Hartwig's Story Part 6

Jogging, Counting Numbers and Thinking

In the meantime jogging is performed automatically. At the beginning of my sickness even this was coupled with a certain effort. The coordination of the steps and the adaptation to the environment by now almost goes automatically. I also mentioned several times that I am jogging almost every morning and there I am counting my numbers of steps. For me this means a lot of effort. I mean to do two things at the same time. But also by now I can recognize a lot of improvements in the parallel processing of things. Now it became much simpler than at the beginning. By now I “need much less effort” to do this at the same time. Of course it is still far away for being automated, but as I said it takes now much less effort doing two things at the same time. Now I am beginning to add a third process to the line. At the moment it seems almost impossible to do this, but I am sure that as time goes by this will improve (at least I hope).

Erasing text

If I write with my PC I recognized the following thing. If I mistyped or I put a character in the wrong place then I is difficult for me to get this error and to correct it. In most cases I prefer to delete the word and then to write it a new.

Automated processes

It is another thing which has improved in the last couple of month. If I work on my web-site and I have to do the same change on every page, it is going much faster than before. Before I had to learn the steps every time a new, because I couldn’t remember what I did before. My short term memory was very limited. I did “step1, step 2, step 4”, but as soon as I was trying to repeat it, I couldn’t do it. This process has now very much improved. I have to learn the new process for some time, but then it goes over into an automated process. Of course the number of steps I can perform is still very limited, but it is a really great success!

Automated processes

It is another thing which has improved in the last couple of month. If I work on my web-site and I have to do the same change on every page, it is going much faster than before. Before I had to learn the steps every time a new, because I couldn’t remember what I did before. My short term memory was very limited. I did “step1, step 2, step 4”, but as soon as I was trying to repeat it, I couldn’t do it. This process has now very much improved. I have to learn the new process for some time, but then it goes over into an automated process. Of course the number of steps I can perform is still very limited, but it is a really great success!

Build a Frame

About two years ago I build a frame. It took several hours and without help I wouldn’t have managed it. Of course with the blueprints you often get, I even hat difficulties before my sickness. But before my sickness, I just changed strategies and I quickly managed it. After the beginning of my sickness it took me hours to get a new plan. It took me such long to handle this, since I had do order thing a new. Now four years after the beginning of my sickness have very much improved. But still, if I have to make new steps, I still recognize how difficult it is for me to invent new steps. But as I said, thing very much improved over the time. Still I lack the easiness to solve new things. Before my sickness, I just played around a bit and solved things quickly and in an easy manner. That is still lacking. But I am sure that this will also improve. 

Shoes

I always have reported if something doesn’t work or function properly. Then one day I have consciously recognized how difficult it is for my daughter to put on her shoes. There I recognized how many things we always take for granted. I never had any difficulties putting on shoes. I always took that for granted. But now after recognizing how difficult that process is for my daughter, I recognized of how many sub-processes such a process is made. And all that was not damaged in my case.

And another great event …

And another great event has happened to me. I can now again access parts of my memory that I thought that they were lost for ever. Within a couple of days things now became accessible that I thought that they were lost for ever. I often tried to access that knowledge but until now I did not find any mean to find a way to access that knowledge.  What did happen? I had do delete files from my FTP-account. I gave the name “vrtainment-||||” to this files. Creating and working with the files was no problem. But after a couple of days I had decided to delete the files on my FTP server. But that I couldn’t. The FTP server always said that it can’t find the files. Normally that would have been the end of my knowledge. But all of a sudden the command “del” came into my mind. I didn’t have success with that. Then there is the next “sudden”. I found the command “rm”. At the beginning this didn’t work, because I had to delete a set of directories. Then the next “sudden” event. It came into my mind that I have to use a flag that allows me to remove all directories. The flag is “rm –r vrtainment-||||“. And it was working!!! Before my sickness that was every day business for me. But after my sickness I couldn’t find a way to access that part of my brain. I tried almost every day to get there. But there was no way. Nothing that I tried did work. I thought that this part of my knowledge was lost forever. But now finally parts of them are there again!!! Of course these are only parts of my knowledge, but it is there again. It took me four years to get there again. It seems like I had to learn reading and writing again before I could access that part of my brain.   

Condition at the moment

The last half year many things improved very much. It is still far away from what I was able to do before I got sick. But now I am almost sure that I will manage that all. As I say, there was a time when I had my doubts that I manage all that. Of course, the most important thing is that I am relatively healthy (as far as I can say). But as well I have always been competitive with my current situation. I wanted to get to a point at which I am happy with the working of my brain. Of course, it wouldn’t have been a tragic if I wouldn’t have managed that. I am sure that I would have found another solution to manage my life in a different way. There are still many things to do. But now I am confident that I will manage many of those things. I was good to be patient and always try to work on improvements and never give up. As I said before, the most import things is / was that I got my live as a present for my self. 

