Having a cold head is very uncomfortable. Beanie feels better
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20628665
This article is excellent, and should be required reading for all neuropsychs. Visual field defects are something we learn about in undergrad days, but it's purely abstract and intellectual, all about wiring. I don't think I've ever sat down with a patient and asked them what it's like to have a field defect, but in my largely diagnostic work in Melbourne, I didn't see many people with strokes or other focal neurological syndromes. And I can't recall any of the stroke patients at the LGH having field defects. If they did, it wasn't something I concerned myself with. Disturbances in cognition, memory, behaviour - they were the things that I prioritized, where I could make an unique contribution.
No, the only two patients I recall with field defects were an Aboriginal elder, who was able to drive with accommodating lenses some time after her stroke, and a young woman who had an homonymous hemianopia after resection of a meningioma growing in her left lateral verntricle. She described the defect as a nuisance, because it made her bump into things on the right, and she had been getting some nasty comments from elderly people in her small town. These stopped when she got her "vision impaired" badge and a cane from a support group. She wore the badge with pride, and spoke with glee about the potential of the cane to whack the ankles of any sour old biddies who might doubt her impairment.
I now know that in not talking to people about their experience of field changes, I missed out on potentially hearing about an incredibly fascinating brain phenomenon.
I was exhausted today, but found it very hard to sleep. When I lay down after lunch and closed my eyes, it was like the lights were still on. I kept seeing fleeting images in the lower right side of my visual field - the rest was quiet and dark. But the lower right was moving and spinning, all kinds of beautiful shapes. As I sit here in the dark, typing right now, if I keep looking straight ahead, a human figure stands and jiggles next to me. I can make it go away if I look directly at it - it's as if my brain is trying to make up for the missing data input by itself. I'm glad I have a creative and friendly brain, the images it makes are pretty and fun.
For example, my cousin Stephanie was sitting in front of some yellow flowers, and it looked like a piece of gold wrapping foil appeared out of her hair and rolled itself into a ball next to her ear. Looking at magazines becomes beautiful - my mind creates little patches and patterns coloured like the images that are really there. Or when I am on the ipad or computer, the bottom filed looks corruy.ypted, like the screen is smashed or dirty. Right now, because it's dark, a shadowy man is moving his arm next to my bed - but it's only the arm of the chair. If I focus on reading with my left hemifield, all sorts of shenanigans are happening on the right - sometimes two characters. This afternoon, it was Prince Charles and Lady Di, dressed in the nude colour of the chair that was there in reality.
It all sound totally bonkers, I suppose, but I know I'm not hallucinating, it's really as if my brain is trying to make sense of corrupted data, and doing it in an whimsical way. I almost enjoy the woman in the red skirt singing and dancing next to me right now - now a dancing baby has come and gone- though that part of the room is in blackness. Shift my vision, and the illusion vanishes.
Readig is effortful, though I can manage if I keep looking to the left. It's so much easier to touch-type on this little laptop that Ben bought me than it was to type on the iPad. The marks on the keys help me anchor my fingers, I can see the text coming up fine, and I don't have the strange experience of not quite being sure about the different punctuation marks. If I wanted to use a slash, I have to look for it as it's not in my touch-typing repertoire. So I look.... and there it is under the ? - but earlier today it was difficult to know if it was the right position, or was the right symbol at all, like a kind of alexia for symbols - I also wasn't sure how to activate the other keyboard symbols.
I am, again, incredibly lucky, not to have had a worse outcome. The visual symptoms are resolving, and I will manage with what's left.
This article is excellent, and should be required reading for all neuropsychs. Visual field defects are something we learn about in undergrad days, but it's purely abstract and intellectual, all about wiring. I don't think I've ever sat down with a patient and asked them what it's like to have a field defect, but in my largely diagnostic work in Melbourne, I didn't see many people with strokes or other focal neurological syndromes. And I can't recall any of the stroke patients at the LGH having field defects. If they did, it wasn't something I concerned myself with. Disturbances in cognition, memory, behaviour - they were the things that I prioritized, where I could make an unique contribution.
No, the only two patients I recall with field defects were an Aboriginal elder, who was able to drive with accommodating lenses some time after her stroke, and a young woman who had an homonymous hemianopia after resection of a meningioma growing in her left lateral verntricle. She described the defect as a nuisance, because it made her bump into things on the right, and she had been getting some nasty comments from elderly people in her small town. These stopped when she got her "vision impaired" badge and a cane from a support group. She wore the badge with pride, and spoke with glee about the potential of the cane to whack the ankles of any sour old biddies who might doubt her impairment.
I now know that in not talking to people about their experience of field changes, I missed out on potentially hearing about an incredibly fascinating brain phenomenon.
I was exhausted today, but found it very hard to sleep. When I lay down after lunch and closed my eyes, it was like the lights were still on. I kept seeing fleeting images in the lower right side of my visual field - the rest was quiet and dark. But the lower right was moving and spinning, all kinds of beautiful shapes. As I sit here in the dark, typing right now, if I keep looking straight ahead, a human figure stands and jiggles next to me. I can make it go away if I look directly at it - it's as if my brain is trying to make up for the missing data input by itself. I'm glad I have a creative and friendly brain, the images it makes are pretty and fun.
For example, my cousin Stephanie was sitting in front of some yellow flowers, and it looked like a piece of gold wrapping foil appeared out of her hair and rolled itself into a ball next to her ear. Looking at magazines becomes beautiful - my mind creates little patches and patterns coloured like the images that are really there. Or when I am on the ipad or computer, the bottom filed looks corruy.ypted, like the screen is smashed or dirty. Right now, because it's dark, a shadowy man is moving his arm next to my bed - but it's only the arm of the chair. If I focus on reading with my left hemifield, all sorts of shenanigans are happening on the right - sometimes two characters. This afternoon, it was Prince Charles and Lady Di, dressed in the nude colour of the chair that was there in reality.
It all sound totally bonkers, I suppose, but I know I'm not hallucinating, it's really as if my brain is trying to make sense of corrupted data, and doing it in an whimsical way. I almost enjoy the woman in the red skirt singing and dancing next to me right now - now a dancing baby has come and gone- though that part of the room is in blackness. Shift my vision, and the illusion vanishes.
Readig is effortful, though I can manage if I keep looking to the left. It's so much easier to touch-type on this little laptop that Ben bought me than it was to type on the iPad. The marks on the keys help me anchor my fingers, I can see the text coming up fine, and I don't have the strange experience of not quite being sure about the different punctuation marks. If I wanted to use a slash, I have to look for it as it's not in my touch-typing repertoire. So I look.... and there it is under the ? - but earlier today it was difficult to know if it was the right position, or was the right symbol at all, like a kind of alexia for symbols - I also wasn't sure how to activate the other keyboard symbols.
I am, again, incredibly lucky, not to have had a worse outcome. The visual symptoms are resolving, and I will manage with what's left.
