Amazing Day

Nothing special going on in my neck of the woods...but today was anything but ordinary across the world.

I am in awe of and quite humbled by the courage of the millions of Iraqi voters, who risked their lives and the well-being of their families by voting. There are lots of problems, some will improve and some will get worse...but watching millions of Iraqis give a big FUCK YOU to the terrorists, to those who threatened to behead the voters and their families...I am speechless. The courage and grace of the people of this nation is inspiring.

She Did It!

Links

Truly Inspirational

More Inspiration

Euphoria

I left my polling station because I didn't want to wait in line (did get back to it later). I don't want to leave my home when it's raining, snowing, etc. I don't think I'd have the courage to walk a mile, wait in line, put my finger in ink- proving that I'd voted- under similar circumstances. Add that to the lack of security, water, electricity...one thing is true. Freedom is powerful. I take so much for granted...

And for God's sake, someone please shut up John Kerry. What comes next is for tomorrow. He's like the Dad who is never happy with the "b+", always asking why not the A? It's possible to disagree with the war but still be happy for the Iraqis today. If you can't find something in your heart that resonates with what happened today, please just keep your mouth shut!

Rarity

This almost never happens: here I sit, bored at work, even with time to blog, waiting for 5 pm. Usually I'm lucky just to get a minute to check email!

Of course, there's tons of things that I could do...but just don't wanna. Down-time is necessary, ya know?

Still, I notice that I rarely blog about my job, as in, what goes on in the job. Which isn't good, because then I only complain about how tired I am, worn out, etc., blah blah blah. It's all true...but it's also true that I really enjoy what I do.

For instance. The past few weeks have been all about recruiting subjects into my studies. Our two current studies involve people with traumatic brain injury (or TBI), usually received during a car accident, a fall, or a fight.

Most often (about 80% of the time) brain injuries are "mild", which is to say that there is no or little loss of consciousness, nothing shows up on the CT scans in the ER. Patients get checked out in the ER, they may be held overnight for observation, then they are sent home. They get little information about the injury, as it is just assumed that they will recover quickly and get back to normal (baseline, in our terms) with 1-30 days. And often, that is exactly what happens.

Sometimes, however, they go home, and get worse. Sometimes they don't get worse for a while- 1 to 3 months after injury. They go to their general physician, who might check the ER records, see that nothing was wrong according to the CT scans, and decide that whatever is happening either has nothing to do with the TBI, or has everything to do with the litigation that is usually occurring due to whatever caused the TBI.

Certainly, there are some people who fake or malinger an illness in an attempt to get some $$$$ out of the accident/assault. However, there are also people who suffer a dramatic loss of cognitive ability, and often depression, anxiety, or other mood, behavioral, and/or emotional problems develop.

We posit that the reason behind this has to do with the injury itself. In some injuries, especially "closed" head injuries (e.g., the skull is not harmed), the brain (which sort of "floats" in fluid inside the skull) gets shaken. Brain cells can get torn, sheared, and this releases neurochemical reactions, which in turn sets of different chains of neurochemical imbalances. Sometimes this process, which is caused by an initial harm to the brain, creates further damage to the brain. We theorize that this is why someone may appear to be fine directly after the injury, but may deteriorate later as the neurochemical chain reactions create disturbance and harm more brain cells.

Is it true? Maybe. It certainly doesn't happen with everyone- most people with mild TBI do recover just fine, and often quite fast.

However, take Pt X. We saw her a few weeks ago, and she came in yesterday to get her brain scan. She is a middle-aged woman who was a high-powered State official, very smart, sharp, ambitious. A year and a half ago, she was in a car accident. She had a brief loss of consciousness, but suffered only a few bruised ribs. Her CT scan in the ER was negative (nothing unusual showed up), so she was sent home. She went back to work, but about 2 weeks in things started to go wrong. She lost her short term memory; she became extremely disorganzied; she could barely finish one task at a time, let alone keep track of more than one. She became depressed and extremely anxious, and had to stop working.

