Posted by peacefeline on January 2, 2005, at 17:07:45
In reply to Re: And the dust settles » peacefeline, posted by Lonely on December 31, 2004, at 17:31:23
Thanks, Lonely!
You sound plenty strong enough to handle this, though you might not always think so. How lucky for your h that he has someone to advocate for him (and, indirectly, for other brain-injured people!)
I can vouch for your statement that brain-injured or -damaged people need to have someone accompany them to appointments. My h had his very first appointment ever with a psychiatrist in November. It was an evaluation and took over an hour of face-time, plus the doc checked over a lot of files, etc. Anyway, I was allowed/requested to sit in on the meeting. Good thing, too, because most of what was said was completely forgotten by my h within two weeks! Even the most important parts! He has no memory of it whatsoever. I did warn the doctor in a letter so that in future visits, which I will not be in on, anything important will be written down for him to take home and look at later.
This would never have even been discovered if not for some chance conversations between me and my h. I also warned his other doctors and therapists of the same problem.
Something else you may have noticed in your h is what I've only recently discovered with mine: his sense of reality is being messed with due to the very large gaps in his memory. I thought last year that his memory looked like Swiss cheese, but now I'm thinking fishnet, more like. So his imagination "fills in" whatever facts he doesn't have. Like watching a complicated drama, but the TV keeps blinking out for a minute or two every little while, and you have to guess what's going on.
Best of luck to you in your ongoing struggles with the system. It's not fun but sometimes we get surprised with some success.
Susan
poster:peacefeline
thread:434343
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041228/msgs/436868.html