I'm back in the land of blogging

You may have noticed that I have not updated the Games Cupboard for sometime - about six months in fact! I don't know why this happened; I left it for awhile and so the habit of writing waned - it then semed a monumental task to return. However, I find I have been missing blogging of late and so, here I am.

Sadly, there's not much news. I'm still experiencing some neurological problems and so I'm still a stay-at-home dad. I'm enjoying this and making the most of it as Ellie starts school next January (where have the years gone?). Lisa continues to work hard and is striving to get her head around an increase in her repsonsibility and accountability. We both still enjoy boardgames....

I don't know how often I'll be posting but, hopefully more than every six months! Please feel free to leave comments if the mood takes you.

Absence

Oops.... it's been nearly 5 months since my last post. Sorry everyone! I'm afraid there isn't a good reason for my bloggy absence; to start with we lost broadband for about 6 weeks (our modem was fried during an amazing thunderstorm and the Royal Mail conspired with Talk Talk to delay us getting a replacement), then I just didn't seem to have the time. I kept putting it off thinking I would find the time and, finally, I have! Five months later than anticipated but still....

So much has happened in the missing months - I don't know where to start. My recovery continues slowly. I think I am having fewer absences per day but I am still forgetting a lot of stuff day to day. I've just about given up reading new novels as it was getting increasingly frustrating having to double back to see what had happened previously. Instead I'm rereading Terry Pratchett novels with which I feel fairly familiar and therefore less traumatised if I forget an evening's worth of reading.

We sold my car as it was surplus to requirement as I still am unable to drive due to the absences. Kitty vanished but a nice couple took her in and looked aftrer her for 4 days before spotting the Lost posters we had put up. Ellie and I have a packed social calendar; she's taken up trampolining (quite talented apparently - for a 3 year old) and she goes to active games and parachute games now as well as the special gym (where she's awesome on the rings and beams!). We had a lovely Halloween party for Ellie and her little friends. I was particularly proud of the icing on my gingerbread skeletons! I enjoyed a lovely autumn day at the seaside with Mal a few weeks ago which helped me recover from an awful cold. We have spent time with friends of course, including playing boardgames! We also helped a friend celebrate turning 40 - a momentous occasion!

Now I've found my way back to the keyboard I will try to post more frequently I promise.

unbloggy

Hello everyone!
I'm sorry but I've had a bit of a break from blogging. I can't explain why really - I just haven't fancied sitting down at the keyboard for the last two months. However, that has now changed.

My "illness" continues to be a minor inconvenience (well, major if you factor in not driving or earning money!). On a day to day level I am completely used to it now. The absences rarely annoy (only when I'm showering, shaving or doing anything with boiling water are they problematic, oh or walking!). The memory loss is hard to quantify but if I remember more than 50% of the previous day then I'm doing well. The big frustration here is that rather than 'losing' huge swathes of time I seem to forget little bits here and there. This makes following TV shows, novels, knitting patterns etc rather interesting. (Reading a novel recently I couldn't understand why the main character didn't appear for a hundred pages.... I backtracked and discovered he had died in the twenty pages I read the previous day!). The cognitive changes I still find hardest to deal with, mainly because most of the time they are hard to spot. Retaining and managing new information is still an uphill struggle. Thinking through problems and processes is still harder than it once was - although I can follow recipes again relatively easily.

Lisa is still being really supportive (as is Ellie!). I'm sure she must feel frustrated some of the time but she doesn't show it. We've imlemented all the coping mechanisms that we seem to need and we are merrily getting on with life!

EEG = exasperatingly empty gesture!

As some of you will no doubt know, I recently headed off to hospital to have a 2 hour EEG. The hope was to capture one of my absences to see what, electrically, is happening in my brain at the time. Lisa wrote fluently on this experience. I had three absences on the bus to the hospital. I had one at the bus stop after my appointment. But did I have one during the EEG.....of course not!

Following this I had a meeting regarding the future of my employment. I lose my job at the end of March. To be honest I feel relieved now that this has been sorted out. It has been hanging over us for sometime and whilst I have often hoped that something would change and allow me to return to work it had become increasingly clear that this was unlikely to happen. I now feel less pressured about this.

Update

Hello! I'm sorry that I have not posted for several weeks... I don't know where the time has gone.

I thought it would be useful to post an update on my neurological situation. Every day I am losing about half of my memory of the previous day. I am getting good at working out what is missing, which often hides the extent of the problem.

I am having in the region of 15-20 "absences" per day. These are lasting, on average, 5-10 seconds (I am told!) but tend not to occur when I am really concentrating. During them I simply freeze and stop doing whatever I was doing and look like I'm lost in thought. Afterwards I feel disorientated for a few seconds.

