This section, Part 2, has not been officially released to the ConserveLiberty resource. In fact, it doesn't even rank as little more than a "scratch draft". What you may see here is a "stub out" of some of what might be developed for the official release. Some of what you see here may even be deleted altogether prior to posting.

This "pre-scratch" is here to give you an idea of what "may" be coming next. If interested, come back later and see if I've made any progress on this section.

Similarly, Part 3 will not be released until after Part 2, Back Home is released.

The time frame for this section, Part 2, is Nov - Dec 2015.

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Moon-rise. Resurrection. Resilient. Indelible. Not a time lapse. Click here for info.

Why would I include Occupational and Speech Therapy in a chapter whose target audiences are neuropsychiatry, neuropsychology, behavioral neurology, behavioral genetics, psychology, and biology types who might be interested in the sequence of how cognition gets put back together?

A lot has been debated among Nature and Nurture proponents regarding where the most significant portion of the impact on behavior, perception, interpretation (in effect - personality) derives from. ConserveLiberty believes this debate clouds the actual reality of the picture. They both interact together as a system. And for the system to work most effectively, both components from the Nature and Nurture Ensembles work together.

Change one of them, and the results that unfold change too.

And so, with regard to the Cognitive Reboot, while the biology aspects are where this chapter primarily focuses, and where lots of experimental discovery and validation remains to be uncovered ... the fact remains that the Reboot of my Cognition (actually, the reboot of anyone's cognition) was effected dramatically (and in my case positively) by various "Nurture" components that were a part of the system operating together "with Me".

Thus, Occupational and Speech Therapy was very relevant for the way my reboot unfolded over time.

The fact that I am writing this at all is very likely a result of the encouragement of my Speech Therapist to pick up writing for ConserveLiberty again, whether or not I felt that I was able to think sufficiently abstract enough for it at the time. And, that I could contemplate the relevance of writing at all is very likely the result of the encouragement of my Occupational Therapist. Had I not gotten past the movement and coordination challenges I still had once out of the hospital, thinking about things like writing would have been the least of my concerns. Together, they were a prerequisite part of the Cognitive Reboot that has resulted in me being where I am today.

As are all the people who actually cared for me and worked with me and pushed me to move forward when I was in the hospital.

Yada, yada, yada.

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An introduction to what the actual objectives and roles of Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy are would probably be helpful for those who have not had experience with either.

Occupational Therapy

... has very little to do directly with one's occupation per se. Rather, it focuses on movement, balance, coordination. Whatever one engages and exploits to get from Point A to Point B.

Typical for head injuries like mine, significant deficits occurred in all those areas. The permanence of those deficits have to do with whether or not permanent, irreversible damage was done, where that might be, how capable I was of healing in the relevant areas, and how fast that healing may occur.

For example, initially (i.e. hospital, Room 1) I was not able to walk at all, or even get up. Eventually, I would attempt to get up, but strength was not sufficiently online (unless I had assumed a "fight or flight" protective reaction mode.) Several days later I could get myself out of bed, but balance and coordination were not sufficiently online, and so "assistance was recommended," to put it nicely. Realistically, I was mandated not to get up unless someone was in the room to help me. (Like I remembered that!)

Initially my ability to remember that instruction longer than 20 seconds was offline. Long Term Memory (LTM) formation would not return to any dependable and significant level for at least 3 weeks. Thus the signage, "Pt. is Impulsive".

I was released from the hospital after showing the ability to walk on my own, use stairs on my own, get in and out of beds and chairs on my own, etc., including making my way independently through a Target store on a scavenger hunt, selecting for best value (intelligent shopping.) Thus, once home I was able to function somewhat independently. And yet, balance and coordination and speed were not at all fully back up to speed.

Occupational Therapy was very helpful.

We would work through various balance and coordination exercises for the next 2 months, as well as challenges to walk straight line distances increasingly quickly, with my head being tilted to one side or the other or up or down while traversing. There were barriers to walk over or walk around with the goal of doing so smoothly without a reduction in speed or interruption of travel. All very much requiring redeveloping my sense of proprioception, knowing where my body was without me even looking, etc. Regaining these skills generally take a bit of time.

