Hartwig's Story Part 4

Very much has happened in the last couple of month. Some parts of my brain seem to integrate itself again. My brain functions somewhat more smoothly. 

What did happen?

I read very much in the last couple of months. My vocabulary extended in this time very much. It was important to me that I had read on different books each day. I also read completely different topics. It is still completely funny, as soon as I begin with a new book, I still have very large difficulties during reading (if it is around a new topic). In the last days I have also started to read in English again. That was very hard at the beginning, but then the "knot burst" at some time. 

Also during writing happened very much. I am still the the moment copy texts. Sometimes from a book, sometimes of the screen. There I opened two windows in Word. One of the main differences is that in the meantime I very fast find the place at which I am. That was for long one of the major difficulties. 

Mathematics continued to develop also, more about this next time. There are many stings still under construction. 

I had perhaps already once mentioned it. My REM sleep has again dreams. At the beginning of my illness I had no conscious dreams over all for two years. 

In my brain new resources seem to have opened itself. Thinking goes in the meantime more fluent. It is still far from in former times, but in the process of thinking very much happened. More to this in one of the next times. 

Very much has happed in the last couple of month. That tunes me still more positively!

Isn't that beautiful?

I have a digital mirror reflex camera. The operation of this camera clearly shows what is still going "wrong" in my brain. Before I became sick I did photograph relatively much with the camera. Partly for myself, an partly as part of my job. It is amazing how long it took me to get the basic functions operating correct again. It is really not many shortcut keys you need for operating the camera. But even with the basic functions I had severe difficulties to get them working again. It lasted very long until I found a key. If then I found it finally, I would expect that the next time it would go problem-free. But that's not the case. The next time I must search again until I find the key. We are now talking about simplest functions such as switching on or off. If it concerns then somewhat more complex functions, it takes minutes for me to find the keys. Of course it is clear that when you search new key combinations. But normally you should get control over new key combinations after a couple of times. But that is not the case with me. For me it takes a couple of weeks until I have a new function save in operation. But finally I get the whole thing working smoothly. With lots of patience and spit. And upon this I am very proud! If I finally successfully finished such a thing, I will not get the smile of my face (-:. 

I still have difficulties with numbers. One-digit numbers go problem-free, but with two and/or three-figure numbers I still have problems. In the meantime as long as I do not speak (verbally) it is almost problem-free. This was not so at the beginning. There I had serious trouble. By now I only have trouble if I speak the numbers verbally. I already partly described the whole thing some time before. I have made several attempts to improve when speaking. As I have said I still have difficulties speaking three-figure numbers in German. If I speak in my mind I have no troubles, but as soon as I speak verbally trouble begins. I try to explain it by means of an example. I will take the number “123” as an example. In German “123” is expressed as „one-hundred-and-three-twenty“. This is in linguistic terms, whereas it is in nominal terms “123”. To get the linguistic expression you need to turn around the numbers. First you have “one-hundred”, then there is what I call a placeholder, then there is the number “3” and I finally have to replace the placeholder with the number “2”. Thus expressed „one hundred “ -- three -- and twenty. This is all correct math-wise, but I have a lot of problems with getting the right number into the right position. I have for a long time experimented with different variants to find a solution. Now it seems like I found a solution for my self. This does not mean that everyone makes it the same way it just means that I found a solution. The one-hundred is still at the beginning, however then I no longer separate the numbers in my brain, but instead I use the number “23” to speak that word. I terms of the characters there is no change. But in the way you add the numbers and pronounce the words. With the small mental conversion now also the whole fits again mentally. I do not have any longer a break between my number world and my linguistic world. I still have not completed  the conversion for my self. I still have some difficulties when speaking, but the whole seems to go more fluidly my mind. As we say I will remain at the ball and state whether I had success!

In the last nine month very much happened. In the beginning of 2008 it took half a day until I finished writing a report. What I call a report has approximately 10-15 lines of text. Very much has happened there. At the moment I am still far away from writing in typewriter speed, but now I write such a report in ¼ or up to ½ hour. That is a great pleasure (-:.

By now - retroactively – it was worth to invest such a lot of time in writing. I never thought that it would require such long to learn the basics of reading and writing again. Basically I have learned again what children have to achieve.

I also read very much. I do that of course to learn reading and on the other hand to also understand what I read. Until a few weeks ago I could make both not simultaneously. Now I am a step further. I at least understand the basics when I read something. I mean here simultaneously reading and understanding. That is really great fun to simultaneously read and understand.