When we saw her the first time, her son told me about her house: papers everywhere, because she would take a paper, begin to put it "away", forget what she was doing, put the paper down, pick up another paper, and do the same thing; a drawer with 8 new can openers in it because she kept forgetting that she'd already bought one; she'd lost her driver's license eight times and the State was resisting giving her another one. Her friends held all of her important papers (checkbooks, appointment books, etc), because she kept losing everything. I sat with him and told him about TBI, what happens, why we think the effects occur, etc. As he was getting ready to leave he became overcome with emotion and gave me a huge hug, saying "You have no idea how helpful this has been!"

Basically, she had gone from being a strong, independent, highly competent woman to a lost, depressed, anxious, confused, dependant woman in a mere 600 days. Because she'd presented as fine directly after the accident, she was unable to get short or long term disability from the State, and her litigation process was being strung out. Was she malingering for the litigation?

We were able to get an answer to that yesterday, when she came in for her scan. The NP and I, and another psychiatrist, gathered around the MRI tech as the first images appeared on the screen. The first images in our protocol are always taken from above the head, as if we were looking down. Something seemed a little off. The tech switched views to the "back" shot, as if were looking from the back of the head.

We all feel silent in disbelief. She had lost a lot, and I mean a LOT, of brain mass. Her brain more closely resembled a late stage Alzheimer's patient- the outer layers of her brain, associated with thinking, exectuive functioning (complex tasks like concentration, attention, problem solving) was severely limited.

The thing about it is, this was a huge amount of cell loss in a very short period of time. Usually, it takes years, up to a decade or sometimes longer, to get to this stage. Only 600 days ago she was arguing State cases, running a cut-throat, competitive department.

Questions: does she have Alzheimers or dementia in her family history? No.

Do we have any indication that her functioning was declining before the accident? No, but we only have family reports to go by.

Could the accident have accelerated a dementing (brain withering) process that was already underway but still undetected before the accident? Ah, a million dollar research question!

Like most research studies, we weren't able to answer the BIG questions, and in fact only found more big questions to ask.

But one thing is for certain: she isn't malingering. She isn't going to get back to baseline. The best thing to do is treat the mood disorder and try to encourage her to get into some kind of structured care.

Hopefully, she'll be able to afford it, because no one with any integrity could look at those brain scans and think that she isn't disabled.

The funny thing is, people rarely get scans more than a month or two after the injury. The first CT scans are all that they get- why spend the $$$ to get another one, the thinking goes. But this is the second (of 8 subjects so far) where we found something wrong, when there wasn't anything wrong the first time around.

Of course, we can't say for certain that the things that we've found are due to the accident. We would have to design a diffent study to look into this.

However, there's more to learn. And at least in two cases, we've found some information that will help the patient.

Ah, now it's 5:25. Love the blog.

Enjoy the weekend!

Don't look!!! Scarey!!!!

Argh

Steelers. Blah. What a brutal game.

Oh well. This is the first loss I've watched all season (I was overseas for the first Baltimore game)- and it sucked. But it was a grand, grand season overall.

So for the family: Go Eagles!

Adrenaline

It's started already: the increased heart rate, the nervous energy, the slightly nauseous feeling of excitement.

Football. Conference Championship. My team is in it. Only a few more hours til game time. I'm up for the Eagles-Falcons game as well...go Eagles! This is for my dad, a die-hard Eagles fan. Obviously I want the Steelers to win the late game. A PA Super Bowl would be great! I think the Steelers have a much harder game today than the Eagles...I've been here before with my team, going up against the Patriots, in Heinz Field, and I still remember clearly the Fog Bowl in New England a few years back (okay, nearly ten years back). In my decade of watching football, the Steelers haven't been able to get past the Pats in the big games.

Well, it's been a season of breaking records for the Steelers, including the Pat's record winning streak. Here's hoping that the Steelers break another one of their records today (Brady's and Belichick's perfect record in the playoffs with the Pats).

Time to go shovel my car out and head to the Purple Goose...GO STEELERS!!!

Update

The car is shovelled out, but I am staying home. Parking is hell. I will never get a spot at 10 pm tonight- it's hard enough to find parking here (Charles Village) in clear weather, and a walk around the block has convinced me that it will be impossible later tonight. Home for the game. Guess I'll have to make a lot of noise to make up for it and hope that the Steelers get past the Patriots tonight so I can go to the Goose for the Super Bowl! GO STEELERS!!!

