

Diagram of My Post Concussive Syndrome Speech Disorder: A Malfunctioning Word Queue - rjurney
http://www.memestreams.net/users/jello/blogid10335566/
Last Monday I was in a car accident and suffered a severe concussion that didn't manifest symptoms for 24 hours (weird, I know). Since then I've periodically lost the ability to speak. I go from normal speech to slurring, to mute. Its being looked at, but the reason I made this thread is because... I realized that it is exactly like TCP packets overloading the sliding window, or a web server with limited resources getting too many requests: overload the throughput on the queue and everything after that is lost.<p>So I made a diagram tonight when I had a bad episode to prove I can still think.<p>When things are bad, and I fill the shrunken word queue, I can't speak until it self empties. Full empty seems to take between 30 seconds and one minute, and seems to happen at a linear rate. However, if I limit myself to the actual word queue/minute throughput, I can speak continuously for a longer period. Normal speed speech very quickly fills the queue though.<p>Strange, but accurate. If my mind is a Turing Machine, my word queue is malfunctioning and is too small to hold enough words to speak normally.
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patio11
Few experiences of my life were as frustrating as the times when part of my
brain was on the fritz and I possessed enough introspection to say "This
behavior is not normal!" but wasn't capable of correcting it.

Example: Back in high school I once got severely ill with drug-resistant
something-or-other and got put through the ringer for a month, eventually
getting moved on and off four different antibiotics, including two which
included the side-effect "mildly psychotropic".

I was a very quiet guy in high school. Bit of an introvert -- had some close
friends, kept my emotions in check, generally did not run through the hallways
singing Christmas carols at the top of my lungs. Except there were presents
out for Give-a-thon and presents mean Christmas and Christmas means I'M SO
HAPPY hey that was loud DECK THE HALLS.

After running a the length of a football field to biology I burst in the door
and saw a rather pretty female classmate who I had, perhaps, spoken two words
to in four years. She said "Oh, Patrick, nice to see you back in school." "ITS
GREAT TO SEE YOU TOO KATIE. _tackle hug_ THIS IS NOT LIKE ME AT ALL IS IT."

It felt... I don't even know how to describe it. Like my normally tightly-
functioning sense of self-control was on, operating, and evaluating things
perfectly normally and I was appalled with my own behavior and yet that was
totally unconnected to _me_ at the same time.

I also had another incident in middle school where I had full control of my
faculties but _could not stop laughing_ for about an hour during a history
lecture. This was despite the fact that it was disturbing the Civil War re-
enactors who were explaining, e.g., that gangrene smells like nutmeg. (That
set off a gale even though I thought "thats not funny" and moreover "that is
monstrous to laugh at".) I excused myself to the bathroom and spent the better
part of an hour with my brain terrified to go back to class for fear of what I
would do and the rest of me laughing at the patterns cracks made on the toilet
walls.

And then a switch flipped and I was me again.

~~~
rjurney
I'm not flipping out or anything. It was scary at first, now its just
annoying.

------
uuilly
I played ice hockey since I could walk until I turned 21. At the end of my
senior year in HS I was getting mildly recruited to play in college. I got a
bad concussion when a guy but-ended me in the chin w/ his stick. I was out
cold but went back to playing a few days later b/c I didn't want to loose my
chance. I started getting concussions from mild hits and I ended the season w/
about 4.

The worst was the nausea and the headaches. A few times I went completely deaf
and a few others I lost peripheral vision. Every time I would forget basic
words and common phone numbers (pre-cellphone.) It was incredibly frustrating
but I think it's worse in your head than in reality. You actually don't need
to talk fast and effectively to be a competent human. Take a few weeks and go
really slow. Make it a goal to just get by. You'll be normal before you know
it. No doubt get the EEG's and MRI's just to make sure, but chances are you
just have to ride it out. While your experiments are fascinating I think
they'll drive you nuts in the end. Load up your netflix and relax. Hope you
feel better soon...

~~~
chriskelley
I'm a rugby player and unfortunately concussions in our sport are a far too
often occurrence.

In the spirit of HN, this season our training staff required us to get
baseline concussion tests done before the season began to keep an eye on
everyone and gauge severity and recovery time more accurately. It's a software
based tool that they boot up on the sidelines when needed that uses a few
different cognitive tests to determine the next steps to take as far as
treatment is concerned, and each player does a initial "baseline" test before
the season so on-field results are relative to the player.

If anyone is interested in reading more, the company also has some good
resources for treatment and diagnosis on their site.
<http://www.impacttest.com/concussionresource.php>

"Back in the day" they used to just give us the ol' "what day is it?"
question, which, as everyone knows is easy - if I'm wearing rugby gear, it
must be a Saturday! (Just don't ask me the date).

Take care of yourself, you only get one brain!

------
rjurney
Update:

After 2 CTs, an MRI of my brain, and an MRA of my head and neck, and an
ultrasound of my carotid arteries... conclusion is that its all just symptoms
of a concussion from the double impact of the accident.

The slurring has gradually improved, as have my attentiveness, word recall,
and memory. Headaches actually got worse after my last post, and it was really
effecting my ability to work, but after weeks of monkeying with different
drugs with my neurologist, we finally arrived at a combination low-dose
tricyclic anti-depressant (no longer used for sad folks, now used at lower
doses for pain management) for the daily pain, and a triptan for the bad ones.
So the headaches are under control which is a great relief. When I have a bad
one, between the 'aura' and the triptan I feel like I'm on, or coming off acid
but its so much better than the pain and I can still work.

The aphasia happened as recently as last week (word queue 5 big), but seems to
be strongly connected with exhaustion as I was going on no sleep and it was
the first attack in a week.

All in all, it was a painful and costly recovery but I'm mostly better. And I
think I learned a lot about how my brain works in parallel. It was very
strange, and educational to have some parts work and others not.

------
SouthFulcrum
Now I feel like shit for not renting a car and bringing you pie.

~~~
rjurney
All my brain needs is pie.

------
rjurney
Update: Pretty much all better, except for headaches that I have to take a
pill daily to suppress.

------
diN0bot
let us know how it turns out or if the plot thicks. i'm curious as to what's
going on.

~~~
rjurney
Will do. I thought I was better this morning until it hit me again with a
vengeance. Doctor tomorrow. Neurologist Monday. Should have more data and
better chart soon :)

