Brains Are Amazing

I know, that is a fairly random blog title.

So in the last couple of weeks, I read 2 books about individuals who were injured and suffered brain damage.  The first is "Heaven Hears", written by Lindy Boone Michaelis.  Lindy is the daughter of Pat Boone, a famous singer.  Lindy's son, Ryan, fell through a skylight at age 24 and did serious damage to his body and brain. Ryan wasn't expected to live, but through the power of the Lord and his own hard work, plus the diligent toil by many medical professionals and family, he did survive and came back from a deep coma to a fairly functional lifestyle.  He sustained significant brain damage but is now able to talk and function moderately well...however, he will never be the person he was before the accident.  He can't work, likely will never marry, and does "odd" things sometimes.  The one that really stuck out to me is that when Ryan is frightened, he'll lash out by cursing people -- which doesn't go over too well obviously!

The second book is "Over My Head", written by a physician who was brain damaged when she was hit by a car while she was biking.  This was back in the 1980's when people usually didn't wear helmets while riding, and she landed on her head and had a closed  brain injury.  She was no longer able to practice medicine and while she IS able to talk and write a book (no mean feat!) she has significant short term memory loss.  As an example, she has to write down detailed instructions when going somewhere because, like Dory in "Finding Nemo", she'll forget where she is going every few minutes and has to refer to her instructions or she winds up in the wrong place.  She also can't follow complex conversations and gets exhausted easily when processing lots of visual data.

We have kids who don't think like Kevin and me.  None of them have been in serious accidents or sustained trauma at birth or had a  very difficult early childhood -- none are "brain damaged", praise God!  But reading about people who really have sustained serious head trauma made me realize that some things I "take for granted" aren't true of everyone. These 2 precious people in the books are not able to do things that most people can do easily.  They have significant deficits that prevent them from living "normally."

Well you know, there are things I can do, that Kevin can do, that maybe not everyone can do. Both Kevin and I are engineers who are able to think analytically and in an organized way. I'm able to keep many "balls in the air" at home with comparative ease -- though admittedly I'm not doing as well in that area now because I am so tired.  It may be some of our children have gifts I don't have (anything artistic is beyond me, for example!) but they may struggle with organization and will need some assistance to compensate for challenges in the area of organization.

Just made me think...brains are amazing.  A normal brain working normally is amazing.  But not all brains are the same and it may be that what seems "easy" to me is incredibly hard or impossible for someone who thinks differently.  I need to accept that, just like my kids need to accept that I'm not artistic.