Wednesday, August 23, 2006

The frontline

Dear Jan:

Your biggest battle these days is with carbamazepine. Because of the threat of seizures you had to restart your medication for the forseeable future. It sounds reasonable to take some medication to prevent greater risks. Then, why so much resistance?

I don't know the whole answer, but I realize that it is not so much the medication as the setback it dealt to your progress. Up until 10 days ago you were doing great. Your speech was better each week, your stamina was admirable and you were really working hard on that right side. Then, all this came crashing down in the last week when your energy level has been diminished considerably, when your speech fluency took a few steps back, and your body in general feel lousy and fatigue sets in quickly. As the days progress, you are regaining some ground, but it really is a battle.

I realized that you can cary out a conversation and sound very fluent for the untrained ear, but after participating in some of the speech therapy sessions, I realize that there are still some important gaps in your understanding and expressing. Most of us tend to be very forgiving and fill in the gaps when your sentences are incomplete; the therapists, on the other hand, stick to the goal of finding the correct words to express your ideas in a complete form. If you miss a word they will ask you to write it or to spell it and then pronounce it. I am the first culprit as I often find myself completing your sentences. I guess it is time to be more aware of the importance to help you re-write your brain dictionaries, instead of filling them with blanks.

Keep up the good work, we all feel inspired by your tenacity and courage in the frontline

Love,

Fede

No comments: