How I Rescued My Brain

by David Roland

  Scribe Publications

  HOW I RESCUED MY BRAIN

  David Roland has a PhD in clinical psychology, and has trained in neuropsychological assessment and studied interpersonal neurobiology online with professor Daniel Siegel (author of Mindsight). David is an honorary associate with the School of Medicine at the University of Sydney, a member of the Australian Psychological Society, and a founder of the Australian branch of the Compassionate Mind Foundation. His first book was The Confident Performer (1998).

  Scribe Publications Pty Ltd

  18–20 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria 3065, Australia

  50A Kingsway Place, Sans Walk, London, EC1R 0LU, United Kingdom

  First published by Scribe 2014

  Copyright © David Roland 2014

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

  While every care has been taken to trace and acknowledge copyright, we tender apologies for any accidental infringement where copyright has proved untraceable and we welcome information that would redress the situation.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data

  Roland, David, author.

  How I Rescued My Brain: a psychologist’s remarkable recovery from stroke and trauma / David Roland.

  9781925106008 (Australian edition)

  9781922247421 (UK edition)

  9781925113044 (e-book)

  1. Roland, David. 2. Cerebrovascular disease–Patients–Biography. 3. Cerebrovascular disease–Patients–Rehabilitation. 4. Brain–Wounds and injuries–Patients–Biography. 5. Brain–Wounds and injuries–Patients–Rehabilitation.

  362.196810092

  scribepublications.com.au

  scribepublications.co.uk

  To Edward George Roland:

  World War II pilot, telephone technician, environmental activist,

  and my father.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  IN WRITING THIS memoir, I have relied upon personal journals, medical records, and my recollections. I have consulted with most of the individuals in the story to check factual details, where these can be verified. In some cases, the individuals have helped me to re-create events and dialogue. Yet, ultimately, this is my version of the story and true to my emotional experience. Others may have different experiences of events that we shared.

  I have changed many of the names and identifying details to preserve anonymity. In some cases, where individuals have agreed, I have retained real names and details.

  I have not created composite characters or events. In a few instances, I have compressed time for the ease of storytelling. I have omitted events that do not relate directly to the themes in this book, and because it is impossible to include everything that happened over the six years that the memoir covers.

  PROLOGUE

  I’M HAVING TROUBLE working out where I am.

  Somehow, this isn’t perturbing, simply puzzling. I’m in a puzzle and need to put together the clues to work out what this is all about.

  I’m sitting in the centre of a row of beige plastic chairs. When I turn my head, I realise that my wife, Anna, is next to me. A ring of beige chairs also lines the walls. Other people, scattered around the room, are flicking through magazines or looking down and shuffling their feet. I get the feeling that they don’t want to be here.

  A beeping sound is coming from somewhere. To my right, people are moving through an automatic door, which shudders as it opens. I look up to see a woman behind a counter and a glass window. She seems harassed, and her dark hair hasn’t been brushed recently. She’s on the phone and taking notes. Every so often, people go up to the opening in the window and talk to her. She frowns when they approach, as though she doesn’t really want to speak with them.

  Now Anna goes up and talks to her too.

  We seem to be in some sort of waiting room, but I don’t know why.

  I look around. There are posters on the walls, with bold letters reading, ‘Cover Your Cough’, ‘For Infection Control Reasons, Wash Your Hands’, and other things. Lots of the posters have people on them looking pleased or sad.

  The sunlight slanting through the windows on the far wall is soft; it must be morning light.

  In one corner of the room, on a low table, there are piles of magazines. I walk over to pick up Country Life and then sit down again. There’s a section on real estate, with pictures of quaint, homely-looking cottages; some have picket fences. Other photographs show mansions, built of sandstone or solid-looking bricks. The descriptions beneath list each property’s features, telling of the life of contentment that can be enjoyed if one makes the place their new home.

  There’s one I like: a cute cottage with a garden for $350,000. Is that a lot of money? I used to know. When I look at the date on the cover, 2007, I realise that I don’t know what year it is now. The magazine must be old: its pages are curled and creased. The names of the country towns in the ads seem familiar, but when I try to picture where they are, I can’t; my sense of geography is wavy. Goulburn, I say to myself. Nothing. Cooma. Still nothing. The names swim around in my mind, sounds without any pictures attached to them.

  Off to my left, a child is whining. I turn to see a man and a woman, both big, with a girl aged four or five. They look tired, as parents do when they’ve been up during the night with a grumpy child. Soon I am absorbed by their interactions; it’s like watching a show. The father lifts the girl onto his lap, looking strained. The mother holds up a children’s book, reading to her as a kindergarten teacher would. The child listens for a while, fidgets, and cries again. The mother tries to interest her in one of the toys from a box in the corner, but it doesn’t work. I know what this is like; I’m a parent too. They’re doing their best.

  How did I get to this room? A fragment comes into my mind — a dreamlike image — of Anna driving us in the white Tarago and me vomiting out of the car window. Did this really happen, or am I imagining it?