I would like to report of an exercise which I do frequently to improve reading.  I say a sentence either in my mind of verbally aloud. Then I say the sentence in single characters. I mean the same sentence. That helps me to automate the process of characterizing again. Finally I repeat the whole sentence again. This exercise is very good. I work with characters in different modes: first the full sentence, then the sentence in characters and finally the full sentence again. At the some time the whole thing helped me to improve my memory. I need to memorize the sentence three times to get it into my brain. At the beginning I only had brief sentences but by now everything improved very much. It is at the same time a task and a pleasure.

I have already written that I read very much at the moment. I also said that this always follows the same pattern. If I begin to read a book the speed is always very slow, most of the time hawing. As time goes by it is normally getting more fluent. If I read several books of an author, then it becomes continuously better. Reading generally becomes better and better.

What do I read at the moment? 

Knowledge and education (German): General book concerning history, natural sciences, technology, religion, philosophy, literature, art and music

Memory training with success (German): 30 - Day program for a good memory 

Dante Alighieri: The divine comedy (old German): Poetry

David Scherfgen: 3D-Game Design (German): A manual to programming 3D-Games

Donald D. Hoffman: How How we create what we see (English): Visual illusions and processing

Joaquin M. Fuster: The Prefrontal Cortex (English): Newest book over processing in prefrontal cortex

Wolf Schneider: Words make people (German): Magic and power of the language

In the last couple of month I read very much about language as well about building concepts. I’ll do that to better understand what happens in my brain. I studied biology, more exactly biological cybernetics therefore I have some previous knowledge about this. This is very helpful. I understand a least the basics of what I read. That is a great success for me since up to now I couldn’t understand what I was reading. Still I understand only a small percentage of what I read, but it is a very important development!

If you think about writing and reading you recognize from how many components these procedures are build up. The accent, the letters, syllables and words, the rules that are behind all this as well as the understanding of the meaning. For me the individual language parts were all affected for producing the language. Some were more strongly affected some less. How much individual parts were really affected I cannot really say. Improving each step takes very long and very much effort. Nothing is improved in a day. It all takes very much effort. If I have a “bad day”, I still have difficulties when having to say characters. Together all of those parts which affect language are really huge. Now in my illness I recognize of how many components a language is build up. When I will think about language processing when I have finally finished it, it will look easy again. But at the moment still many things have to be done to get things finished.

... I did most probably mention it already, but I will do it another time. I am very, very proud of what I did achieve in the last 3 1/4 years!!!

Sometimes people ask me whether I quarrel with my fate? I have a clear answer: I do not quarrel with my fate. I would not like to be anyone else. I would always like to be "Hartwig". I am happy "over my being". I would never like to be someone else. I am very grateful for the fact that I am still alive an so well. I am pleased about each day, where I am so well!

I am working very much with numbers. This concerns reading and reading. During the reading I make a distinction between reading loud and in my mind. I had already recently described that I still have difficulties with reading and writing numbers (in the German language). 

I make different exercises in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. As I said, it concerns all computing procedures. Depending upon computing method the enclosed number range is somewhat different. 

In the following some examples: 

I count in sequence, thus 1,2,3,4,5,6… or downward, thus 1000,999,998,997…

I count in certain step sizes, thus e.g. 7, 14, 21. Or in reverse order 1001,994,987… In the meantime I come on intervals up to 100. Moreover I do not necessarily begin always with the same number. First I start with 0,5,10,15… another time 2,7,12,17…

Multiplication and division: 1*7, 2*7, 3*7… 5:5, 10:5, 15:5… In another variant I add another value. I thus e.g. make 5+1*3, 5+2*3,5+3*3. The same accounts for the division. 

Free computation I make with Cogpack. 

The goal of the whole action is it become again familiar with the range of numbers. And this is actually becoming better from day to day. 

Life with a watch and my difficulties thereby! 

When I became ill, I could also no longer read the watch. I still was able to read the clock, but I could not communicate that any longer. The process was still there, but I couldn’t communicate it. If I was asked: How late is it? Then I could not give an answer. At the beginning of my sickness I did a lot of exercises in that field. Once you can read you just forget how difficult it was to learn that.

At the beginning it was very difficult to make again the correct allocation. What is e.g. 9 o'clock and where does the pointer have to stand then? Or with a digital clock what is 11:15 and how do I get this communicated.

Moreover the watch is in the “12-hour mode”. I had to learn counting at the same time, and the numbers go in a “10 hour mode”. That always confused me a bit. By now I have no more difficulties to designate the full hours. But I still have – after three years - my difficulties if it concerns times such as 8:15 clock or times such as 8:45. The half hour is in the meantime also OK.

Since I do not use a watch in my life I lack a bit of exercise. I do not use a watch, since there are everywhere clocks. At the computer and in the house and also everywhere where I go there are clocks. But it still might be a good idea to have a watch for the reason of practicing. Then I could practice all day long (-:.

