As a way to break up the winter blues, and to keep my brain active despite a mild cognitive impairment (MCI), I signed up for an online course in January.(1) Its follow-at-your-own pace format was particularly helpful for my MCI, because I never know whether I’ll be able to concentrate enough to read or write for five minutes, or an hour, or not at all.
This course’s focus was fiction writing; something new to me, so a great way to keep my brain engaged. The combination of short audio and video clips – with brief reading and writing assignments – was perfect for my MCI.
The fact that it was free helped as well, because if I hadn’t been able to complete the course I wouldn’t felt that I’d wasted money on it. That helped take some pressure off myself, off my brain and my mind.
The MCI, by the way, set in at the end of 2018 a result of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). I know, it seems odd that a chronic pain condition could cause cognitive issues. Yet this has repeatedly been borne out in scientific research. One study using:
Cluster analysis of 500 patients with severe CRPS demonstrated 3 distinct groups:
neuropsychologically normal patients (36%);
patients with mild dysexecutive deficits (42%);
and patients who had cognitive impairment in executive function, naming, and memory (22%).”(2)
Other researchers found that:
Although the preponderance of the CRPS literature focuses on peripheral changes that accompany the signs and symptoms of this syndrome, more recent studies have used neuroimaging techniques to study changes within the central nervous system (CNS); the existence of pain-associated cognitive and emotional comorbidities suggests that alterations in brain structure and function may contribute to sustained pain, emotional changes, and neurocognitive features in chronic CRPS patients.”(3)
This same research paper went on to specify that:
Although pain itself is the most common complaint of the chronic pain patient, it is often associated with comorbid conditions such as cognitive impairment, memory deficits, depression, and anxiety.
These affect up to 50% of chronic pain patients and impair both quality of life and response to treatment…
Taken together, these data emphasize that cognitive and affective impairments are significant clinical problems in chronic CRPS.”(3)
Can I tell you something else that might seem strange? Although there are high incidences of both anxiety and depression among people living with CRPS, for some reason I don’t suffer from either of these.
There’s a French expression that I hear often here in Montreal, which seems perfect for this situation: ‘quelqu’un qui est chanceux dans sa malchance’. ‘Someone who is lucky in their bad luck’. That’s how I view my rare disease most of the time, in that it could be so much worse!
Anytime that I’m able to do something, I try to be thankful for it – even when it’s something that I would have taken for granted just a year ago. Like the pleasure of being able to finish this course, and the fun I’ve had writing micro-stories as assignments. I’ve been sharing these stories here on the blog, so here’s the last one.
This was the final assignment of our course, to write a one thousand word introduction to a fictional character that I’d created. It’s meant to be seen as the opening of a short story or a novel, to raise some questions while also providing background or setting a scene for the remainder of a yet-to-be-written story. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!
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They’d been on their way home from a picnic by the lake, crooning to a 60s song that Chloe adored, a silly old song about someone taking a trip on a jet plane. The tune had been catchy, and baby Carolina had been waving her arms and giggling right along with them. Dan’s heart would squeeze for just a second each time he heard her gurgling giggle. When he’d lamely tried to explain that feeling to Chloe, he’d said it felt his heart was stopping – and then stretching to make room for more daughter-love. His wife had just pulled him close. He didn’t usually say things like that, not out loud at any rate. It had been a perfect moment, one of many for the since-sixth-grade sweethearts.
Like instantly agreeing to have just one kid, so they could stay in their almost off-the-grid tiny home. It had been so important to Chloe, to live with as small a carbon footprint as possible, that she and her grandfather had built the place themselves while she was still in high school. With brute labour from Dan, of course. He’d already been a part of Chloe’s family by then, long before they officially got married.
Doug was a partially-retired engineer, involved in solar energy projects, and did carpentry and woodworking projects in his spare time. Chloe’s mom Janet had been the project’s budget manager and came up with brilliant space-saving ideas, like the kick-out drawers under the kitchen cabinets. They were perfect for Chloe’s baking supplies; cake tins, muffin pans, cookie sheets, so much stuff. Man, she’d made some amazing cakes in that little kitchen. His parents had supplied lots of food, homemade lemonade, and moral support for the ‘building crew’.
The drunk-on-bourbon idiot had blown through a stop sign and plowed into the passenger side of their car that afternoon. Right into his two loves. Carolina had been strapped into a baby seat behind Chloe, the one they’d had the cops check before she was even born. It hadn’t made any difference.
