We each have our own ways of dealing with adversity, with challenges. Mine has always been to try to reason or think my way through an issue; to use logic to find a solution. When that couldn’t be done, for whatever reason, I’d try to MacGyver(1) a solution to a problem. Not surprisingly, I would usually score fairly well on work-related problem-solving ratings – even back in my military days ‘-)
This year, I’m taking the same kind of approach to the newest symptom of my rare autoimmune and neuro-inflammatory disease; the mild cognitive impairment (MCI) that began in late 2018. It’s been almost four years since I was struck by Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), and just over a year since the MCI began tagging along to that.
It took me most of this past year to accept that my MCI wasn’t improving, despite stepping away from my beloved career, and then to accept what that means for my life. I’d never known, until it happened to me, that “pain affects cognition”(2) – let alone that there were some specific impacts of CRPS on disease-related MCI. CPRS, by the way, is considered to be not only a chronic pain condition but also one of the most severe and life-changing:
“Research suggests that cognitive deficits occur across a range of pain conditions…
Moriarty et al; Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience; 2017
One study comparing different types of pain found that attention was impaired to a similar extent in rheumatoid arthritis, musculoskeletal pain, and fibromyalgia patients compared with healthy controls.
Conversely, there is evidence that emotional decision making was impaired in lumbar spinal or radicular pain of the lower back, but not in Complex Regional Pain Syndrome”(2)
It has taken longer than usual, but my usual optimistic outlook is back in full force – along with my problem-solving approach to challenges. Maybe that’s a bizarre blessing of CRPS, that it doesn’t seem to interfere with a person’s “emotional decision making” the way that lower back pain (LBP) does!
Although it’s considered unlikely that I’ll be able to reverse the MCI, I’m now focusing on how to prevent it from becoming any worse. I’ve adopted a ‘use it or lose it’ plan for my brain, by trying new activities and learning new skills. The inherent issue in this plan is that the MCI has reduced my ability to concentrate or focus, as well as messing with my language skills.
To account for my shorter concentration periods, I seek out activities or classes which require me to use my brain – but not over too long a period. The best approach for me seems to be the workshop format for creative arts courses; you learn something, practice doing it, build on your just-learned skills, etc.
Bizarre as it may seem, actually doing something isn’t a problem for me; what’s challenging with my MCI is concentrating or planning to do it. In a workshop activity, there’s no planning aspect; you simply do what you’re shown. And then, if you’re like me, you experiment a bit with the technique ‘-) A perfect example of this was a clay-flower workshop, at a local library, last October.
Another fantastic type of brain-utilizing activity for me these days is what I call short-burst courses; learning is offered in short bursts of activity. The course I’m currently taking, on-line, is an introduction to creative writing and fiction.
Of the fifteen to twenty segments each week, one might be to watch and comment on a 5-minute video while another is to write a 250-word story based on an image shown to the course participants.
This week, I’ve decided to share some of the stories I’ve written as micro-assignments for this course. Be gentle and kind with me; these stories haven’t been edited, I’m simply going to cut and paste them into blog posts!
Here are the first of these little micro-stories, each with a one-hundred word limit and opposite requirements. The first assignment was to write a fictional paragraph, based on one fact and three fictional descriptions, while the second was to write a factual story using three facts and one untruth:
“Salah was taking her morning shower when she heard knocking at the front door. She was expecting a delivery later in the day, but certainly not before seven o’clock. Who could it be? Should she dash to the bedroom for the clothes she’d laid out on her bed, or answer the door in the thick fleece robe that she’d worn to the bathroom? That would be fine for a friend, but not for a stranger. She’d just moved into this apartment, a woman living alone, and didn’t want the other tenants to think the worst of her.
Sandra Woods; Introduction to fiction writing, course assignment; 2020
“Sandra had slipped on a patch of winter ice, falling with most of her weight onto her extended right hand. She felt a bone snap just above the wrist, instinctively cradling that arm as she sat up. There was no one else outside in this bitterly cold weather; she was on her own. “If I call my husband to come get me”, she thought to herself, “he’ll be driving a half-hour in the opposite direction from the hospital. It would be much faster to simply drive myself there.” Decision made, Sandra carefully got into her car and drove away.”
Sandra Woods; Introduction to fiction writing, course assignment; 2020
As always, thanks so much for reading! Feel free to reach out and provide comments through Instagram or Twitter; the blog comments have been disabled because I’ve chosen not to waste any of my brain-time on dealing with indecent spam from overseas accounts. Have a happy day, and be safe during flu season = Wash your hands often!
References
(1) Kelly, Jon. “How ‘MacGyver’ became a verb”. British Broadcasting Company (BBC). 27 Aug 2015. Online. Accessed 04 Feb 2020:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34075407
(2) Moriarty, Orla et al. “Cognitive Impairment in Patients with Chronic Neuropathic or Radicular Pain: An Interaction of Pain and Age.” Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience vol. 11 100. 13 Jun. 2017, doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2017.00100. Accessed 04 Feb 2020:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2017.00100/full