My cognitive abilities have been somewhat reduced. In essence, this means that I find it moderately hard to deal with new information (and have little hope of remembering it), and find applying knowledge to situations harder than it would normally be. I am finding recipes/instructions much harder to follow than I used to.

Mmmm... that all sounds a bit grim. To be honest it isn't though. I have had very few accidents as a result of the absences; this is because I am sensible about what I do and don't do. Forgetting half of my life is frustrating, but I manage; I pick up on the clues of everyday life to work out what I have probably forgotten. The reduction in my cognitive abilities has been the hardest aspect to adjust to. I often just feel a bit dim!

I was discharged by the Neuropsychologist this week. Her findings were that whatever is going on in my brain is neurological in origin, not psychological (therefore this is not the result of stress!). Cognitively I am now at, or slightly below, average. Normally I suspect I'm a fair bit above this! My neuro-processing ability (that lets you store, retrieve and handle new information) is currently rubbish. Hence, it feels worse than it is because its been a big adjustment to make (yes, I now function at the level of a Big Brother-watching, Sun-reading personage....with a hoodie!). She has suggested that I go back and redo all the tests when I'm back to normal, partly for fun and partly to demonstrate that I have recovered.

Today I saw the Consultant Neurologist for the first time since coming out of hospital. We discussed the symptoms etc. She stressed again that this can only be temporary... for a given value of 'temporary'! The symptoms appear to indicate that I had a viral infection in my temporal lobe. As this did not show up in blood tests she thinks it had been and gone by the time I was admitted last October. However, it left a fair amount of damage in its wake. There can be no prognosis; the individual cells attacked do not recover; other bits of the brain takeover their work and this can take a different amount of time from one person to the next. That my memory has improved over the last four months is a good sign though.

I was brave and asked if there were case studies with similar symptoms....she said that it appears to match some aspects of limbic encaphilitis, but there are other viruses to consider. She explained that viruses can be treated with antibiotics if they are identified quickly. The main reason for determining their nature later on is in case they suggest other concerns or can cause further damage. She thinks the virus I had has gone; it would have reappeared by now if it was going to.

I am going to have a further EEG in the next couple of months, then I will see her again in 12 weeks. She completely agrees that I cannot work at present, although she said that when I return is really up to me; do I feel able to do my job? I suspect that I will lose my job fairly soon now - we have a meeting to discuss this arranged for next Monday. I will post about this later, but it isn't neccesarily a bad thing.

I asked if there is anything I can do to aid my brain in its recovery. She explained that anything affecting the temporal lobe makes you tired. Therefore if I feel tired I should rest (Lisa will be pleased to hear this as she has consistently advised me to sleep more!). She also said that I should keep my brain as active as possible; games, puzzles, jigsaws, craft projects even reading will all help (they are all activities in which the frequency of the absences is reduced as well!) although watching TV is useless and may even be very slightly damaging (lower lip wobbles!). So boardgames are good for you......

... the story so far ...

I have not posted for awhile as I've not had the time. This may sound strange given that I'm not at work currently but sometimes I wonder how I found the time to go to work!

Since my last post Lisa, Ellie and I had a fabulous long weekend at Center Parcs with Lisa, Richard and baby Emma. They were really good company and we all got along well. Ellie loved all the grown up attention, the squirrels and swimming. She did much of the latter, including going in deep water during the waves and going down the rapids ride with us.

Monday night games sessions have still been taking place and have been good fun. (Lisa and I even took a few games to Center Parcs with us which Lisa and Richard enjoyed playing!). I have lent Carcassonne and the two expansions I've created to Greg for some independent playtesting so I feel that is moving forward again. I have started designing cards for another game based on Canasta. Whilst I can explain how to play this I am having a hard time writing the rules!

I had my 33rd birthday.. which was nice! Thank you all for cards and presents.

We went to see some friends in Leeds we haven't seen for a few months. It was lovely to catch up with them, spend time with them and eat the lovely meal they prepared!

Ellie and I have stepped up a gear making Christmas gifts. I will be starting on the cards shortly....I seem to remember promising myself that I wouldn't leave it until December again this year and...what do you know...its nearly December. Maybe I'll try again next year!

I am still having some neurological problems. I am still seeing my GP and the neuro psychologist regularly. The appointment with the Consultant Neurologist has been pushed back to January, although my GP is trying to get this changed. I may still lose my job. I am still unsure how to feel about this and whether to take the opportunity to be a 'stay at home dad' for a while.

So, life continues. I should get back into the habit of posting more regularly now... but.... we'll have to see how it goes!