Once I demonstrated enough sustained improvement, I was taken shopping a couple of times, and to a coffee shop a couple of times. The object of those trips was to see how I handled completing goals, such as finding specific items, making sure I got the best price, getting myself where I needed to go, handling all the "busyness" happening around me, focusing (not getting distracted) in the midst of numerous distractions, many of which I might find interesting.

At the end of all that I reaffirmed my preference (again) for Costco over Target. At Target there was a lot more hunting and comparison of options required. That got a chuckle from my PT. She said that she usually got that response from all the males she worked with. (Something I heard again!) Apparently, most of us (males, in the Bell Curve) normally do not enjoy shopping as much. We are more "hunter-gatherers", and want to find what we need quickly and move on.

At the end of two months I was proclaimed amazingly back up to speed, and so at that point my Occupational Therapist cut me loose.

How wonderful the gift of mobility and coordination she helped me redevelop. I am so grateful.

Speech Therapy

Then there is Speech Therapy which, it seems, has not much at all directly to do with speaking. Rather, Speech Therapy is used to bring one further online cognitively. Memory, recall, pattern recognition, relationship association, logic, logistics, and the ability to focus on one (or multiple) task(s) (especially when there are distracting activities nearby). Math testing. Puzzle challenges. More logic.

I eventually came through that quite well after 2 months. It did not start out that well, however. Various cognitive deficits were in play when we started. Now and then, when having trouble with a cognitive exercise I would ask, "Do you think this deficit will be permanent?"

Every time I asked that specific question, the answer was generally the same. "No. You will probably find you have some changes relative to where you were before the accident. But for this issue, you will improve."

At some point I leveled with my Speech Therapist, "Look, if you talk to any of my friends, they will all tell you I have tendencies towards arrogance, or more than just tendencies. My point being that I really don't require encouragement. I am quite optimistic about my own ability to get better. I don't really ever dwell on what I may not be able to do at all. So I don't need the encouragement. However, I need you to be straight with me so that I know what I have to work on. Otherwise I won't know that I have to work on it."

To which she said, "And that is why I don't think this deficit that you are asking about is going to be permanent."

"We don't really have a good grounding in the biology of it, but what I can tell you from experience is that I've dealt with lots of people with head injuries like you have had. And the outcomes are varied, from good to not so good. But what we see is that the patients who are in denial, who do not believe they have much of a deficit, or who are lackadaisical, and have the general instinct of just taking whatever comes ... they don't necessarily do so well with the rehab. You are not that way. You are looking for deficits. You are constantly asking about deficits that we haven't even brought up. You are striving for finding a solution. You are not in denial. We have found that people who are more aggressive about finding and understanding their deficits and wanting to work through them with the exercises ... often have a much better outcome. That's where you are."

And then she would say, "However, in memory for instance. You have some deficits currently. There are maybe 10 ways of remembering things, and not all of us can remember using all 10 ways. But each of us may be able to use 6 or 7 or 8 ways. You have been used to using one or two ways that are not working so well right now. They may likely return, but in the meantime you need to be able to compensate for that by trying a different method that you are not used to but which you can make work for you. Then, once the default methods you are used to are back online, you can forget the substitutes we are developing, or keep them. It will be up to you."

By this time, I had "recalled" my interest in exploring "The Filters" we are born with, genetically, that enable our various traits, instincts, and abilities regarding human behavior and cognition. My hypothesis was that we are all built with our own complement, each slightly differing in their phenotypic expression, and that that explained most of the observed human default behavioral variety. I believe that most likely, regarding Nature/Nurture, behavior's foundation is 80% Nature and 20% Nurture. And, if I'm wrong, then its 90%/10%. My best guess. So I asked her, "OK, let's say there are 10 modes for remembering and recalling, and I or someone else is using 2 or 3 currently and those had worked fine. Maybe one or more is not working so well now. Do you think that everyone can learn any other of all the 10?"

To which she said, "No. Absolutely not." Different people can usually learn a few more, but each can only learn certain ones. And that's been my experience. So part of my job is to find out which one's you are capable of learning, and teach you those."

