Welcome back old friend.

I began writing during my usual time. I'm trying to set aside my writing time each day from 5:00 - 7:00 am, when Katie from Korea IM'd me. She and I have been penpals (I guess that word isn't really used anymore) for awhile. She found me through one of my websites. She sees me get online and then I hear a little bloop and see her first note. She's ending her day as I'm beginning mine. We chat about a variety of subjects. She's due back in the States soon, I hope one day we can meet.

So, my blog writing got off to a slow start today (not your fault Katie, I enjoy our chats). Now, Kevin's got Mozart's Piano Concerto number 26 playing upstairs (I wouldn't have known this, I had to look inside the CD jacket). It's lovely--the sweet sounds of the piano.

Music. There were years and years of no music, no sounds in the house. I preferred the quiet. I needed the quiet. Having music back in my life has been the return of an old friend I didn't realized I missed.

When my neurologist (Robert Scaer) mentioned the thing about writing my experience, I think he may have been referring to journaling. Which I tried. But, I'm not much of a journal-type writer.

"August 13, 1998, Dear Diary, Today my neurologist suggested that I write." No, that's not me.

But then, months later, on October 23, 1998, that strange thing happened (see blog post from August 18, 2009). I can't explain it. I'm not an expert in traumatic brain injuries, but my speech therapist, Mary Ann Keatley (yes, that's funny, a speech therapist going to a speech therapist for help) said that the frontal lobes are often damaged in patients with TBIs. The frontal lobes of our brains provide the executive functions. They mostly tell us no.

So, without the no I was on full throttle of a two year period of creative flow that I'd never experienced. Creative writing was something I'd never really done. There were papers, articles and textbook chapters for my career, my profession as a speech pathologist, but never the creative style of writing.

It took the longest time for my fingers to type out the words that my mind wanted to express. It was a type of apraxia of speech, I guess, where the signals of brain don't move the parts of the body. I knew what I wanted to say. I knew what I wanted to write, but my mouth, my fingers, my hands wouldn't cooperate. It was SO frustrating. There were times when I'd be very, very quiet, because the effort it took to speak was too great. My normally extroverted personality switched in an instant.

At the end of the two years I put the book aside. It was crap. A self-absorbed cathartic rant that I was sure no one would be interested in. But, it served it's purpose. I could type again. I could spell again. I could express myself again. I was recovering. Dr. Scaer was right. But, it would be another two or more years before I could actually say and agree to the words my daughter Meghann spoke, "Remember, Mommy, you had a brain injury." Finally, using the past tense! It was lovely.

Welcome back old friend. I missed my brain while it was gone.