Colors

I still have difficulties to name colors. Of course humans give different names to colors. But at least for the basic colors this is normally consistent. I mean here “red”, “green”, “blue” and “yellow”. In terms of physiology I correctly see the colors. But naming the colors correctly is still a problem. Especially when I do something else on the side or if I am not concentrated very many errors happen to me. As soon as I fully concentrate on the task this improves very much.

Seven days

I still have difficulties with the days of a week. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I can speak it without any problem, but I still have difficulties with assigning the correct day. So e.g. I know that something happened on Friday, but I assign Wednesday. The current status is that if I am concentrated, everything goes almost well. But as soon as I am not concentrated or I do something else at the same time I run into those difficulties. It is like I lost the semantic meaning of a day. It is really strange. A week has only seven days, but that is enough to run me into trouble.

Games with math

Currently I am doing a lot of games with math in my brain. For instance I take a number  “23” and then I have to consider with number I have to take to reach “100”. In this case the solution is “77”. The whole thing is very good for me, since apart from math also my memory is improved, since I am doing everything in my head. You can take every number that you want the task is just to do the addition. So e.g. I take the number “137“ and then I have to add something to get to “339“. The result in that case is “202”. That is a lot of fun and it also means a good exercise for my brain. 

Shopping in the supermarket

At the beginning of my sickness I barely went shopping. I would have got stuck by the many things you have to do in a supermarket. Especially my memory was very, very weak. But by the time it all became much better. At the beginning I always went to the same supermarket. By the time more and more things went into my brain. I barely took a list with me of what I should shop. I tried to keep everything in the brain. Usually I take a basic set of things every time, i.e. I always shop the same. But at the same time I get a couple of things a new. So I always have a mix, i.e. things which I always shop the same and things which are a new. After some time I also began shopping in different supermarkets. After some time I recognized that this is a good training for my brain. It is kind of exhausting, but very helpful. And every time I go things are getting better a bit. Sometimes I go shopping by bicycle, sometimes alone, sometimes with other people and sometimes now with my daughter. This is very exhausting for me on the one hand, but on the other hand me helps me to make many things at the same time. And very day I get a bit further with my progress …

Writing

I have bought my daughter a blackboard for writing and painting. This is for drawing and painting with chalk and on the other side for drawing with magnetic characters. Of course this is not only for my daughter, but as well for me. Writing on a blackboard is something completely different from writing on a PC. When drawing with the magnetic characters I made the following observation. When I am not allowed to see the characters, only to feel them, it is very difficult for me.

Thoughts and Speech

If I read the following lines, then I recognize very often that my world of thoughts and my doing are two different things. In my thoughts I count “105.htm“, but my doing is saying “106.htm“. Who wins, is a mixture of 50 % 50.  It depends a bit on what I concentrate. But the fact is that the two things don’t fit together.

Headword

If I read a text and I note some headwords on the side, then already after a couple of minutes I and not able to recover the text form that few keywords. I see the keywords, but I can’t remember what I was trying to express. That happens to everyone, but for most people it is the case that they can recover the text for a few keywords. But for me that is impossible. Once I have lost the text in my mind, I am not able to recover that from the keywords. Only if I learn by hart for a couple of minutes (repeating several times), then I finally have a chance.

Writing with chalk

With some time I will again try again with chalk. That fits quite well since my daughter also starts with doing characters and numbers. During my sickness I always did writing with the computer. But I think it will be quite helpful to do it with chalk for a period. Writing with the PC is very nice, but I think that the motor aspects of my writing need some more practice. I hope that my understanding of language gets improved by that. Of course it is more exhausting than writing with my PC, but as I say it might improve my language understanding. You not only press a key but I have to deal with the whole character.

Trouser

When I dress a trouser it very often happens that I put it on in the wrong direction, so the back is on the front side. This is not only the case for short trousers, but there I get it very often. I seems like I have a general tendency to change the sites. The some accounts also for shorts and t-shirts.

Math in my head

I already have mentioned several times that I count up- and downward on my mind. The same also accounts also for simple math. In the meantime that already is quite good. But two things got my attention in the last couple of weeks. One thing is that if I change the type of calculation, say I start with adding numbers and then I do some division then I am running into difficulties. So for instance I start with 13 + 17 = ? and then I go for a division like 36 / 4, then it take very long for my brain to switch to division. If I then do for a time only division it goes very well. The second thing which I recognized is the following: If I do arithmetic operation like 30 + 9 that goes quite well. But as soon as I have to exchange numbers to 9 + 30 I am running into trouble until I get the result.

Baltic Sea

We were for some days at the Baltic Sea. For the first time since I became sick I was able to live without trouble in such a mass of people. Normally I am within a couple of minutes I am completely overwhelmed. Normally if I see many people and if I am at a new place my information processing gets into a bottleneck. By the lots of information my information processing is completely overwhelmed. This became better now. I now can move under a crowed of people. Of course there are still many bottlenecks in information processing, but at least it is now possible again!

New Web-Design

New Web-Design of this pages.

