Impact on Cognitive Function

And then when I talked to people, I searched for words in my head. I’d lose words. I started losing words. And like the Arabic translation for “friend,” there’s two, there’s two words for “friend.” And which was the most appropriate in this conversation I was searching for and I can see them written in my brain, but I could not extract it out of the brain. And I could not articulate. So, I was losing my language, my languages. And I kept losing more and more.

So, I went through a year of cognitive therapy, a year of vestibular therapy, speech therapy. I stuttered. I did not only lose my language, but I stuttered. And the stuttering got worse. The aphasia or whatever where you search for words, even in English, it got – I mean I lost all my languages. All of them. And then English was the last to go. So, like Arabic first, then French, then Farsi, then Sign, then English. Gone.

The biggest thing for me is, I feel like today I’m having what my wife calls a moment of clarity. So, I get hung up on word finding. It’s very difficult for me, I can be talking about a desk, we can be standing in front of one, I can have my hand on it, but I can’t come up with the term for it. And then I get frustrated because I can’t get to it, and then I think, I feel like other people around me are like waiting for me to get to my point, or I lose track of something because I get focused on trying to come up with a term for something, and it makes me feel stupid. And I know, you know, I think I’m fairly intelligent. I have my bachelor degree and I graduated with honors and I never had an issue with academics before but that can be really frustrating. That and like short term memory, so - introducing, talking to people. Trying to remember names even though I’ve said it, you know, six or eight times in my head or I’ve done all the memory games where I try to associate it with something and I just, I have a really difficult time with that.  So, word finding, short term memory. 

So, there’s things, those terms, those things that I just drilled into my head back when I was on active duty, before I deployed, that I can recall. But if I’m studying for, like say for instance I just had a recent interview for promotion at my job and it’s, you know, scenario-based questions and stuff like that, so, “Tell me about a time when you did this and this and this.” And I just have the most difficult time recalling things that even happened, you know, two days ago or specific things. I work as a deputy sheriff. I’m actually assigned as a detective right now. And so, my, my partners have this uncanny ability to recall the names of all the dirt bags they’ve ever dealt with and the addresses and their girlfriends and I used to be really, really good at that and it’s just, it’s gone now, I can’t pull it up. So that’s really frustrating. 

And, and sometimes, as my wife knows, I forget. I don’t – if forget is the right word, words. What, what, what word? Well that’s what I always say. That’s what I always say, “Hey,” and I just don’t remember and it’s in there somewhere. But, but then I don’t know. And I, although I don’t – OK, I don’t think its Alzheimer’s Disease onset, because in Alzheimer’s you don’t know there is a word that means something. Even if you can’t think of the word, you don’t look for the word because it’s gone, it’s out of your life. And that’s what I have at times where, where not, not, that’s not what I have. I’m sorry. Should have said. I, I just, trying, “What is the word that means this?” Or sometimes, “You ever heard of this word?”

A lot of short-term memory issues. I probably couldn’t tell you what I had for lunch yesterday. If it’s not on my calendar, on a post-it note - extreme OCD like everything has to be, because I need to know where things are at. I park in the same parking spot every day here. If I can’t find the parking spot I park on the same row, that way I know if I just keep walking eventually I’ll find my car. So, memory issues, mood swings, inability to focus, which here isn’t so bad because the job is very fast-paced and you’re always doing a lot of different things, so that kind of benefits that I can switch from one thing to another. But like anything that requires long term focus. Like I used to be an avid reader. I used to love going to the movies. I have a hard time sitting through a full movie now because my attention just gets like, I get bored, which is the polar opposite of how I used to be. 

I was, I‘m still very intelligent, but I have a difficult time learning things anymore. I can’t, when I’m reading, after the incident. I used to like to read a lot. I, I can’t stand reading anymore because I can’t remember what I just read after I read it. That, that was a big change. So, when I was, when I opened my business and I started getting into business deals and writing contracts and everything else, it became a real disadvantage because I couldn’t understand contracts like I should have, OK. Or I’d engage in conversation and I couldn’t remember what all, everything was said because my thought process, I don’t pick up, when I’m in a conversation with someone, I don’t pick up on everything in a conversation or I, like I had here, I get, I get off on something else other than the conversation, OK. So, it became a real detriment. And, and, like with my wife, we knew, God bless her, we had a wonderful relationship. She knew something was wrong with my thinking and so she, just her blessed heart and the person she was, she became a strong point for me in that area. She could read people where I couldn’t. Because I can’t read people at all. 