If I went for buying at the beginning of my sickness then I always paid with 50 Euros. Even if it were only e.g. 3.15 which I had to pay. I did this to make sure that nobody recognized that I had difficulties with numbers. I also could not pay with EC or credit card since I could not write at the beginning. Now after three years it is finally getting to the point that I pay exactly the amount which I have to pay (if it is possible). But as soon as I get to a queue where there are many people behind me I still prefer to pay with 10, 20 or 50 in cash. Again Cogpack helped me here a lot. It provides some tasks to change money.

I recognize the following: It takes me a relatively long time to switch between reading a sentence and reading numbers and vice versa. This statement is only valid if I do not write just have the thoughts in my mind. As long I do only read a text or I only count numbers I don’t have a problem. But if I try do switch between the two modes rapidly then I am in trouble. The following example should illustrate this: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine. That makes so far no difficulties. Also the other way round 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 also hardly makes any difficulties. But if I make the following then I have difficulties: one, 2, three, 4, five, 6, seven, 8. If I got accustomed to this after several times then the conversion almost goes trouble free. However if I do the same game again on the next day, the trouble starts again. I am quite curious how long it will take until things will go trouble-free.

How does it look like with my handcraft abilities? I mean here such things like screwdrivers, drills and wrenches. Before I became ill I was relatively talented. Here it accounts as well: When I got ill almost nothing did work any more. At the beginning I even had problems with a screw driver. It took some time to get this working again. But as a conclusion I basically had to learn all things a new. In earlier days I was helping very often on the farm of my parents. But after my sickness I had to lean almost all things a new. From one moment to the next everything was away. By now many things have improved again. By now I can already manage to do more complex things again. But I still have difficulties when things are more complex and have many options as well. Then it is difficult for me to get the right thing in place. There I have difficulties to make the right choice from the many options I have. In that case I am always happy if I find one solution that works. Still I have deficit when trying to get more options to work. But here as well accounts: everything is improving every day. Of course not as fast as I want it to have (-:. 

I have already reported several times about numbers and characters. I have as well reported once or twice about license plates and the difficulty to switch between characters and numbers. If I have e.g. the following license plate: “NEA-AZ-123 “. „NEA “is the district, “AZ“ is any combination of characters, and “123“ is a number. I have been playing the license plate game very intensive when I became sick in Berlin three and a quarter years ago. “NEA” is the semantic identification. I can assign the license number almost without a problem. So e.g. “NEA“ is our district or “B“ is Berlin or “M“ is Munich. “AZ“ is a combination of characters. You cannot assign anything. You just can read it.“123“ makes some problems with reading it. But this is as well becoming better. 

It is important here that everything is becoming better on the whole, that it sounds more logical to you. On the other hand it is nevertheless amazing for me how long it took me to learn to read license numbers smoothly again. Is it because of me that I need so long to get this done or does it show how complicated is reading numbers and characters?

Whenever I must write the number “6“, then I am running into problems. If I imagine the number “6” then it happens mirror inversion, thus in such a way “”. I have in the meantime almost no more problems with the numbers from “0” to “5” and from “7” to “9“. But with the number “6” I am always running into problems. The whole is independent of the position. Whenever I am running into a “6” I am running into problems. Some examples: “126” or “63“ or “9696“. I have a very hard time to get rid of the mirror inversion. Whenever I mentally think about a “6” it seems to happen. In the meantime I tried to mentally change the recognition of a “6”. My brain makes a “klick” whenever it comes to recognize a “6” in my consciousness in the aware mode. The whole thing is very tiring when I switch into that mode. At this point it seems like my brain goes into a different mode. As soon as I speak unconsciously the brain goes back into the inversion mode. Of course I tried to find out what happens, but I don’t have a chance to solve the question. To I change to another brain module? perhaps even the other brain half?

Whenever I make a short break when exercising then the probability rises fast that I forget what I was dealing about. An example: I count numbers in intervals, 10, 20, 30, 40 etc. If I do it without a break then it goes without any difficulties. However if I make short breaks (just a couple of seconds) then I forget relatively fast with what I am dealing. Thus I name “10“, then some seconds of break, then “20“ etc. If I then simultaneous add another second task e.g. such as 10, a, b, c, d, 20, e, f, g, h, 30, i, j, k, l etc then I get very fast in disorder. Before my illness such tasks where easy going. Today such tasks cause me greatest difficulties. 

I bought myself six months after the beginning of my illness “Cogpack”. At the beginning of my illness it took me about two to three day to finish the math tasks. Some tasks I couldn’t solve at all. After 3 ¼ years I am now at a point that it takes me about two to three hours to solve the tasks in math. I am very proud on this.

