Neuro-Psychology Exam, Part 2?

On By JohnIn psychology, tbiLeave a comment

While meeting with my physiologist, we discussed the possibility of participating in a followup to the followup of a Neuro-Psychology exam. We can’t, of course, provide any meaningful recommendations about somebody’s neurological or psychological condition compared with their pre-TBI mental condition — because we simply can’t go back in time to capture the pre-TBI state.

Yet, now, two-ish years post-TBI and perhaps a year and a half after the initial Neuro-Psych eval, perhaps this is a good opportunity to compare.

Social Distancing

On By JohnIn education, healthLeave a comment

SCC had changed the end date and final exams by a week — we were expecting to have everything complete by this Thursday instead of next Thursday.

Got an email (and alert) this morning saying that they’ve elected to end the term tomorrow. Not only that, but students and staff will be socially-distancing themselves to reduce risks; we’ll need to schedule a time to attend no more than ten students at a time.

No doubt there are many who will be moderately unprepared with the even shorter notice.

Still, the Spring quarter has been moved almost entirely online except for those portions or courses that need to be in labs or workshops for practical application of skills.

Also, regarding closures…

On By JohnIn health, lifeLeave a comment

So far, in Spokane, we’ve seen every single shop, store, and supermarket have all of the toilet paper bought-up*

We’ve also seen a drop in patronage across the city — customers have dropped off. They haven’t died, they’re just staying home.

Also, Gov. Inslee has ordered schools on the West side (Seattle area) to close, probably for just a few weeks.

On the more sane side of Washington, we’ve seen SCC & SFCC call an early end to the Winter quarter. Also, they’ve made some efforts to ensure there’s a regular start to the Spring quarter.

The instructor or an assistant called me earlier to notify that they’re moving the class online. The only thing I want to know is whether those who’d enrolled in the ($2,400) campus course will see a reduction or credit to the online-only cost ($1,700).

The Bloomsday Run Clinic has been canceled. I was rather looking forward to having other runners to encourage running. No idea if the Bloomsday run will be postponed or canceled, but it’s only about seven weeks out.

Also, on the wider scale, we’re all seeing that the markets have taken an absolute beating — accompanied by panic-sell-offs — over the past ten days or so. 401ks, Roth IRAs, etc. People are absolutely terrified that they’re losing money, so they cut losses and hope for the best.

“We have to take action! We need to do something!”

You’re right, we do.

Patience is a form of action.

It will recover.

Chill.

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*I really can’t comprehend what line of reasoning would lead somebody to buy-up any more toilet paper than they would typically use. It’s a respiratory virus — it has nothing to do with the digestive system or the upper respiratory tract.

COVID-19 Closures

On By JohnIn health, lifeLeave a comment

A friend had remarked on FB, something to the effect of, “how are schools able to support online classes after two-days’ work, but had to close schools for snow?” Or something of that nature. He’s removed the post, while I was cobbling together a response, that goes something like this:

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Maybe because this whole “online learning” thing is too new. We’ve only [he was a past co-worker with Pearson] been doing it for a short while now (nearly 20 years, now I think about it).

Things move painfully slow in Brick & Mortar education and business because, no doubt, there isn’t enough interest, or demand, or understanding to do so meaningfully.

It’s an unknown concept to many, and the unknown is scary to many people.

I expect that there will be a huge number of people that struggle briefly to deal with the tech-demands for live, real-time video & audio. There will be some that show up in their underwear and forget to turn off the camera. There will be some that forget how to mute their audio, or are oblivious to their own siblings or children — or their own chirping Smoke Detectors.

Also, if we think about the previous weather-related situations, school closures were only one or two days, maybe. Now, this new crisis is looking like it’ll be a few weeks to even few months.

They’re scrambling to react. That’s a good thing.

Also, we’ve an opportunity to do as much as we can to help, support, and educate the educators. After all, for telecommuters, this is all rather old hat to us.

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Yeah, I do get a bit wordy on Book of Face every now and again.

Untangling Everything

On By JohnIn tbiLeave a comment

…on our last episode.

In retrospect, any single one the things that I had described in the previous posts about migraines over the course of a lifetime would be innocuous:

  • chronic persistence of worsening migraines
  • some occasional, mild discomfort with abdominal exertion
  • occasional remarks from various practitioners over the past two decades that my WBC was on the higher end of average
  • significant injury (in 2016) that presented as a rib fracture, but no bruising observed and Xray revealed nothing
  • infection — demonstrable, evidential

We still don’t understand what the exact cause of the infection was. It’s not resolved until we’re certain of the vector itself. So, the big question would be: how was it contracted? When? How long did I have it? Was it something that I’d had since the 1980s? Did I live through Basic Training in 1989 with it? Was it worsened from the 2016 injury? And did that lead to the fall in 2017?

Sure, it’s been identified and treated. Mitigated, perhaps. But not eliminated.

Yet, I find myself wondering whether the infection itself, and the periodic brief episodes of light-headedness — not quite a syncope episode, but brief periods (fleeting, much like PVCs) of a half-second or less experienced in October, November, and December of that year — perhaps in a light-headed moment when I was atop the ladder, I fell.

Apart from the fall itself, any one of the issues above, by themselves, would be insignificant. Yet, together, over a lifetime, they would combine to lead to a realization which ultimately stopped the migraines with which I was contending.

From one perspective, I suppose that it could be said that I had to nearly die in order to accidentally stumble into a cure for the life-long migraines.

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