Moving on...

I started cognitive therapy today. When the docs finally agreed that this is indeed probably (they added the probably just in case they were wrong of course) as good as it gets, I burst into tears. Not for the first time, and probably not the last (in fact definitely not the last time because I did it again today...several times) but they clearly weren't expecting it.

After brief discussions about depression and anti depressants and their possible uses in 'cases like this' we (I) dismissed the pills - for now at least - and moved on to talk again about learning ways of dealing with what has happened and looking at strategies for living the simple and happy life advocated my the neurology and neuro-psychology teams.

So today I met with the head cognitive therapist. The idea of today was to try to identify the most important areas for me, and to look at ways of managing the problems/difficulties/issues arising out of these.

The therapist - I shall call her Liza (not her name) - was very pleasant... once I got over my annoyance that she kept me waiting for four whole minutes (Did I say I am a little impatient these days?). She stopped every so often and went back over the main points and we agreed what they were and I wrote them down...and we moved on.

At the end Liza asked me to tell her, without looking at my notes, what I would take from the session...and I was forced to admit I couldn't remember what we had talked about. She recapped on the conversations but still I drew a blank. In the end she settled for me agreeing that what she said was a fair representation of the current situation.

Liza now thinks it may take several sessions before we find a way that will actually work because this cognitive rehab/retraining/strategies stuff does need the subject to be able to learn new things...which is problematic when the subject (me) can't remember the content of a conversation five minutes after it took place.

It is going to be a challenge...but if its going to help then I will face this challenge head on...and I may not like it, but I will smile as I go to meet my therapist.