  I turn to Anna and see that she’s crying quietly: her cheeks are pink; the rims of her eyes are red. She’s sad about something, but I don’t know what. I put my arm around her shoulder and pat her gently. ‘It’ll be all right,’ I say. She quiets a little. After a while I take my arm back and return to Country Life.

  As we sit there, I feel as if I’m in a sound bubble, into which the surrounding noises don’t intrude. The crying girl doesn’t irritate me as I think she might have at another time. Instead I feel a well of stillness inside. I keep turning the pages.

  PEOPLE COME IN and out of the room, as though it becomes more and then less popular. Then a man in white appears, like a jack-in-the-box, out of a doorway. He calls out my name and holds the door ajar. It has an important-looking sign on it: CLINICAL INITIATIVES NURSE.

  Anna and I get up and follow him in.

  The room is small and square-shaped with clean, shiny equipment. The lights are very bright. The man has a sense of enthusiasm and energy about him; he looks interested in me. We sit down opposite each other, knee-to-knee. He brings his face, with intense, smiling eyes, close to mine. He looks clean, as though recently showered and shaved. I like his energy.

  ‘Now, David,’ he says. ‘Can you tell me what day of the week it is?’

  His expression is encouraging, like a teacher’s. He knows the answer, but it’s imp
ortant to him that I say it. I want to help, so I think hard.

  ‘It’s Wednesday … or it could be Thursday.’ I remember I was meant to do something special with the kids today, but I don’t know what that was.

  ‘Where are you now?’ he asks.

  This is harder than the day-of-the-week question. ‘Is it a hospital?’ It’s the best thought I can come up with.

  He looks satisfied. He wants to know why I’m here. I turn to Anna. She also has that knowing look, and prompts me to answer, but I have no idea. It’s a mystery.

  He asks more questions. I either don’t know the answers or can’t remember the start of the question, if it’s long, by the time he’s finished speaking. I’m disappointed that I can’t help more. But as he talks, his words appear in my mind slowly, like tree trunks appearing out of a fog. The words often disappear before I can get hold of them, as if they are in a line, each being jostled along by the next. I’m trying to hold on to each one while he’s trying to rush them. I’m feeling rattled now.

  After his questions stop, he smiles and sends us out into the waiting room. The parents with the girl have gone, and most of the people are new. We must have been in the room longer than I thought. Anna must also be feeling better: I can hardly tell she’s been crying.

  As we wait, the stillness returns; I’m back in the sound bubble. I’m not sure, now, if the man in white was real or I imagined him. It feels as if I’m in a movie and watching it at the same time.

  AS FAR AS I can tell, it’s not long before we are taken through another door. It opens, like magic, into a wide, yellow corridor with a side table, a high metal chair, and shelves along the walls. A young man who says he is a doctor asks me to sit in the chair while he stands before me. He’s wearing ordinary clothes and is not enthusiastic like the man in white. Instead he looks tired, speaking slowly and softly. He probably wants to go home.

  The doctor would like to know the day of the week — it seems that this is an important piece of information. Once again, I’d like to oblige, and think hard. But I get the same answer: it’s Wednesday, or it could be Thursday, I say. He also wants to know where we are, and by now I know we are in Lismore Hospital because either Anna or the man in white has told me, and I’ve remembered. I’m confident that we were in a waiting room, because in hospitals you spend time waiting.

  People come to hospitals for help. But why are we here?

  And where is Lismore Hospital? The name is familiar, but it swirls in my mind without a picture. I have an inkling I’ve been here before, though. The memory’s there, on the edge, just out of reach.

  The doctor wants to know who Australia’s prime minister is. Paul Keating’s face comes to mind, but … we’ve had a new prime minister since Keating. Why don’t I know whom? An image of a balding man with large glasses comes to mind. ‘John Howard!’ I say. But then, ‘No, I don’t think it’s John Howard.’ I’m unable to answer more of the doctor’s questions — after he asks each one, I can’t remember what he’s just said. I’d like him to stop.

  Now he wants to take blood — from both arms, he says, because he needs quite a bit of blood. ‘Okay,’ I say. Usually I’d be nervous about this, but I’m not, and offer him my left arm first. I close my eyes. There’s a sensation of the needle going in, and then — nothing.

  I don’t know how long I’m with the doctor — perhaps one or two minutes — and when I look up he’s gone. There’s that puzzling feeling again: was he real, or am I in a dream?

  I’M SITTING COMFORTABLY in the chair in the yellow corridor when a new man and a woman, both dressed in white, say hello.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ I say.

  They tell me I am to have a CT scan. The thought excites me. I don’t think I’ve ever had one before, but I know what they are: I’ve read reports from CT scans in client files, detailing the effects of a brain injury or disease.

  They have a wheelchair and push me into another corridor. In and out of lifts we go. It is fun.

  Now we’re entering a room with a giant shiny doughnut, and a sliding platform that goes into it. My head will go into the doughnut, they say.

  Before I know it, I’m being pushed away from the CT room — they say the scan is over, but I don’t remember having it. How odd!