Oh she was quite clever. Nice, but clever. In the end, I got better at using lists to remember what I used to never need a list to remember. It was a habit thing, and I just needed to form the habit. I did OK. And now, I don't use the lists as much as I used to during my first few months. I've returned to my old habits on that. A list now and then like in the past. I even remember her birthday, and what tea she liked, and those were not written on lists anywhere!

After 2 months, my Speech Therapist also cut me loose. I was much improved.

And I am so, so grateful.

→ Occupational and Speech Therapy was last updated 29 Jun 2017 17:15 PDT ←

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Check back when I address this section once Part 2 is placed online. Among anticipated topics:

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I will write this portion somewhat from the perspective of what I experienced (or believe I experienced based on my recall of those experiences) during the weeks (months) that I spent weaning myself off the meds I was prescribed. It is important to regard the accuracy of my "recall" with some skepticism. During this time, my LTM formation was also coming back on line more and more. Which is another way of saying that early on I did have some occasional LTM formation, but less so comparatively than later on. The longer time transpired, the more my LTM formation subroutines were functioning satisfactorily and eventually they were always "On" (i.e. functioning constitutively.)

→ Of course, there is No time that one ought not regard anything skeptically. Those who believe there are times when skepticism is not appropriate or required are not the target audience for any of the stuff on this site. Why? If you need to ask, you are not ConserveLiberty's target audience. ←

Ahead of narrating from the perspective I believe I was experiencing at the time, I do have an insight I want to share that was understood by me much later. (Like "now.")

Throughout my weaning (either from the meds or from the other initially sensible restrictions placed on me) there was resistance to its progression from all I interacted with. I was a bit frustrated by that at the time. Since I am not one who is influenced by how much people approve of what I am doing (external validation), I simply decided to manage them as best as I could while actively taking the steps myself to "Move Forward", which in this case meant, "wean as appropriate."

I "now" do understand their anxiety, doubt, or pessimism about me taking any of the weaning steps that I did before I took them, and even as I took them. (They were OK with them a week after I took them! Every time.)

Remember that while in the hospital, fairly early on I earned the label "Pt. is Impulsive". Beginning when they first backed me off of sedation (a medication). That never seemed to go well. For weeks, every time I was a little less medicated, or was unsupervised, or was given a little more freedom ... I did what no person caring about a good outcome for me would have wanted to happen.

• I ripped out any of the lines attached to my veins. Even the PICC lines.
• I got up (or tried), whenever I could, and fell a few times (and almost fell badly.)
• I requested to go home, and showed behaviors (once capable) of planning to get home myself, secretly.
• I clearly was not thinking credibly for quite a while.
• Even though folks could see progress, the reality is that most or all of what they saw was always below normal functioning, and no dependable functioning.

Behaving occasionally at a level that would cause an optimistic person to "hope that things may go well more of the time going forward" is not the same as "validated dependable behavior!

They loved me. And figured that while on the meds I was less likely to hurt myself. And while it is true that eventually those meds may no longer be needed, they had no understanding of what that timeline, in reality, would actually be. Change that could result in risk tends to be more easily avoided than embraced. Especially from the place I was starting or continuing from.

So, unintentionally, their experience with me in the hospital had trained them to want me on the meds. From a Reward Center (habituation) perspective, they kept hearing good news ("he's OK, no problems") when I was medicated and restricted. And when they got bad news? Anytime that happened my sedation had also been lessened, or I was not being supervised. They got addicted to believing it best that I stay medicated. Indoctrinated. Indoctrination does not change readily.

This gets to the Nature / Nurture thing. Both have to function optimally for the reboot to proceed optimally. And, for Part 1, all in all they were functioning as optimally together as they could, all things considered. When I was medicated and restricted.

Paradoxically, for Part 2 to go optimally, the "Nurture" part needed to allow the medication weaning to proceed. Slowly, but to go forward. And, the restrictions needed to be gradually lifted. Slowly, but lifted. Over time. "Delay" is not how "slowly" is actually implemented. Even "slowly" progresses. A full stop "delay" is not "slowly".

And so, for my Reboot to progress optimally, I would need to take the Nurture part into my own hands. I, myself, had to override the part of the Nurturing environment that was now more comfortable delaying rather than slowing.

How might I convince them, or even myself that I was now capable cognitively of pulling this off with some degree of positive outcome (meaning, no major screw ups?) There was no way that I could.

