Lately I’ve been wondering whether anything I’m experiencing is normal.  Prior to my surgery, I had been living with a massive tumor, pressing on my brain for possibly two decades.  This is not normal.  After the surgery, I have a grapefruit size hole in my brain where A-A-Ron used to be.  My brain is totally free to do whatever it wants inside my head.  This is also not exactly normal.  There is a marked difference in my sensory perception after the surgery compared to before.  I tested this out fairly soon after the surgery by watching La La Land.  I had watched it prior to surgery, found it dull and boring, and didn’t even finish the whole thing.  After the surgery, I found the colors to be much more vibrant and the music to be much more engaging.  I still didn’t think the movie was that great, but my experience of watching it was different.

Since the surgery, all of my senses have awakened or heightened.  First I noticed colors and sounds.  Then I noticed smell, specifically when I could smell the fresh fish while walking near the Potomac River. Then my taste buds exploded. Then my sense of touch became more noticeable.  Now, because of this new multi-sensory awakening, every experience is a new a experience for me.  Anything I do for the first time since surgery is like I’m doing it for the first time because I’m so much more alive now, or, to put it in the opposite way, I was so dulled and stifled beforehand.

I wonder, though, whether my before or after sensory experience is equal to what everyone else experiences.  I will never know the answer to this question, as everyone’s  experiences are based on their own brain’s processing of the stimuli in the world around them.  I’m just curious.  Have I been missing out all these years?  Or is what I am experiencing now something different from what everyone else experiences? I have no idea.  I do know that sitting in a park, listening to the birds, feeling the sun and/or the breeze, and being in that moment is divine.  I know I want to jump in puddles in the rain. I want to go to shows so I can listen to live music and see bands play. I want to experience everything I can and live in the moment as much as is possible.  And I encourage you to do the same…because you never know what tomorrow is going to bring. It really doesn’t matter whether what I’m experiencing is normal, because I’m going to take full advantage of it anyway.  But I still wonder…

I have mentioned I have a wonky eye.  What does that mean? Prior to surgery, we were told I may lose some of my peripheral vision, specifically in the upper and lower regions.  I remember the neurosurgeon saying that I may have some trouble walking initially because of the lower left periphery.  Mom remembers him also saying upper.  Regardless, when I came out of surgery, I had lost my entire left periphery.  That means literally someone can be right next to me on the left and I can’t see them.  I have my foveal (center) vision in my left eye, but if I am looking straight, I can’t see something on the left at all unless I turn my head and look at it with both eyes. My left eye is also a little wonky in that is is a constant kaleidoscope, with lots of interests lights and colors constantly happening.  I see Disney woodland creatures and sometimes horses and unicorns, depends on the day.  It also looks like the left side of everyone’s face is melting off, which is entertaining. Looking at myself in the mirror is a real hoot.  It reminds me of when the Terminator is missing the left hand side of his face and he sees the metal and his mechanical eye.

There are two main effects of my wonky vision.  The first is that I can’t sit up straight anymore.  I have learned the role of my visual system in holding me up straight.  Because I have no left periphery, my entire body now leans to the left side when I am sitting.  That means that the visual system plays an important role in keeping me up straight and with the loss of part of it, my body doesn’t know what to do. I have to use lumbar support pillows, I have some chairs that actually hold me up straight, or I have to prop myself up with these awesome, thick bamboo pillows I have.  It also means that by the end of the day, my back is killing me, especially between the shoulder-blades.   I have learned to deal in various ways.

The other effect is that my Where’s Waldo skills are now just pathetic.  My visual field is a big blur of lots of stimuli that is hard to distinguish.  I used to have such an attention to detail and that is just completely gone.  In a crowded place, the chances of me finding a single person or thing are minimal unless that person is waving his or her arms or there is something colorful or shiny to draw my attention. I have had to train my mom to use military clock terms to help orient me spatially…look at 3 o’clock or 11 o’clock. I also need much more context in conversations than I used to, because of my inability to recognize objects like I used to previously.  She can’t point to something across the room and have me easily follow the line to what she’s talking about unless she tells me what I’m looking for. It’s all interesting and amusing.

I just realized the other day that even though my left eye is the wonky one, it also has better visual acuity than my right eye, I assume because I’m left side dominant.  So, I tend to favor my left eye when I’m looking  for something.  This becomes entertaining because I literally don’t see things that are right in front of me unless I am told they are there. And I can wander around my apartment looking for something for hours and not see it. I know it is there somewhere. If something is slightly out of place, it throws me off completely. Things that used to be so easy and second nature are totally different now.

If I weren’t a psychologist and a researcher by nature, this stuff would likely be much more frustrating.  But to me it is all rather fascinating.

I am left-handed.  Have been my whole life. My brother is as well.  I am pretty ambidextrous though. When I was young and played softball, I would get up to bat and not remember which way to stand and my mom would have to yell out to me.  I do a lot with my right hand. But, I’m left side dominant for sure. I put my left shoe on first, my left leg goes in my pants first, I write with my left hand, etc. So it was rather surprising to me when, prior to the surgery, the nurses and doctors at the hospital kept asking me  if I was sure I was left-handed. I must have been asked half a dozen times. They just didn’t seem to believe me.

The tumor was on the right side of my brain and I had come in with speech issues, so I assumed it had something to do with where they expected my speech areas to be in the brain of a left-handed person. Time to consult my brain book!

Alright. 10% of the population is left-handed. Of the left-handed population, about 70% process language on the left side of the brain, while the other 30%  process language equally between both sides.  So I am in the minority and it makes sense why they would have been asking me.  It also means, as my friend, Ro, pointed out to me, that I’m extremely lucky.  If  I wasn’t in that minority, then who knows when we might have discovered that A-A-Ron even existed.  The sheer fact that he was pushing on one of my language areas and gave me aphasia meant that we found him.  I’ve been quite lucky since this happened, over and over again.  Here is yet another example of things that just worked out in my favor. And I’m going to continue to welcome those things. 🙂