  Now I’m back in an armchair in the corridor. It feels like home. I close my eyes; I’m tired. Anna is still with me, but we’re not talking much.

  All of a sudden there’s a new man, older, with a younger man beside him. The older one must be important, because his face is serious and he’s wearing a tie. Oh, they’re both doctors, I realise suddenly; they have stethoscopes around their necks. The younger one must be his junior.

  ‘Hello, I’m Doctor —,’ he says, but his name slips away before I can catch it. He’s standing up, looking down at me. He seems worried by something. Is it me? He also wants to know what day of the week it is and who the prime minister is, and he wants me to count backwards from one hundred by threes. I think I do all right with this one. I’ve always been fairly good at maths.

  ‘What is the last thing you remember happening?’ he asks.

  I do remember something. ‘I was playing guitar with my friend Nick. Last night.’ It doesn’t seem long ago.

  As with the other staff, his words appear out of the fog, my answers disappearing soon afterwards. He’s asking a lot more questions than the other doctor. He has a strong energy about him and I’m getting rattled again. He tells me something that seems important but I don’t quite catch it. Then he’s gone.

  Anna has gone too. But this is okay. Something else will happen. I’ll just wait.

  A WOMAN IS standing in front of me, saying my name. She must be an office person: she has a penholder around her neck with a fat pen in it. She’s dressed in blue pants and a spotty blouse. She gives me a clipboard with a form on it. ‘This is for your health insurance,’ she says.

  The woman wants me to fill it in. My name and date of birth — I know these. As I go down the page, the questions get harder, and they waft in and out of the fog in my mind. I’m not sure about my answers. She wants me to sign at the bottom. My instinct says that I shouldn’t sign something I don’t understand, but Anna’s not here to tell me what to do.

  ‘I don’t want to sign,’ I say. ‘I’m not sure about it.’

  She nods and goes away.

  Now I’m walking with a woman, also dressed in blue; she’s told me that I’m staying in a ward tonight. I’m not sure if I’ve stayed in hospital before, but I’m so tired that I think it would be great to spend the night here. I follow her into a lift, through doors, and along corridors. We stop when she speaks to another person in blue behind a counter, this time without a glass window. The woman in blue, who I think must be a nurse, leads me into a room with three men around my age, each in pyjamas. She points to a freshly made bed. I lie down. Ah, peace and quiet.

  Suddenly, without warning, there is a loud noise: wheezing and then whirring. It pierces my brain. I look to where the noise is coming from. The man in the bed beside mine is breathing into a tube attached to a machine.

  I can’t stay in this room with this sound. I follow my steps back, needing to think hard about which direction I came from. My sound bubble has been shattered and I feel distressed. I get to the counter. There are two nurses here now. I tell them I cannot be in the same room as the man with the machine.

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ says one of them.

  ‘It won’t be on all the time,’ says the other.

  Their words don’t reassure me at all. They don’t understand how much it hurts my brain.

  ‘I don’t want to stay here anymore,’ I say.

  I need to leave this place. I don’t know where I’ll go, but I’ll catch a taxi. I walk along the corridor, away from the noise of the machine, and come to an area with lifts. I’m about to
get into a lift when I notice upholstered chairs along the walls. They look soft. There’s no one around and it is quiet. I’ll rest here awhile before I leave.

  I close my eyes and follow my breathing; my sense of calm returns. The idea of escaping slides away.

  Then I hear someone come and sit down beside me. ‘Hello,’ a voice says. I open my eyes: it is a man in a security guard’s uniform.

  ‘Hello,’ I say.

  Another security guard, a bigger man, comes and stands in front of me.

  ‘You’re not going to do a runner, are you?’ the first one asks.

  ‘No,’ I say, but it reminds me that I had wanted to escape. If I make a dash for the lift now, they’ll catch me. The first man says something else to me, but I’m not going to answer; I’m going to be with my thoughts, my eyes closed.

  I hear the second guard sit alongside the first, and they exchange a few words and laugh. Then the second guard leaves.

  We’ve been sitting quietly for a while when my name is called. I open my eyes to see one of the nurses standing in front of me. She’s smiling and says she has arranged a new room for me; an elderly patient who is going home in the morning has agreed to move into the bed next to the machine. I’m so grateful; I’d like to thank him, but when I follow the nurse back into the ward I can’t remember where the first room was.

  The nurse shows me the new room, and straightaway I’m reassured. The other men are elderly and seem quiet. ‘Hello,’ I say. Two of them respond; one is asleep.

  I’m about to sit on the bed when I catch sight of the windows. Through them, a long, horizontal strip of orange is glowing, topped with purple and black. What is it? I stare and stare; I can’t work it out. Then I realise: it’s a sunset.

  How could this be? It should be morning.

  I stand and watch the orange glow become thinner and more intense as the black above it grows. The lights in the room get brighter and brighter, and begin to sting my eyes. It must be night. Incredible. Well, perhaps it will be dinnertime soon. I haven’t eaten all day. Or did Anna give me a banana earlier?