicker than brain ones do.

  • 1/6 – My Beautiful Broken Brain

    I watched this brilliant documentary which really hit home. It was about a woman who had a strong resemblance to exactly what I’m going though, expanding about her long recovery experience.

    Lotje is kind of like Leuty!

    She had a stroke though, whereas I had a traumatic brain injury (both brain damage). Another new normal I have to relearn (or remaster) is my diabetes.

    I guess my way of dealing with my brain injury is writing this blog. (The film was recommended to by a friend, allowed Ezz) & from how he described it, it sounded just like my story.

    She says this which is how I feel “I’m obsessed with recording everything but unable to remember anything” . I guess that’s what I’m trying to do with my blog; record everything I’m going through, because it’s a way to get out of isolation.

    It does have a happy ending, the success of the film shows her determination & perseverance can help you achieve your goals .

    It’s really interesting & good news! It’s on Netflix so check it out now.

    One good thing is it’s time, content & platform. A film telling a true story about someone who has a brain injury. It has been let on Netflix at a time when the whole world is addicted to Netflix. I, too, find myself often blogging about some film, & saying that it’s convenient for my readers cause it’s on Netflix, so it’s a perfect combination.

    Bluntly, watch it

  • 6/5 – Remembering

    My Sunday person is studying psychology, & he told me that you have two types of memory; episodic & semantic. You can think of the two like this; function vs fashion.

    ‘Fashion’ (or episodical) is kind of like things that you can imagine what it looks like, feels &/or sound like. You can actually picture yourself feeling the situation.

    Semantic memory is where you just remember the facts. It’s quite clinical. It’s things that are common knowledge, like ‘ a strawberry is red’ or ‘a chello is deeper in sound than a violin’. However this doesn’t include things that you learn from experience.

    For me, I’ve already mentioned I have quite a musical brain, so with that in mind, some songs bring back memories. Not that I can remember particular details but I know the lyrics, not knowing how I know them perfectly.