Happy September

Where does the time go? It's incredible to me that acciversary number 2 is almost upon us. Two years used to be thought of as the time, after which any Neurorehabilitation that was going to happen, will have already taken place, thankfully that idea has long since been debunked. So I'll provide an update on the three main parts of my rehabilitation. I know I said I would get one last article in, in August, but August's loss is September's gain. So, hopefully we'll get a couple of guest articles in and push for seven in September.

Double Vision

I have previously guesstimated that I'd have gotten rid of the eye-patch by August. That was very optimistic, so I'll pick a new D-Day for my single vision. I feel that Christmas day is as good a day as any to choose as an arbitrary date in the future. Signs are good as I have made the following, recent strides.

I have added that wall mounted picture to my rotation. I'm at a point by now that double vision only lasts a couple of seconds before they both merge. Sadly that's enough time to confuse my autonomic nervous system and thus my balance, so I still need my eye-patch to cane-walk and trike. Incidentally, I have recently had an idea for, at the very least, a neurology thesis and maybe an idea for a business. It all started when I managed to get through a full day without the eye-patch and without vomiting. I should probably have started a bit earlier. OK, when we were children, we used to travel by car, the 4 hours to Achill Island a couple of times a year. Car/motion sickness was a regular problem for us children. Motion sickness is caused by the input that the brain receives from the various organs not agreeing with each other on what is happening to the body; I believe --- having once been told, by Joanne --- it was evolution's way of dealing with saving our ancestors who regularly poisoned themselves, unknowingly. Moving along at 60 MPH was not a typical occurrence for primates over the last 55 million years, or so. Well we got used to it at some point as the brain was trained to just deal with what was happening. Well my idea that I would love to explore is whether or not, using prism glasses, for example, to artificially give yourself the double-vision experience could allow you to train the brain to manage motion sickness. There are many applications, when we think of space travel or sailing for example. Anyway, my double vision is getting better, but slowly. I can manage to keep my dinner down, without the eye-patch.

My Left Arm (including hand)

As I've stated in a previous article I have got myself an Arys Me Tracker and although there are definite improvements, I had a recent setback, in the shape of my right arm suffering from a fall I had wherein, I landed hard on my right shoulder blade. Nothing serious, but it requires rest as the bruising heals. But I have started tying my own shoe laces. It's a bit shit and slow but the Arys tracker recognises it as work, which is nice, because it definitely is.

Walking

My daily training with the Gehbarren really is paying off; my balance is akin to that of a 9-month or 90 year old. Unfortunately the speed of the improvement is somewhere in between. Claire's mother is here for the weekend; we're going to a local Vietnamese restaurant later, after a good slow cycle yesterday. I will chance it with the cane. If I make it back in one piece, I'll give a full report... I'm back and in one piece. It's around 350 meters to the excellent vietnamese. I walked there and back on foot which was a distance record for a day, 700M then is my new distance to beat and 350M is my new unbroken cane-distance record. I slept well after that, and I feel like great progress was made last week.

My Tree

My tree continues to flourish, along with my hand.