Those small moments which stand out

[Daniel]

Like anyone in recovery from encephalitis - I've had an abismal memory. Veering away from a sob story about it, while also tempted to write this as a discussion, I'll post this as a blog because it's something which came back to me while chatting with someone on the site recently, and I feel it's just wierd that this should stand out in my mind while so many other things seem to have just vanished - things which I know are important and would greatly help my sanity if recalled accurately, but which have been churned through my mind like factual milk inside some milkshake machine of memory and altered as it comes out tainted by added flavour to the point where it only slightly resembles what it began as being.

My recent memory was of the menu in the central Christchurch hospital - the third I stayed at after returning from overseas. The page was clearly spaced out and legible, separated into the days choices for breakfast, lunch and dinner. At the lunch section, among the choices of sides, were the words,
'Vegetable puree'
'Pure vegetables!,' I exclaimed in my then virally twisted mind, 'that'll fix me noggin up real good and....wait, what am I thinking about again?,' I asked while looking again down at my waistline to discover a menu with the days meal choices on it,
'Pure vegetables!, that'll fix me noggin up real good!' I thought as I ticked the box but was sidetracked by a song which had come on the New Zealand music television station, Juice TV, before looking back down at the paper menu,
'Pure vegetables!,' I thought upon seeing the choice (this actually happened BTW - I recalled it after being reminded by a recent email), 'that's just what I need to fix my brain - vitamin C, and all the goodness needed for a working brain!'

By this point, the additional letter 'e', which made it puree and not pure, was irrelevant and I no longer even considered the writing as I was convinced that what I was ordering was a banquet of carrots, potatos and so forth,

'Boy, I hope those stay down and in my system' I thought while realizing my then rampant frequency of toilet useage.

The nurse returned and took my menu, shooting me a noticeably odd look as she saw my choice of vegetable puree, along with a sago dessert (kind of like milky-yoghurt - but actually quite nice).

The meal arrived and I looked in horror as I saw not a plate full of fresh and pure vegetables, as I had noted was my order, but a plastic cup of green goo instead,

'These are the darndest pure vegetables I've ever seen' I thought as I drank them and almost threw up. I felt sorry for the hospital. They didn't understand what pure vegetables were, I thought, so I drank it all out of pity for the chef and suffered horrible bowel movement frequency (sorry) for the night thereafter before making the same mistake the next evening and the one after that, and that again.

Memory, eh? What a bugger. I'll more as I remember...

[Daniel]

The confabulation, I've found, has contributed to many daily problems. Presyncopal lightheadedness (spontaneous dizziness with headache) has been a thorn in my side for the duration of my recovery at present. It's almost gone now, almost free from it, it am. This is largely thanks to having obsessed over it and hated it to the point of doing something about it. I initially thought this symptom to be the onset of stroke - a near miss, if you will. In hindsight, this was a stupid thing to begin believing. This symptom is brought about by physical balance changes (like walking on a gradient), over exertion (eg doing too much rehab), and emotional changes (eg nervousness).

The first two points are systematically overcome - go to the gym, practice walking on small slopes, then steeper until fine again. The confidence point, however, is far more difficult to address. I've spoken of a street near where I live where this symptom always presented and I now know why this was. For a long time I made 'bets' with myself - 'cross here successfully or you'll suffer this, that and the other' I thought as I stepped off the curb and nearly fainted. I nearly fainted because making a stupid and false 'bet' with yourself to successfully achieve something you likely cannot, only serves to make the task impossible rather than unlikely.

Nonetheless, I bet daily and failed daily also, sometimes on numerous occasions in the same day. It felt like I was doomed for even worse. It felt like unimaginable failure, all because I subliminally taught myself to be nervous by making a bet on my task with consequences to health associated with failure.

I kept rehabbing and, one day, I didn't fail. It was most out of the expected routine and I was tempted to do it again because succeeding felt wrong and I felt like I'd cheated by succeeding. The 'bet' thing ('cross here or your health worsens') began to slowly dwindle over time - failure presenting now and again until now there generally is none there anymore, and my previous fears associated with failing to cross there were complete and utter B.S - in my experience, you can talk yourself into problems presenting themselves.

[Daniel]

Inbetween delusions of mistaking one food for another, I also had some confabulation-related issues. I had been overseas (fact), but I had no idea where I'd been to, let alone what year it was (also fact). I then made the awful mistake of watching a war movie in Hong Kong (I'm told) and turning the disintegrating memory of seeing that into a false perception of reality. I figured, for the first month or so of recovery, that I'd been in a war (fact - I believed this to be true) - presumably based on my mind having forgotten the actual truth of having been in China for half a year teaching English in exchange for continued language education, yet somehow clasped on to the remnants of this movie so, when I awoke in the New Zealand hospital wondering what the heck happened and if I'd suffered a brain haemorrhage or not (initial diagnosis), my mind inserted the memory of this war movie into the space normally allocated real and factual recollection.

I had one or two *heated* conversations with family who, for some reason, didn't believe that I'd been injured in a battle (fact - I actually thought this had happened), and they adamantly told me over and over, "You've got a virus, they're still trying to work out which one it is" - but I didn't care as, in hindsight, being a returned war vet had alot more nobility to it than ballsing up my health overseas by eating the wrong thing and living like a slob, as I did.

I forgot the realization of such logic almost hourly and began the confabulatory belief over and over as I made the scenario up in my head and believed it to have been the first time consistently - I was pretty loopy.