I, I forget sometimes, like day-to-day schedule, when my daughter gets home from school and what her extracurricular activities are. I mean I’ll forget, you know. The, the kid that’s waiting at the soccer field three hours after practice, you know, that’s, that’s my kid. But not because I’m getting drunk, I just simply forgot. You know? So. And the nice thing is that she’s a good kid, she realizes that, she understands that her dad is a little different than everyone else’s. So, it’s tough. It’s tough. I’m, I, with the TBI I tend to not remember important things. You know, people’s birthdays and anniversaries and – you know, like my niece, I was there when she was born, but I couldn’t tell you what her birthday is. You know? And luckily my brother, he is just the coolest guy in the world as far as I know. He doesn’t care if I remember. I’m his brother, that’s the end of that, you know? Nothing will ever change that. So, but other people take it a little more seriously.

I realized that things weren’t like, thinking, processing things was a lot harder, like I couldn’t, I couldn’t remember things a lot of things. And a lot of guys, or a couple people got, you know, were kind of, kind of got, frustrated with me when I couldn’t remember something or if I couldn’t understand something. Most of the other guys, I got slapped in the head like “hey, he’s got a head injury, like leave him alone.” But, like, I felt like, I had been, I had, again I guess, I guess I kind of felt, almost instantly, a little handicapped, for some reason. Like, I, I couldn’t do the same things. I couldn’t, I didn’t have as good of balance as, you know…I had little, I had a lot of mood swings. A lot of problems with my, just different, different things like I couldn’t focus on certain emotions or anything. Like I would, it would just, I don’t know, it was all that, it was all out of whack. Just those things…

And then – kind of, yeah. Just like I’ve also – it seems like I have difficulty with like, like coding information that I hear into my brain. I mean just a minute ago, you told me the date and then like I forgot it immediately. And that seems to happen all the time, you know? More, more than a normal person or so it strikes me. And I don’t feel like I had issues like that before experiencing this. And so that’s, that’s been the, the most difficult ways. But you know, it’s kind of tough to say because I just don’t know if, if I’m just aging and you know like your memory starts to go. But at the same time, like, I feel like, I feel like for being a 26-year-old like I shouldn’t necessarily be having these problems yet.

I’ve got too much trauma. And now I don’t know if it’s affecting my, my memory, or if it’s age, but I forget things more. And it’s frustrating. I don’t like it and I’m trying to have a program of acceptance. I can’t do anything about it just by my paralysis. I’m still active, but I’m limited in what I can and can’t do. But like I say, I forget, I forget more and as one gets older, that, that tends to, you know, go with the aging. So, I mean I, I can’t blame it on my lifestyle or my, my past trauma, or age, or what; it just is. And I accept that, and go on with life, but it’s very frustrating. When I get up from watching TV, and go get another cup of coffee, or beer, or glass, you know, whatever I’m drinking, and I’m in the kitchen, “What did – what am I doing? Why did I, why did I come in here? Oh, shit.” You know, so I go back to then TV. “Oh yeah, that’s right,” you know?

But I found out – you know, here I am, you know, quite a bit of education. And you know, that line, this psychological thing. And caveman – he goes out to hunt. He gets saber tooth tiger – you know, leaves the campfire and, and old lady and kids, or something like that. And his focus is in – this is a survival, it’s in our genes, survival. He doesn’t think about the campfire and all that. Well this is a carry-over from our, it’s a survival thing. Now head injuries probably, you know, exacerbate that. But it’s natural for a person to get up and go someplace and then, you know, he forgets, well he forgot what he was doing because - it’s like, I’m terrible at multi-tasking. Use to be able to, can’t now. I mean it’s all I can do to do one thing at a time. But I used to do, whatever that one thing pretty well. And of course, I can do two things at once, but it’s harder splitting my attention. And, but like I say, I’m sixty-eight and I’m not going to attribute it to any one cause, and all that. That’s just the way it is.