Out of Exile

At last, at last- back online at home! For the first time in the new year I am blogging happily, toasty and warm, inside. It's been a long five weeks of being internet free- what a huge pain to switch providers. But it's all behind now, I hope!

So, what's been happening...

The Best Friend has been standing up, as usual. It looks like her study at Hopkins is getting closed down, and so she is interviewing today for the job I've been trying to fill at my consulting job. The boss there says that I have a major say in who gets the position, and she is definately the top choice- not only because she's the Best Friend, but because she is a fantastic worker, totally dedicated, and I have no doubt whatsoever that she will do a grand job in my place. It really is about who you know, sometimes- to both get a job and fill a job.

If she takes the job, I can begin to relax my Hopkins schedule and possibly get it into some sort of "normal" shape, like getting home at 6 or 7 pm instead of 8 or 9 each night.

Which in turn should help bolster the social life.

Actually, the social life has been somewhat amusing as of late. The dating thing is back on for both me and the Best Friend. Between the two of us, we've experienced some pretty funny events. The best so far was the Saturday night in Fells Point about three weeks ago. Best Friend was feeling down, so we thought a night out flirting was in order.

If I haven't mentioned this before, BF is drop dead gorgeous. She is nearly six feet tall and model-thin, with long dark hair and Irish fair skin with huge blue eyes and a perfect straight nose. It would be extremely easy to seethe with jealousy when standing in her shadow, but her kindness and generosity counteract any such feelings. And also the fact that she's outrageously funny, and it's hard to be hateful when you're falling off your barstool in laughter.

So it was no surprise that upon walking into the Wharf Rat she was immediately surrounded by guys. We sat down next to two guys at the bar, and before we were even settled down there were beers in front of us (side benefits of going out with someone like BF). She focused in on one guy- very cute guy- and his friend came over to talk with me.

Now. Here is my entire dating history explained in this one night interaction. My guy was a perfectly nice fellow. He was tall, blonde, a bit dorkish, a physics major and an IT guy (somehow every single guy I've met lately is in IT). He told me he was divorced with two daughters, and happily showed me their pictures which he kept in his wallet. He said he'd finally gotten back on track financially since the divorce, and that he also finally felt like he was back on his feet careerwise and in his personal life. He didn't seem to have any hang-ups, was a little shy, said "If it wasn't for [his friend] I would never have managed to talk to someone like you." Just a generally decent guy, didn't try to get close or do anything sneaky. He seemed like s solid, stable, stand up person.

So of course, I wasn't interested. Not at all. I took on the role of "wing man" and tried to keep him occupied without giving him the impression that I was interested in him. We watched playoff football, even though he wasn't into football. We talked about his career and kids, while BF and his friend, who I'll refer to as Guy 1, hit it off.

And they really hit it off. Guy 1 was the interesting one- he was an ex-marine who was now a pacifist; he used to be a minister but left the church. He looked like a cute loner guy who'd gone through some shit and was working it all out. He'd travelled half the world and was eager to keep on going to see the rest of it. BF is well-travelled also, and they were deep in conversation about India, Hong Kong, politics.

Eventually, we all left the Wharf Rat and went to Coopers. BF and Guy 1 went wandering off, leaving me and my guy on our own. I asked him why Guy 1 left the church. It turns out that two years ago he'd been in a bad car wreck, and was a traumatic brain injury survivor. He'd been okay physicially but was a mess mentally (which is very common). He returned to Maryland to try to heal, and the church more or less booted him for leaving. So the story goes.

"Well, he seems to be doing better now! He and [BF] seem to be getting along pretty well."

A strange, tormented look came over my guy's face. Then, slowly, he continued the story:

"The worst thing about it was that they just cut him off, no income, no benefits, he was unable to work, and his wife was 8 months pregnant!"

I blinked. "Wife? What happened to his wife and kid?"

"Nothing happened to them. They're still here."

"He has a wife and kid?"

"Well, two kids, actually."

"Then what is he doing with [BF]????"

Pained looked. "I don't know. I've never seen him do this before, and we've been friends since elementary school."

I whipped out my phone and sent a text: "HE'S MARRIED!!!!"