Dan had been knocked unconscious. When he came to, he knew right away that his girls were gone. He’d stumbled out of the car in shock, left arm hanging by his side, and found the other driver sitting on the curb. Head slumped, blubbering, “I called the ambulance”. “They’re coming, they’re coming”, he slurred, reeking of bourbon. Dan hauled him up by his suit jacket, very quietly asking, “Are you drunk?”
The killer, sobbing and dripping snot, kept wailing “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry”. Dan dropped his lapels like hot coals – and took a swing. A second, a third. When he fell, Dan collapsed alongside, cradling his broken left wrist to his chest. When the EMTs arrived Dan was curled into a foetal position, silently crying. The other guy wasn’t breathing. The police officer who showed up moments after the EMTs later regretted writing her note: “One driver dead after fist fight.”
Dan was charged with involuntary manslaughter, and even the DA conceded in a newspaper piece that “the mitigating circumstances were strongly in Eliot Daniel (Dan) Nesbitt’s favor.” Dan’s lawyer made it clear to reporters that he’d been in shock, hadn’t planned to kill the other driver. An expert coroner witness had given the television crews some leading sound bites.
“A prior concussion contributed to the real murderer’s death. Absent that concussion, those well-justified punches wouldn’t have killed him.” And “Dan Nesbitt is neither a trained boxer nor a fighter, simply a man in shock after this vehicular homicide.”
Despite his guilty plea, the case had gone to trial. Dan’s refusal to apologize for his actions led the foul-tempered judge to sentence him to two years in prison. “Think about your actions, that you’re responsible for the death of another human being in this incident”. “Incident, my ass”, Dan had thought to himself, “That piece of crap killed my family. He chose to slurp down bourbon at his promotion party, chose to get behind the wheel after his friends all told him to call a cab.”
Ignoring his lawyer, family, and Chloe’s relatives, he’ hadn’t appealed. “It doesn’t matter where I am”, he’d explained, “in jail or out. Chloe and Carolina are still gone, not coming back. And y’know, some days I wish I’d killed him.”
It was getting dark, and he’d hoped to close up the shop before six o’clock. Instead, he was vacuuming the carpet so the store would be clean when the doors were unlocked tomorrow. Who knew what that silly cow Devon would tell the owner, if there was the tiniest speck of dust on the floor. He couldn’t afford to lose another job, not so soon after the others.
He’d served his time, but he still had to hold on to this ratty little job and suck up to the ratty little woman who owned the business. Come to think of it, she had more of a ferret face – if you focused on the eyes. Anyhow, if he didn’t keep this gig he’d be back at the halfway house. Even if it wasn’t his fault that the first two jobs hadn’t panned out.
The hair salon had gone belly up two months after he’d started. Too bad, because he’d liked it there. It was nothing like his old office job, but that was okay. That part of his life was over. They’d loved that he showed up for work in the suits his parents had kept for him. He hadn’t told anyone he couldn’t afford to buy new clothes. His prison stubble had been replaced with clean shaves, and the owner had given him a fancy haircut for free.
He knew that he looked good, but didn’t much care. He’d gotten in shape in prison, so the time inside hadn’t left him twenty-six and looking fifty. What he did care about was making a fresh start. A new life, to honor the memories of Chloe and Carolina and his families.
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I hope you’ve enjoyed this little foray into fiction, a bit of a change from my
regular blogging. As always, thanks so much for stopping by! Have a lovely end
of your weekend, and a good start to next week. All the best, always ‘-)
References
(1) Start Writing Fiction. The Open University. FutureLearn. Online course. Accessed 08 Mar 2020:
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/start-writing-fiction
(2) Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: Systemic Complications. Robert J. Schwartzman. Practical Pain Management (PPM). Volume 13, Issue 3. 27 Oct 2014. Online. Accessed 08 Mar 2020:
https://www.practicalpainmanagement.com/pain/complex-regional-pain-syndrome-systemic-complications
(3) Brain Neuroplastic Changes Accompany Anxiety and Memory Deficits in a Model of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. Maral Tajerian, David Leu, Yani Zou, Peyman Sahbaie, Wenwu Li, Hamda Khan, Vivian Hsu, Wade Kingery, Ting Ting Huang, Lino Becerra, and J. David Clark. Anesthesiology (Journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists). Oct 2014. Volume 121, Issue 4, pages 852-865. Online doi.org/10.1097/ALN.0000000000000403:
https://anesthesiology.pubs.asahq.org/article.aspx?articleid=1921562