News

At the 11.08.2009 was the fourth anniversary of my Aneurysm. And it is beautiful to still be a part of this world.
In the last couple of month I did a lot of HTML and Javascript. It is still very difficult and very slow in creating documents, but it is getting better every day. Slow, but constant. Now I also began with C++. So far I was trying it every month, but without success. But now I am finally at the point that I understand enough to get it working again. Very simple programs, and progress is very, very slow, but finally after four years I managed it. Still very slow, but I have made it. It seems like I have lost most of my knowledge, but at least there is a vague idea about what programming is. And this step means a lot for me. That is really SUPER!!! In the new couple of month I will report about this on: http://www.vrtainment.de/vrtainment/html/software/software.htm

Numbers, Numbers and more Numbers

A couple of month ago I thought that I am done with numbers. But there I was wrong. Easy numbers in the range from zero to nine is no problem. But as soon as I need numbers larger than this I am running into troubles. Especially with numbers with more than two digits. I guess it had to do with the lack of memory of my brain. Due to the lack of memory I was always forced to enumerate the numbers digit by digit. It make it clearer here is the following example: we have the digit 123. So far I had do name digit by digit. So we have "1" then "3" and then "2". Please remember that the order of numbers is different in German. Now I am able to pronounce the numbers in a different way. I now take the one and then "twenty-three". In German it is pronounced "eins" and then "drei-und-zwanzig". But that also means that I need to have "99" numbers in my memory. This was so far not possible, but now it is. It is quite crazy, I do that now for 3 1/2 years and I couldn't get it working. But now it is possible!!!!

As soon as I do something else on the site (apart from the numbers), I am still running into trouble. It can then happen that I am thinking a different number in my brain from the one I name. In a sense it is not synchronized. 

I have achieved another step. I now can correctly name numbers!!! 

Math

As I described yesterday I still have difficulties dealing with speaking and writing numbers. As soon as I switch to a non speaking mode, it is now getting quite ok. Every day, if I am going for a walk with our dog, I do some math exercises. Sometimes I only count up and down and sometimes I am doing basic math. So for example: 234 + 141= 375. These are five things I have to remember. The three digits, equal sign and the arithmetic operator. And it is getting better and better. I am getting used to numbers in my environment. I am doing all four arithmetic operators: plus, minus, multiply and dividing.

Web-Pages

In the last couple of month I have done quite a lot with my web-pages. At the beginning it was very difficult, but in the meantime it is getting quite ok. Most of the time I have been working in "Frontpage". Only a few pages I did with "Macromedias Dreamweaver". This was especially then the case if I needed the connection with "Javascript". I have been working on the following projects:

Field of View

At the beginning of my disease this was impossible. There it was a hard job to read the single characters. In the meantime I can switch between different sized field of views relatively fast. This was something I couldn't do at the beginning. My understanding of the text and the speed of reading became much better.

Programming in C++

Finally I have managed it to code in C++ again. This was one of my biggest wishes. Once a month I have tried to do it, but I always failed. Now I can do it again. That was one of my biggest wishes. Much of my previous knowledge was lost or I cannot access it. But the feeling is still there. And that is worth a lot. At the moment I can only write simplest programs and I have to search the Internet for example programs on how to solve things. But it is an new beginning! I started to write about my programming attempts in "http://www.vrtainment.de/vrtainment/html/software/software.htm".   

Memory

In the meantime the short-term memory is quite ok again. As well the long-term memory seems quite ok. At the beginning of my sickness I couldn't access it at all, but now it is "normal". However I still have difficulties with the mid-term memory. The mid-term memory became also much better, but it is still the most affected part of my brain. If I for example have to botch my bicycle the following things need to be done: I have to demount the bike, botch the leakage and then I have to remount the bike again. Every step in that work process consists of many small steps. At the moment it is not possible for me to see this as a whole process. I have to divide it into many small steps. As well I can't see that all the steps belong together. In a sense I am living in a short term world. In general my memory is improving every day. Of course these are only small steps, but it is continuous.   

Memory

In the meantime the short-term memory is quite ok again. As well the long-term memory seems quite ok. At the beginning of my sickness I couldn't access it at all, but now it is "normal". However I still have difficulties with the mid-term memory. The mid-term memory became also much better, but it is still the most affected part of my brain. If I for example have to botch my bicycle the following things need to be done: I have to demount the bike, botch the leakage and then I have to remount the bike again. Every step in that work process consists of many small steps. At the moment it is not possible for me to see this as a whole process. I have to divide it into many small steps. As well I can't see that all the steps belong together. In a sense I am living in a short term world. In general my memory is improving every day. Of course these are only small steps, but it is continuous.   

End of medicaments

In the follow up of my aneurysm I had an epileptic seizure. Starting from this point in time I had to take medicaments. I took the medicaments for about three years. Now, finally after nine month of time in reducing the medicaments, I managed to stop the medicaments. 

Very much happened in the last couple of month. Hopefully I will find the time in the near future to write that all down.  

... starting to work agin ...