I thanked him for telling me, and he just shrugged. Soon afterwards, BF and Guy 1 came back into the bar. They were laughing, and his arm was around her shoulder. He left briefly and I leaned towards and said, "Check your phone."

"Did you try to call me? I didn't hear it ring."

"Just check it."

She did. Death look. Rage. Guy 1 came back over but was cut short by the pure evil shooting out of her eyes.

Guy 1 got it immediately. "I guess I should have told you."

"TOLD ME WHAT?" BF snapped.

At that point, Guy 1 walked towards the back of the bar, I said goodnight to my guy, and we left.

We stepped outside, and both of us burst into laughter. Of course! Of course it would turn out like this! I have a chance to talk to an honest, decent guy- decent enough to clue me into the bad behavior of his friend, even though he knew that it would end the night early and that it would tick his friend off- but can't get interested, while BF does get interested but target turns out to be a total bag of dirt, a low down filthy cheater. We went back to the Wharf Rat, had a beer, and laughed about the whole thing for the rest of the night.

The dating game is an adventure, for certain, with plenty of pitfalls, mines, and traps, but with the potential for a huge payoff if you have the heart and persistence. At least that's how I'm determined to look at it.

Meanwhile, I've been sticking to the online thing. It's been somewhat quiet, namely because I've been offline. But I have met two interesting guys so far- both military IT guys.

One is the Just My Type guy mentioned previously. We met up again last night. It's scarey- he really IS Just My Type. Not sure what to call him here- IT guy is getting a bit ahead of the game, and JMT is dull, and Typical is apt, obviously, as far as my guys go, but in general I don't think he's your average guy. I guess I'll go with WIT, since he's got a sharp and fast sense of humor, and it fits with his occupation.

WIT rocks. He is one of two guys for whom I've initiated contact (the other was the Spy, who emails/texts me on occasion. It's a shame he lives in VA or I'd work on seeing him more often). WIT's profile got my attention- it was really funny (although he later emailed me warning that his wit was sometimes as sharp as a bowling ball and could land just as heavy). He is up front and honest- after our first meeting he wrote me that he didn't sense any sparks, "I don't know if we're made of the same stuff," but that he had a great time and wanted to hang out again. That could be taken offensively, but I prefer it. I like that he was honest and just wrote his experience.

I don't know if WIT and I will go anywhere with dating, but I do hope to at least recruit him into my circle of friends. He is damned funny, whip-smart, with the Catholic guilt-defiance-cynicism twist, and would fit in well with my crew. We have similar thoughts on dating and relationships, which is refreshing and unexpected. He feels comfortable to me, very easy to talk to, we see eye to eye on several issues like politics, movies, and seems to like the same kind of hang-out places. I've enjoyed talking, emailing, and hanging out with him.

Still, I don't have the urge to get closer to him, and he hasn't made any moves to get closer, either. There was no sense of excitement or anticipation, or anything even close to a kiss. On the other hand, this was only a second date, so that's probably a good, adult, mature thing. I definately would like to hang out with him some more, though. It's a wait and see thing, I guess.

The second guy (also a military IT guy) got me interested because he's a fine writer and- one of my sucker points- a Steelers fan. We met for the first time in the uber-Steelers bar, The Purple Goose in Arbutus, to watch the heart-stopper Steelers-Jets game. That was an intense meeting, due to the game. He got there early with his friends and saved seats for the Best Friend and me.

He strikes me as being a real sweetheart. He's very into football, and so am I, and he and his friends welcomed BF and I easily. It was soooo much fun to hang with Steeler fans- knowledgable, smart guys, who accepted me and my football rants seemingly without a thought.

He started off well, too, by taking a non-leering look at me and asking, "Has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like Phobe Cates?" The BF answered, "Yes!!" (which is true, actually, even though I think it's quite a stretch).

The Purple Goose just rocks. There had to be over 200 Steeler fans in there, all in the Black and Gold glory (including the BF and I- we had on jerseys and had our Terrible Towels). It was loud and crazy and fantastic.

However, I didn't get much of an opportunity to get to know this guy. He's cute- tall, strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes, fit. He rather endearingly grabbed my hand when our kicker was up for the game-winning OT field goal.

