OU Brain injury

So. This week’s OU work is an interesting one. It’s about brain injury.

There are pros and cons to this. I found out the subject matter when I was having a virtual tutorial yesterday, and I had a huge urge to write on the chat box to people. It was really weird. It’s like I wanted to say “that’s me that is!” But I didn’t.

It’s talking about the lobes of the brain and that the resulting symptoms depends on which part of the brain was injured. That reminded me of something…

When I was hoping to have a child, I was worried about all the pills I had to take every day. For that reason, I went to see an epilepsy guy just down the road at Glasgow Uni. We talked in his office and at the end of it, he said “you know, I looked at your brain scans before you came in. And I wasn’t expecting you the way you are.” I asked why and he asked if I wanted to look at the scan? He showed me.

As you can see, I have virtually no frontal lobe. What? My OU describes what your frontal lobe does. It basically makes sense of the information coming in from all our senses.

How on earth can I have no frontal lobe?

There’s only one answer to that. Neuroplasticity. My brain has found a way of doing the job of my frontal lobe, elsewhere. And the therapy I had in Melbourne and back here has helped that to happen.

I still can’t work out whether I’m happy that this is what I’m learning today or not…