Of course, the way I am wired (or the way the Reboot was executing, whatever) I wasn't concerned with convincing me. I believed that I could slowly and successfully wean and reduce my restrictions in a careful and responsible and skeptical way. And I would back off that if I found there to be any problems. Just like I felt in the hospital, when I continually got myself into trouble.

Important → The fifth "miracle", and this another low likelihood occurrence, was that I made choices that did not screw things up. And those choices likely made things significantly better than they would have been had I weaned more slowly, or had I not pushed myself to function at the higher levels I was capable of, rather than the lower levels that those around me were comfortable me maintaining. ← Important

I can't overemphasize this. There was no way anyone on the planet could know whether or not I would be successful. Including me. And I knew it. But I went with what was unfolding. It was a miracle, I got lucky, and I am grateful. My extent of my positive outcome was not expected by anyone who had been involved in my case. At all.

Those who came through this with me and cared about my outcome and worked with the medical personnel who were instrumental in my survival from within their domain ... don't agree that my decisions had any impact at all on the positive outcome that I experienced.

Oh well. The Truth is the Truth. The Truth actually doesn't depend on what anybody actually feels about it. So who knows what should have been done for a better outcome. What happened, happened.

And, as I like to say, "Here I am!"

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• Little by little, more of me came back online as I tapered myself off the meds.
  
  And, it seems that I had to bring that on on my own.
  
  
• 
  

→ Med Reduction was last updated 26 Jun 2017 15:25 PDT ←

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Check back when I address this section once Part 2 is placed online. Among anticipated topics:

• Buried memories are not forgotten. Yet you may not be aware of them until they are tapped to come back.
  
  And since your experiences helped steer you to what you have become, the cascades of these memories help bring what you were back. Wonderfully!
  
  
• Stay tuned. Click for the continuation of Cascades (Part 3) (Yonder).
  

→ The Cascades was last updated 20 May 2017 12:00 PDT ←

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Check back when I address this section once Part 2 is placed online. Among anticipated topics:

• I understood that I was moving forward. I didn't think much about it at the time, that was simply my "posture." It was instinctual for me, and thus it was not a perspective that I actually decided to have. It was just "usual" for me. It was what it was without me even thinking about it. And, I realized (or correlated) that my natural momentum of continuing to move forward each day was aligned with and resulted in much more of the improvements I was making. This could not be validated but I considered it a High Likelihood Fact, Truth, Real.
  
  Even though most others ascribed my unfolding positive outcome primarily to the medical care I had been given, I understood that much of my progression was a result of things not at all directly related to that care. The care saved my life, and enabled me time to heal. And yet, not all of the healing, and all the other things that were so instrumental in my progression were directly related to the life saving intervention efforts that had been made on my behalf.
  
  
• I was grateful. Broadly. About everything related to me living and being aware of it.
  
  
• Stay tuned. Click for the continuation of Spirituality (Part 3) (Yonder).
  

Early Nov 2015 - "Humor" and "Sarcasm" was Coming Back Online

The Setup: In the month of November, my wife scheduled me to get a variety of medical tests to get a better picture of how I had come through the accident from a medical testing perspective. With head injuries such as mine, there are a lot of tests that can uncover things, and she scheduled me for the battery. Among those were a full eye exam and a hearing exam. Basically, my injury could have left me with loss of hearing or field of vision on one side or another, or both. (Remember that early in October, I had shown left side "neglect". While that had gotten better, it was not clear how extensive it may be, or to what extent it may have persisted. Thus, the testing.)

I had the tests, and the wonderful news was that my hearing was as good or better than what had been measured 2 or 3 years before, both sides, all frequencies, all volumes. As for vision, I had full fields of view, up, down, left, right. No peripheral vision deficits. Nothing. And, my vision itself was about where it had been a couple years before. So, great results - No left or right side blindness, deafness, or deficits.

So where is the sarcasm? Well, a few nights later, we got a call from my wife's sister (she had visited me in Room 1, and I have detailed the non-credible memories that I had of her visit). She and her husband were leaving on a vacation and were calling to chat and check up on me.

