Saturday, October 12, 2024

Unreal

 


Autumn scarves - painted warps


The past 6+ weeks have been...an experience.

There were days when I could NOT find the words I needed to say what I wanted to say.  It was a lack of expression that I found discombobulating.  I've never expected being told I would lose my speech, and I was practically unable to say what I wanted to say.  I took it for granted that I would have control over my words.

This inability to express myself in speech was frustrating, and truth to tell - it hasn't entirely gone away.  If I'm tired my ability to express myself in language can go away entirely.  Still.

I have *some* ability to write, but there are whole parts of sentences that wink out of existence.  Words double up, or disappear entirely.

And this is why I feel I have to stop teaching, even remotely, probably for the rest of my life.  When left alone with my desktop where I can take hours to write a sentence that actually says what I want it to say...well, that is just my time being 'wasted'.

I am still dealing with a level of 'amnesia' from the time I crawled into bed after lunch, to waking up in Vancouver.  It is very strange for several days to disappear with zero memory of them.

I have requested the physiotherapist to come and confirm I am still able to weave.  I hope that the body remembers what the brain forgets.  With nearly 50 years of fine tuning my weaving, I hope I will be able to continue to weave.

A number of medical professionals are telling me I will recover.  They tell me I'm doing well (really???) and they foresee my making a good recovery.

But will that 'good' recovery allow me to teach?  Somehow I don't want to teach in person.  Because I never know when my brain will close up shop. 

As far as the blog goes, I can spend hours - if I have to - to write a post, while my brain recovers what I can to know and write down.  Instead of 20-30 minutes.

People assume that I spend hours to write a post.  Once I started writing blog posts I got quite practiced at writing them.  Oh, it wasn't 'perfect', it was just me, jotting down thoughts that filled my brain.  But neither did I spend much time writing what I was thinking about it.

Sort of like weaving - so many weavers just assumed that I lacked efficiency when I'd spent the majority of my time as a weaver to become as efficient as I could.  

With the future really and truly unknown to me, I have no idea how far my recovery will go and how my future years (?) will go.  


6 comments:

Juli S said...

One day, one step, one word at a time. As my orthopedic doctor told me as I spent 9 weeks in traction and another 2 1/2 months in a body cast from toe to rib cage, "Patience". But I know it's hard.

busybusybeejay said...

Good luck.Thinking about and sending positive vibes.
Barbarax

Doreen MacL said...

Wishing you all the best. I have appreciated your blog for years and will continue to look for it, as long as you continue to write it.

Jane McLellan said...

I’m sure the teaching you have put out there continues to reverberate, so spend this time recovering. Very frustrating not to be able to communicate though. We read your blog without knowing how long it took to write.

Leigh said...

This has got to be incredibly frustrating for you. I sincerely hope the physiotherapist encourages you to keep weaving. Sometimes, feeling creative and productive are the best medicine.

Twyla Giesbrecht said...

Laura, I understand your frustration. I’m 5 years into my recovery from a traumatic brain injury.
Keep working on your recovery and keep trying. It is worth it. You may have different abilities and you will be put back together differently but the essence of you will remain the same. You will learn new things, new ways of coping and managing you and your environment. You will gain new tools.
Celebrate the wins, mourn the losses, pick yourself up each time you fall. This is a new season of you.
You’ve got this girl!