The Sunday Salon (Back to the Grind) -- December 5, 2010

First of all, thank you all so much for all your thoughts, prayers, and wishes, on my previous post! Your comments meant so much to me and they really made me feel a lot better. I had never fully appreciated community support before - I had never been on the receiving side. Thanks also to those of you who emailed me - although I had been terribly late to reply, I want to tell you that your emails cheered me up a lot too. So plenty of hugs back to all of you who kept me, my brother and my family in your thoughts.

After more than a month of hospitalization, my brother was discharged two days ago. He had just completed in-patient rehab, and needs more outpatient therapy to build him back to the person he was. He is so much better now, after two weeks of therapy, though there are still things he struggles with - memory retention, lack of focus and inhibition, and cognitive strength. It doesn't help that he has barely any memory of his last three months - making it even harder for him to accept the doctor's diagnosis (viral encephalitis). Ever since he "woke" up in hospital, he has gone through a lot of emotions - denial, anger, sadness, guilt. I have tried a lot to keep him happy and not slide into any negative emotions. But it's hard. I know that in his place, I'm going to be feeling exactly the same. He'll also have to wait at least 6 months before heading back to school. He has been worried that he won't be able to do that, but I guess he has now convinced himself that he will.

I'm thankful that my brother didn't get the worst effects of the disease. 3 months worth of memory is a short price to pay considering many people with this disease have forgotten 3 or 5 years of their lives. Although he has been struggling with common things that we take for granted, like simple math or memory games, I've seen him improve every day. I expect he'll outperform his own expectations and be back to school in no time.

I'm only just beginning to catch up with my experiences over the last month, so some days are really hard for me to get by. There are memories that haunt me and memories that I've blocked. It's been a terrifying experience, and I'm ready to press the fast-forward button. I'm just glad that this is temporary and before soon, it'll all be behind me.

I wasn't sure at all if I was ready to return to blogging, but when I opened the Blogger page, I realized that heck, I am ready to be back. Books formed a big part of my own therapy - I didn't read much, but I read during all my free time, which was limited. I bought a hell lot of books though, and it felt just as wonderful as tasting that delicious slab of chocolate. I haven't opened my reader in over a month though, and I'm going to try that sometime tomorrow after ensuring that I have a cup of strong coffee beside me!

So far, my thoughts are still in so much disarray - I doubt I'm going to have much of a routine for the rest of this month, on my blog. Work's crazy busy right now, plus I have a month's worth of pending items to do. It started snowing yesterday, and I was really surprised by how much and how fast time has sped on. I'll be going off for one more week during Christmas, so I'll get back into a routine starting Jan. Until then, I'll permit myself the rare treat of posting whenever, wherever, whatever.