Where are we now?

I know many of you who follow this blog are up-to-date with all of the strides we see, but let me tell you the rest of the story about Isaac's progress. As his parents, we would rather look at him for what he can do than what he cannot. This perspective keeps us sane, but there are times when we must face the ugly task of defining his limitations. This, to me, is the stressful part of the ordeal, so I will try to give you a clearer picture of Isaac's Second Chance, thus far.

All the things you do, because "that's the way it's done", is due to a learned response sometime in your past. You have memories connected to pleasure, danger, etc that sum up your life experience. You refer to these when making decisions, both short and long term. Now imagine that most of your "connections" are gone, but the snippets of movies in your head remain. You have a slight feeling that a certain choice should be made, but the trauma (good or bad) that solidified that memory as your decision maker is now just a whisper in your head you can disregard. Your conscious focus is on the current moment rather than the past or future, which is what we all should do, but the past teaches us what not to do and the future holds long term goals we make while living the moment. Not being able to utilize past or future in your thinking would keep you from progressing.

Those defining traits from your past, that sum up your character, are essentially gone. You must learn those connections again, or make new ones, until the 'common sense' makes sense again. By the way, this is how people who are generally angry and have a brain injury can heal to be a completely different person.

Now, find the closest thing to you with more than two paragraphs of written words. (not this blog) Memorize the first two lines of the second paragraph, then set a timer for five minutes and recite the two lines without looking back at the source. You may find it difficult, depending on whether you have honed these skills in the recent past, to remember the entire selection. Isaac has difficulty with this short term memory all the time. He might not remember any of it.

Now imagine that you could read words, but writing them is near impossible. You know that you understand what should go on the page, but translating from your head to your hand is like writing through jello. It is a slow, tedious process.

Sound and light are 30% brighter/louder than what they really are. The more of it, the more you have to mentally block. This, like those before, are learned traits. If you bring a country person to the city you can easily overwhelm them with the sights and sounds.

So, with that perspective in mind.....

Isaac is presently 95% the same kid as before.

Here is the 5%:

Focus and Short Term Memory
Focus is elusive in the best of times. ADD/ADHD/OCD, all these come to mind when watching Isaac move throughout the evening. Staying focused is apparently another learned response, because it is improving, yet still not even close to normal. Staying on task, with distraction, is very limited. Staying on task without distraction is better. We have seen a marked improvement in the last month in this area, but there are definite signs that focus is a major issue to both his recovery and his relearning process.

Processing ability
This is the hardest part for Isaac. He can process quickly for reactive purposes, but conscious effort is cause for serious thinking. Isaac cannot accomplish that easily. Periods of thinking cause him to stop, usually physically, in order to focus. Improvements here have been in time duration. Isaac used to take several minutes to respond (while in OCH). Now time to response is usually 30 seconds to ~3 minutes.

He has trouble making decisions on his own
If you ask Isaac what he wants for dinner, he will eventually become frustrated. This is because he cannot pare down the foods and make a decision based on that criteria. However, if you ask him if he would rather have A or B, he can think hard enough to give you a response. There is improvement in this area, but as of now it is still not a fast thing


He is limited in his ability to see danger
Walking out in the street is usually learned by the first or second grade. Isaac is still relearning this concept. Basic concepts are being learned, but the intricate ones are still to come.

Language
Isaac's overall processing power is slower than normal.
Isaac can process language better than anything else. He can converse with you and use "near" adult words. He understands normal conversation as well as some advanced topics.

Math
Isaac has recently been doing fractions at math, but it is not easy. We feel his skills are there, but the time for processing is still way out of normal.

Beyond that, Isaac is the "happy go lucky" kid we have always known. We are moving him home on Friday, and will be doing outpatient therapy at CNS from then on.

Remember, while I have written a novel on this website, this has only been going on for two months as of November 1st. At his current progress, and given that the statistics for rapid progress in recovery show he has another month, Isaac should be starting to improve all the above this month. We are optimistic he can conquer most of the improvements by December.

Regardless, we will continue using CNS until they tell us different, but our goal is to get him back into school by his 7th grade year.