More setup: We have differed in our worldview leanings, and while those differences were known (and, likely misunderstood, typically) we never let that get in our way of enjoying each other and having a lot of fun together. A lot. Occasionally, we'd have fun with the worldview differences by poking gently at each other, or at least I saw it that way. Both physicians, they also understood the purpose of the tests I just had with regard to potential left side issues, etc.

So they asked, "How did it go? The tests?"

And I said, "Oh, they found a lot of issues I hadn't noticed before. Apparently, I have a lot of right side peripheral vision blindness. I hardly take notice or consider anything from the right at all anymore. When you see me again, I will be far more left than either of you ever were!"

And all laughed at that. I was hoping they got my irony, etc. And, once I handed the phone back to my wife, she assured them that I tested out AOK. Just in case.

Important → Something else not previously mentioned was now back online, and I don't know how to categorize it. Although I pretty much only speak the truth, the "pretty much" part is because the ironical humor in a joke may require a lie. And I am drawn to ironical (out-of-the-box) humor. Which takes a certain kind of person to get it. Here's the complication: I am likely to be the best liar you will ever know. Period. Unfortunately, I am so "best" that most normal people cannot tell when I am lying, and thus they are unsure of whether I am telling the truth or being ironical. There are various possible explanations for this which is beyond our scope here. But, apparently, the best liar you will ever know was back online. ← Important

Now doesn't that give you confidence in what you have been reading?

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Dec 2015 and beyond - Do You Remember Anything that You Have Forgotten?

After a bit of time and healing, I would get interesting questions from my friends. And, after several weeks, much of my "sense of humor" had gradually come back, in stages, over days and weeks. To this day, probably one of the most amusing questions I would get would be,

"How's your memory? Is there anything you have forgotten?"

It is always a sincere question. And reveals a lot about the perspective that most approach the world with. I'm guessing that many might consider (without really thinking skeptically about it) that there is a "Me" that exists independent of the biology that is truly the "Me". And then there is the mind and body that the "Me" interacts with. (By the way, this assumption is fully implicit in most concepts of afterlives and souls that are independent of bodies.) If that were the case, then the question, "Is there anything that You have forgotten?" might make sense to ask. Somehow, a "Me" that is independent of the cognitive mind might have a sense of that question, in real terms. But the reality is a bit different, and much simpler.

How do I know that? I've been there (you are reading about it.) And, I have both a sense of what I remember, and what I do not remember (I say.) Doesn't prove anything, of course, but it is what it is.

What I "know" is basically whatever it is that I remember. If I have no memory of it, how would I know that I ever had memory of it? A better question, testing my memory, might be,

"A few years ago, you and I did "such and such". Do you remember that?"

Very, very few ask me that question. (And when they do, I always do. And more. So, fortunate.)

But the open ended question, "Is there anything you have forgotten?", leaving it up to me to come up with something that I had forgotten ... it's just amusing. I always say, "No, I don't seem to have forgotten anything. I'm very fortunate."

There is an interesting dimension to all this. There are things that I may have remembered at one time that I have now forgotten due to the accident. These are all the things that I would have remembered while they were in Short Term Memory (STM) that never got moved over into Long Term Memory (LTM) while LTM formation was offline. My LTM formation ability was nearly totally "offline" for at least a week and a half or two, and then came back gradually. Actually, gradually over several weeks.

Thus, while nothing remembered before the accident appears to be forgotten (except that which happened 10-20 minutes before the accident), it is true that much of what I was able to temporarily remember within STM was actually forgotten for about the next 2 weeks after the accident.

And of course, if you asked me, I would have no idea what any of that was.

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A year later, but I include it here - What were You Thinking?

This level of out-of-the-box humor I would have found heartily amusing anytime from Oct 2015 on, and so I include it here.

About a year and a half after the accident, Son_2 asks, "Dad, wouldn't it be cool to know what you were thinking just before you hit the pavement?"

That is so fascinating to think about!! There is no evidence that I had lost consciousness at all before the accident, and various tests showed no evidence of past seizures, etc. I went down consciously aware that I was going down. I may even have known at the time what caused me to go down. Perhaps a mechanical problem, or a slippage on the road, whatever.

