Saturday, October 30, 2010

Anesthesia Brain

Aside from Gigi my dog, Hector here has been my constant companion
since my return from the hospital!

There has been a huge mistake!  When they took out the bones and junk in my back, they also removed a large portion of my brain!  I mean I can't hardly think straight for the life of me-ha!  Yesterday, I was trying to help the kids get their lunches together as they all had various fun days including field trips, swimming parties and of course Halloween parties.  I stood in the middle of the kitchen, with this blank stare on my face when they all three gave me their sandwich orders (which I have done millions of times in my life by now, I should be able to do it in my sleep), and just thought "Huh?"


But, it did clear me up on one thing, the reason I am having a hard time getting back to work here on the blog.  It is not because I am in a lot of pain, or need a lot of healing time.  It's actually because I can't think of a darn thing worth saying right now, and dang if that isn't odd for me!  So today as I was typing this I of course figured I'd better do a bit of research on the subject and found a few interesting pieces.  It is interesting to note that people with brain dysfunction may have a harder time recovering from anesthesia than those without.  I'm assuming epilepsy would qualify me for that group.

The point of all of this is not to make excuses or to feel sorry for myself by any means, as a matter of fact, I'm really glad I finally figured it out because now I have something to work with.  And I do believe that this might happen with everyone to a certain extent, so why not do a few brain exercises and have a little fun "waking up" your brain after dealing with anesthesia?

Actually, it's quite interesting that Mom has left me all of her Woman's World magazines and the other night I started the crossword; I think the first one I have ever done in my life!  It was as if my brain knew it needed a bit of challenging; and this is not the first time this has happened.  Before my surgery I had a wild craving for hamburgers...and I mean I could have eaten them at every meal.  I was doing some of my pre-surgical reading and it said to bone up on iron, hmmmm.  I also Have had a mad craving for chocolate milk, not only do I need the calories right now, but I can only imagine how my body is eating up that calcium.  

Yesterday when I was getting gas I started craving a sandwich from the store and almost ended up with Tuna; YUCK!!!!  On the way home that is when I realized I must really need some tuna fish if I had almost purchased one from a gas station!  Okay, body, fish oil coming up.  So, it is the same with the anesthesia brain thing.  I will challenge my daughter to a few games, continue on my reading (book reviews to come, when I can pull them together-ha!) and crosswords, and oh yeah the biggest brain buster of all...THE BALLOT.

Please don't forget to vote this weekend if you have a mail-in like we do.  If not, go ahead and make your cheat sheet so you are all ready for your big day on Tuesday and don't hold up the lines!  This is an important one, people, get out there and vote!

2 comments:

Daisy said...

A good friend told me the following story. She went home after a procedure under general anesthesia with the usual warnings: don't sign anything or make any major decisions, etc. She napped and rested all day - or so she thought.
The next day she found an email from QVC saying "Thank you for your order." She had ordered a necklace and a lounge chair.
Funniest part? She returned the necklace and kept the chair!

Take care of yourself. The crossword puzzles are great brain exercise. Just keep away from shopping channels on TV!

lfhpueblo said...

I always had what I call brain lag after anesthesia. I had anesthesia more than eight times for EGD's to check out my esophagus and then I had a different type of anesthesia for for esophageal surgery. I felt like I had brain lag for about two weeks after each one. I actually just lately have been having some very brief dreams (I rarely dream) of parts of my EGD scopes, mostly of them trying to get the tube down because of my esophageal spasms. Wish I wouldn't though because you're suppose to have no memory of the procedures with the med they gave, but just lately within the past three months I'd say, I have had bits and pieces.

Voted early with the mail ballots and turned them in at our local library over a week back. Hope we get politicians in that will listen to the people who elected them and not go and do their own thing and have to be voted out in the future.

My husband likes to do search picture puzzle things on the internet. I mean these various rooms or backgrounds in which he has a list of objects to find, plus they are a timed game. I can't do those at all, my brain just doesn't function that way. Looking at those pictures trying to find the hidden objects just makes me a nervous mess. Now seek and find word puzzles I can do. I was never great at crossword puzzles though I did do them a lot when I was younger.

As for your food cravings, I do think the body knows to eat certain foods to get some of the things it needs nutritionally.
A lot of time when people crave chocolate it is that they actually need potassium. Plus dark chocolate is known to help reduce the chance of a stroke. So I think the body has a way of understanding what has fulfilled certain needs in the past and makes us crave them again to get the items we need.