Things are off to a good start

6/2/06 Friday
Last night I had a time of typical brain damage confusion. I was looking at the blog and saw that there was a comment. Wow! A comment, I exclaimed and proceeded chase it down. I read it, found who sent it, went to their site, and E mailed them. Twenty minutes later I go back to the blog so I could send the commenter another E mail. The comment seemed to have disappeared. I looked and looked but couldn’t figure it out. This bothered me all night so this morning I went back to see if the comment showed back up. I found it. It is on the last post that shows up before you go into the archives.

This is a good example of the problems that come with short term memory loss. It’s not that the memories are gone but they are fragmented. I knew I had seen the comment but had forgotten I found it while reviewing past blog entries. My mind tries to fill in the blanks. This is a common occurrence for those of us with TBI and short term memory loss. The not so medical term doctors use to describe this is “Confabulation”. In my confusion last night I E mailed the lady who had commented and told her how her comment had disappeared. Now that I think about it I am sure I had read her comment before and knowing me responded but didn’t remember. Hey, I can watch a movie for the first time several times before it stays in this brain. It is a regular occurrence for Cherie and I to see a movie come on TV and I will say “That looks like it will be a good movie”. Then Cherie reminds me “We already watched that movie”. Then we watch it again and it is all new to me.

Just got back from my Friday breakfast with Jeff. We talked about the family problems and when I was telling him about how the yard is trashed he looked at me with a hint of recognition and asked “Where do your parents live?”. “Not far from your office” I answered. “I know what house it is. We talk about it at the office all the time. There’s a big guy always puttering in the yard there”. Small world.

I mentioned that I wanted to get computers for some of the people I help. “I’ve got a bunch of computers in storage. We just replaced them last year. Do you want them?” he said with some excitement. I was surprised and happy. It always amazes me how things work out. We discussed wiping his proprietary company information and I followed him to his storage unit. I only took two of them, one for Wayne and one for Denise. I told Jeff I would get the others as I found homes for them. That done we parted ways, Jeff went to his office and I headed straight to Virtual PC. Going in I explained the computers had been donated and I was giving them to two people with MS. The guy I was talking to, whom I believe is the owner, said his mother has MS. He told me what the normal charge is to wipe the hard drives and reload the software and proceeded to cut that price dramatically. $49.00 apiece seems like a great price. I called Cherie to let her know $100 was coming out of our account because she handles the money and our budget is tight. It will work out fine.

Got to go take Barb and Dee to Pilgrim Church for the Feed Your Neighbor program so bye for now
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10:00 - We’re at the church now. Barb and Dee are the only ones that came this time. We talked about Fred as I drove here. He was upset at her because she told him off for calling her brother and telling him she had a heart attack and just incessantly calling with out let up. She told me that Fred called her this morning and said “Get up. Bob’s coming to take you to church” and hung up. I called Barb as I left Virtual PC to let her know I was coming. She wasn’t feeling too hot so asked if I could come fifteen minutes later. “That’s better for me too Barb. I’ll see you at 10:00” I let her know. As I talked I could hear the home phone that was put in Barb’s place for medical emergencies ringing. “That’s probably Fred so I’ll let you go” I said and hung up.

Fred was waiting for me when I walked in the door. “What? Did you decide not to take Barb to the church? You better get going” he said. “Fred, I just talked to Barb. The church doesn’t even open till 10:00” I explained. “Oh. It’s only a quarter after. I didn’t know” was his response. I went upstairs and posted the first entry for today and as I was writing the phone rang.

I figured it was Fred and amazingly enough it was. Gee, maybe I’m psychic. “Hi Fred” I answered. “I just talked to Barb and she said you should pick her up at 9:30 and she has to be there by 10:00” he lied. That never works with me “Fred I talked to Barb, don’t hand me that. I’ve got this handled” was my somewhat curt reply.

I dropped off the newspaper Fred had asked me to get when I got home. Fred is depressed. I asked him about it and he said it was because of Barb. “I think I should just wash my hands of her” he dejectedly said. “She doesn’t want me to call. She doesn’t listen to a thing I say” Fred started. I talked to him a little about it. “Fred, you worry and I can understand that but when you do you get yourself all bothered and call too much. You can understand that can’t you?”. He kind of agreed but I don’t think he got it. Fred asked me to take him to the store at 1:00 and that is fine. Perhaps I can help him figure things out then. He had told Barb about the Arby’s sandwich thing from yesterday and was saying he hadn’t touched it. I’ll do what I can.
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2:33 - I am getting real tired real fast now. It is only 12:22 and This came on as I wrote the previous post. I’m to take Fred to the dollar store in thirty minutes so don’t dare lay down.

Got Fred to the dollar store. I am not feeling good at all. I followed Fred as I always do but let him look for himself as he apparently wants to show that he can see. He never said what he came for with the exception of paper towels. I watched as he picked up potato chips and finally let him know the bag he was holding were barbeque flavored. “That’s what I want” he said and put the bag in his cart.

With that done Fred asked me to take him to Murray’s Auto Parts so he could look at the visors for his side windows on the Buick. Going in Fred grabbed a shopping cart to hold on to as he walked and headed for the isles. “Fred, you need to go to the counter because the visors must be matched to the year and make of the car”. “No. I just want to see what they look like and how much they are” was his reply. Fine then. I just followed obediently. After a few minutes of wandering around he headed for the counter. The clerk looked up the price and let Fred know the visors would have to be ordered and could be in the next day. “I don’t want to buy anything” he said and we headed out the door.

Now I am home and still very tired, the kind of tired where it is hard to for me to keep my eyes open as I write this. Don’t know what is going on but I think I’ll take a nap. First I will place a call to Virginia. She’s not working today and her cell phone is evidently turned off. I called Patrick to see if he heard anything. He hasn’t. I’m going to get a nap.
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4:23 – Alright, this is definitely a partial seizure. That explains the tiredness. I am operating at about a 4 on the Bob scale now. The ears are ringing and a headache is steadily growing. I called Allen to make sure he got his paperwork in. He did but was glad I called because he needed to call his caseworker. It is hard to write but that’s OK. Keep doing things like capitalizing words in the middle of sentences. Spell check is great to have at times like this.

I got an E mail from LA Publishing. They are a fantastic source of brain injury information and resources. I finally put a link to them on the blog. They published my story a few years ago. (can’t really remember when) It is still there. In fact they placed it way up close to the top.

If y’all read the comments you can see one from Nate. It is good to hear he is cleaning things up. I don’t know if I had any influence in that and really don’t care. That’s not important at all. I am happy to see anyone improve regardless of why. He can be a great kid when he wants and just like all of us has his issues. I like having positive things to write about, especially with family. Big Kudo’s to him. Still waiting for the pictures to show up on his blog

Still struggling to write this down. Need to take aspirin and Tramadol for the migraine. It’s a shame the new medicine from the VA didn’t work.

Cherie just came home from work. It is when I talk with her I can hear just how bad I am doing. Think it’s time to quit forcing myself to do this and relax with the woman I love.