Uncle Jim pays a visit

I was able to get up to Ithaca this weekend, and I had my first opportunity to spend some time with Jason and the rest of the family since the accident. I found my interactions with Jason to be encouraging and fascinating. Jason seemed to have a firm grasp about what had happened, where he was, and why he was there. One of the first things he mentioned to me, was that he felt he had "gotten away" with a lot of ill-advised stuff over the years, and that if this is the worst thing that has happened as a result, he felt he was lucky. As you can tell from prior posts, this increased awareness was a very recent development, so congrats to the patience and persistence of the on-site crew in getting through to Jason.

Another aspect I found encouraging is Jason's eagerness in thinking about everything and anything. He is articulate, logical, introspective, and expansive. However, he does this to a fault, over-thinking constantly on random or trivial matters. For example, he was playing Scrabble with Isabel when I first arrived, and I noticed a number of viable plays from his rack. When we wasn't playing quickly, I assumed he was having trouble finding words, but it turns out he had created some quixotic rules and ridiculously high standards for what to play - it had to be "nifty" (my word), filling in gaps on the board and utilizing as many already-played tiles as possible, and he had to feel good about the words that he was forming, though it didn't have to be an actual dictionary word if he could make a good argument for it. When he finally relented to make a "boring" play and played "loathe", one of the longest words he could make, I was ready to hug him!

So it's great that Jason can think and analyze, though he is still having difficulty with the judgement side of things. He has a marked tendency to jump to worst-case and greatly exaggerate, and this often creates friction with the hospital staff, which then needs to be smoothed over by someone from the family. For example, he has a lot of pain in is shoulder, but won't take pain pills of any strength, because he claims it would make him a drug addict. When the therapists (perhaps carelessly) refer to the need to "train" and "reprogram" his brain and his thinking, he goes off on how he doesn't want strangers controlling him and telling how he should think. One carelessly-worded exercise allowed for a different interpretation which yielded different answer, and Jason was convinced it was done on purpose as a trap for him. Jason's increased acuity is great to see, but I'm not sure the therapists fully appreciate some of the advances he has made, as his tendency to go off on tangents and rants obscures how much he really does grasp.

Jason seems to be making progress on the short-term memory side; a friend of his had come by Saturday evening after I had left, and when I asked him about the visit on Sunday, we was able to recall it and recount some details.

Overall, what really bowled me over, was hearing Jason talk passionately about how much he was looking forward to revisiting things, now that he had a fresh, new way of looking at things. Presumably this is a result of having to consciously think about thinking (if that makes any sense), but with him relishing thinking that much, I can't help but be optimistic about his recovery. He has already decided that he can find people to craft better recovery exercises than what the therapists are using!

Being there gave me even more appreciation for the relentless attentiveness this has required from Isabel, Suzanne, Steve, Danielle, and Peggy, keeping both Jason and the hospital staff on the right track. It's plenty exhausting, and not just for Jason (see picture). Hang in there, it's working wonders!

Jim