I am a High CPR (High Credible Perception of Reality) person, and continuously observing whatever I can around me. I don't decide to do that, I just do. It's instinctive, and always on. And so I am fairly sure that at the moment just before I impacted the pavement,

• not only did I have at the very least a hypothesis for what caused my problem, but
• I also knew what I was trying to do to solve the problem,
• had come to the conclusion that I had failed to solve my issue, and
• was making one urgent last-second attempt to land in a way that minimized whatever screw up was going to happen to me.

It's likely I may have loudly shouted at least one obscenity, alerting anyone who may have been within earshot that something harsh was going to happen so that if they were around they might look my way. Not that I would have thought about it that much, it just seems to be a typically instinctive reaction that I have.

Anyway, that was a high anxiety moment, I am sure. And, I have always remembered ALL of my high anxiety moments (so far as I can remember) because none of them caused me any sort of injury that I didn't stay conscious through.

(Oh wait, there was one, and that was interesting, but I'm not going to get into that here. But I did lose consciousness, and apparently went into self-diagnostic mode all the way to the local clinic, and while doing that was also repeatedly asking about the guy I was cycling with.) - That should tell you something more about where I go to instinctively when "my lights go out."

Anyway, the motorcycle accident that I had that resulted in the head injury - while all the awarements that I've detailed surely happened with an urgency and significance that I would have certainly remembered (normally) ... with this accident I eventually lost consciousness, my LTM formation went offline, and anything that I most certainly was aware of and remembered within STM over time just evaporated. Not sure how long that takes, of course. Maybe 5 minutes. Maybe 20 minutes. Maybe sooner than that if the LTM impediment is severe. But, that does count for something I would have remembered (in STM) that I did forget. And the forgetting was due to the head injury.

Of course, I can't tell you what it is that I actually forgot. Because ... I forgot it.

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Check back when I address this section once Part 2 is placed online. Among anticipated topics:

• Alcohol Tolerance
  
  Cheap date.
  
  
• Global Time - The Ability to Recognize Local Time (to know the time simply by looking at the sky).
  
  This function is separate from:
  • A Sense of Time
  • A Sense of Order (with Time, chronology)
  
  ...which may require them to be working before The Ability to Recognize Local Time can come online.
  
  I discovered on my way home from the hospital that my "intuitive" understanding of the current time made simply by looking at the sky was not working correctly (in my current jargon, I refer to this as "offline," but I didn't think of it in that way initially.)

  Prior to the accident, and for years and years before that, I had the ability to understand the current local time simply by having access to the sky. In general, I was accurate to within 20 minutes or less, most often between 10 - 15'.
  
  I made adjustments in my head with regard to where I was within a time zone, and whether or not "Daylight Savings Time" was in play, and from there I seemed always to be grounded in the current local time.
  
  When visiting a new place, I might initially be more inaccurate. It only took one time of validating the current time, and thus inaccuracy, and from there I seemed to be recalibrated to that place.
  
  Perhaps related is also the trait that I did not ever seem to suffer from the jet lag that most of my friends usually suffered from. It didn't matter whether or not I was traveling east or west, or across 1 or 3 or 9 time zones, I just never suffered from jet lag. Once in my new location, and validated to the current time, my ability to discern the "local time" there was very good. Within 10-15 minutes.

  On my way home from the hospital, the question of what time it was came up, and I recalled that I had had this ability. And so I looked to the sky, and confidently proclaimed the approximate time. I was off by at least 3 hours!
  
  Surprised, I chalked it up to being in the hospital room for so long (3.5 weeks) and without access either to clocks or much of the sky. So, I figured that error would recalibrate me. Those errors DID NOT recalibrate me. Even if my last time trying was only an hour earlier. I was generally off by 3-4 hours.
  
  My ability to discern "local time" stayed offline for 3-4 months. During that time, I did wonder if I would ever regain my ability to understand the time I was in, simply by looking at the sky.
  
  Click for the outcome, (Feb 2016) in Part 3 (Yonder).
  
  
• Creative Thinking
  
  
• A Relationship with the Unfolding (various aspects)
  
  
  
• By mid-December, I was suited up and ready to go bringing cheer to dozens of kids who would sit on my lap and believe (or not believe) in their favorite giver of gifts.
  
  

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Consider thoughtfully.