He topped the night off by taking both the BF and I out to dinner. We were all far too exhausted from the game to do much, besides talk about the game. I did ask him some questions about himself, and he was good and didn't hog the conversation or keep the spotlight on him. He was gracious to both of us.

I'm going to see him tonight. He got tickets to a stand-up show, and dinner reservations. And, of course, we are all going to meet up again at the Purple Goose, for what will either be a crushing defeat or a glorious game gaining entrance to the Super Bowl. I'm planning on the former but hoping for the latter.

Right now, both guys are on the Three Date Rule. Barring any egregious behavior or warning signs, all decent guys get three dates. After three dates, it's decision time. This, of course, depends on them wanting to see me three times, but so far it's worked out fairly well.

I have to say, though, that this purposeful dating thing is weird. It still feels like a new experience, new territory. It's been fun so far, though, so I'll keep on keeping on.

Hah. No blog for ages, and now a huge spurge of a blog entry. It is so lovely to be back online!

8 am. Time to go to work. Then it's the weekend! Hurrah!!!!!!!!

Brrr.

Well, the only downside of the year so far has been an annoying wait to get back online, as the house awaits the installation of a cable modem. I am down to sitting outside and using some unsecured line on my work laptop. This may bode ill but I'm hoping for the best.

Not much to blog about. Gone on two dates (in one day, nonetheless!). Both were quite nice. Can't get too excited about anything at this point. I'm not really sure I'm up for the whole dating thing, although also don't want to ignore an opportunity to meet new people. One was just for coffee during the day (a fellow Hopkins employee, although he is a lot higher up than I am), and one was for dinner.

Actually, one of the guys is just my type- smart, witty, tall, cute, is up for just meeting for a beer or two, hanging out. At this point, Just My Type is a red flag, even though he seems perfectly nice. What do you do when you KNOW that if you like him, it's probably a bad thing? Yeah, maybe I should just shelve the dating thing for a while...sigh.

Yeah, right. When I have I ever really shelved the dating thing when a cute guy was available and so was I? Never. It's a weakness, it must be.

Work is back in full swing, and I am once again back to seriously thinking about what else I might want to do with this life. All hours in the hospital just isn't appealing, even if it is interesting and worthwhile. So, where to go from here?

It's definately the question of the moment. It's a good question, full of possibilities and promise. I don't have to live this way if I don't want to, and I no longer want to. I've been reading this link from Messy Hair Girl, and thinking back to when I got home from Ireland. That was four months ago, and despite my thoughts then, very little has actually changed in my life. The New Year is already a week old, and there is no time like the present. Time to get things rolling!!!

Higher Resolution

Well, the friends have gone home to Pittsburgh, Philly, Tallahasee, and the northwest corner of Baltimore City. I have a happy but trashed apartment to take care of, and a few minutes to blog before starting to clean house and start cooking for the rest of the week.

This has been a magnificent holiday season. I was very fortunate to have the people outside of my immediate family about whom I care the most with me for New Years(well, minus the Artist, who is in New Orleans taking care of Biker Boy who was in a motorcycle accident, hurt and needs help, but overall okay). .

I am so very glad to be in 2005.

Things to Do in 2005:
-make some real decisions re: career & school
-continue the road to fiscal solidity (its a long, long road!)
-stop smoking (so far, so good).
-continue to get mind/heart clear re: the Ex.
-continue to meet more people (the blogging community has been great for this- I met two very cool bloggers last year and it's a fine trend to continue).
-return to healthy diet/lower weight of last Spring
-and, of course, blog more.

Overall, though, all the items focus on one thing: getting my life more clear, more in synch with how I'd like it to be. I learned lots of things last year, but two are primary: 1. Only I am responsible for how things are going in my life (can't blame it on the boyfriend, the job, the family, etc and hope to make anything good come of it) and 2. I have some solid, wonderful friends who were there when needed, and I really want to take care of those relationships!

So in a nutshell, more clarity, more action, and I hope, a lot of fun!!!

Happy New Year, all!

2005 Hurrah!

Tis a glorious thing. Home with my best friends in the world, and my sister, hanging out to bring in the New Year. Just excellent.

Very pleased to be done with 2004. What a year. Over, thank god!!!

Brain is not functioning well. Hopefully will return to improved capacity soon...