At the beginning of my illness largest parts of my central and long-term memory were disappeared. Parts of the short term memory recovered relatively fast again. Of course I still have problems with short term memory, but it is getting better each day. Parts of the medium-term memory recovered as well, however I still have many deficiencies within this range. The most difficult was the long term memory I couldn’t get access to it. Until three month ago I couldn’t access it (three years after the beginning of my sickness). And then all of a sudden it was back. From one day to the next I could access it again. It was just the right key was missing. Finally my past is back again. It is just a matter of patience and trying again and again to find the right key! 

It is again about numbers. I take “123” as an example. If I read that in German then I must say “onehundred-and-twentythree”. Thus “1”, “3” and finally the “2”. Or in other words “onehundred and twentythree”. But if I write the number “123” it is like this: “one”, then “two” and finally the “three”. Therefore “123 “. That at the beginning is rather confusing to get it work correctly at the beginning. 

I recently had mentioned that I have some problems with the number “6”. That is still there. If I however write the number six then it goes without problems. Thus e.g. the number “63” is without any problems if I write it. But as soon as I do it only do this in my mind I have this trouble.

Something that happens relatively frequently to me is that I learn things twice. I am learning something. That is in most cases connected with some difficulties. Some of the things I even know that I hat learned that earlier, but then my brain was dammed. Then I try to learn this again. Of course with the natural difficulties. And of course it takes to long (-:. Then I sometimes recognize that I learned things a new which I wouldn’t have needed. There were only some parts of my brain corrupt, but the rest was still in order. But I did not recognize that for a long time because the right keyword was missing. Most beautiful is then the moment where everything opens up again and is then like it was before.

Reading and writing errors

I have done some Math examples in Cogpack. An thereby I always wondered why I got different results. The reason for this was that I read frowzy and misinterpreted some important detail. Here is some example. What is the answer to the question what is “8 of 160 in %”. And the second task was what is “5% of 80”. In the first case the answer is “5” and in the second case the answer is “4”. But in the second case I always understood what is “5 of 80 in %”. As an answer I always provided “6”, which is wrong.  And I always wondered why this answer is wrong. I have missed or misinterpreted some important details. The question was what is “5% of 80”. This does not only happen in Math. It happens everywhere where I do have to give answers to questions. Since I read blowzy I only get a standard template answer as a solution. In some cases this answer is correct (because of statistics), but in some cases the answer is wrong. This is only a matter of time until I learn that correctly. And it is improving everyday!

I have a digital reflex camera. And I have some difficulties with the handling of the camera. The nice thing about this is that I have a lot of fun to shoot pictures. The bad news is that after one year I still have difficulties in handling the camera. And this is not only about handling the camera with difficult settings. No it is about simple things like turn on or off the camera. It takes a couple of seconds until I find the correct position. It seems like it is to complex to turn on and off the camera. And whenever I try to turn on or off the camera, I have the same difficulties again. My most beloved thing is a switch to activate the USB-communication to the computer. Whenever I have to connect this port, I again have to search for that port. And then I think that I will remember that port next time correctly. But already after a day I forgot it again. The switch is shown in the figure. 

I have written the document about my sickness in English and German. Of course it went easier in German. But I was surprised how well it went in English. And I had tools like http://babelfish.yahoo.com which helped me a lot. This translation engine helped me a lot. And now I have managed to do it on my own. No tools, no help, instead it did the hole translation on my own. This was a great felling!

My memory of names has very much improved with the last couple of month. Especially if I have to remember names of people whom I knew before my sickness then I almost have no more problems. It is a bit more difficult if I have to remember names of people whom I got to know during my sickness. A lot has happened with my long term memory!

I recently encountered an interesting thing. Whenever I play with the toys of my daughter everything goes well as long as I only have one thing to deal with. If I however have two or more toys at the same time, then I have difficulties to make a difference between them. That especially happens when I have toys of different categories. Thus e.g. a material duck, a bear and a doll. Then I even have difficulties to name them correctly. Then it takes some time to sort things out correctly.

I always have difficulties whenever an activity is setup from multiple individual parts. I always can do only a certain amount of things at a time. This is as well true for steps in image processing. Whenever a process is setup from many individual steps, I first have to keep the general goal in mind, but also the individual steps. But this two things at the same time is already very difficult for me. A small example:

·        open an image

·        change hue

·        change color balance

·        create a new layer

·        fill this layer with content

·        setup three filter actions on this layer

Just to keep everything in mind is already very difficult for me. If I now write it everything is ok and I can remember it. But normally if you only keep everything in mind it is giving me a hard time. I have to split everything into small individual steps, but also have to remember the final goal.

Now, three years after I became ill many things have improved especially in the last half year. That motivates and is the basis of new steps.