Fixing Mitochondria = Fixing Brain?

I read an article about how the Mitochondria seems to play a big role in recovery of a TBI. I was reading an article about how Mitochondria is key to treating brain injuries by ABC. The article is by Denise Dador and in it she talked about a Dr. Jose Pineda, who is trying to help kids survive traumatic brain injuries and improve their recovery. His research in kids is looking at trauma to the mitochondria, the "power plant" that energizes cells in the brain. My first Psych. class was in 2002, I think, and we learned about the mitochondria, and I always figured it wasn't that big of a deal. The mitochondria are little things that doen't seem to affect too much. Or so I thought. But according to Dr. Pineda, "the mitochondria of children with brain injuries is failing, and it's failing for many, many weeks," They've been doing studies to see if stimulating the mitochondria can help the brain heal.

This seemed HUGE to me, so I did a little more research. Apparently they have been looking into the role of the Mitochondria in TBI for a LONG time. Theres an aticle about "Mitochondrial damage and dysfunction in traumatic brain injury" that can be found here on PubMed.

It makes sense to me. If you can slow down the death of cells by a super effective mitochondria, that would aid in recovery after a TBI, right? Mitochondria, step it up please!!

Christmas 2011

Sorry for the blogging sabbatical. Things have been CrAzY for the past little bit. You get it, with Christmas and all. They shouldn't even count December as a real month. Its just a dedicated holiday month where you don't get anything done that you really need to do. Also, on December 15th we had Archie's first birthday. I have a cousin who has a family of 5. 4 of them have their birthday in December. Maybe thats a good plan. You have one insane month out of the year, and the rest of the year you just hang out. The holiday season has been a huge stress full of breakdowns for me, but thats another post. I can tell you about my December breakdowns ALL DAY.

Lets back up. Archie's birthday.

We did this Korean tradition (His Grandma is Korean) where you put 4 bowls in front of him, filled with noodles, rice, money, and pencils. Noodles= long life. Rice= never go hungry. Money= rich. Pencils= intelligent. Its a little Korean fortune telling. He picked the pencils, so better get started on that college fund.

Then Christmas came (pretty much the next day. Don't know how that happened.) I made matching PJs for the 3 of us. They have tractors on them. Whats best for Archie is best for all of us. Maybe when all 3 of us are wearing our PJs and someones around to take a picture I will show you. Archie got lots of toys. Eddie got luggage and legos. He's in his 30's. And I got the BEST. Eddie got me an iphone 4S. Its seriously amazing. My life is going to be so much more together now. And Siri is as, yes, incredible as one would hope. I'm going to be so much more organized now. I LOVE IT! Also, he got me 2 90 minute massages. Relaxation here I come. He said we can go together or I can go twice. He hates massages. Also, he just got one of those head massager things (like the kind they have at Sharper Image) and I told him I'd give him a 90 minute scalp massage.


We went to an hour of church yesterday, which was great, but before it started we were standing in the foyer and Archie's feet got caught on the rug and his little head went crashing into the door. He got a pretty good cut on one of his eyebrows. He screamed and Eddie and I took him into the bathroom and cleaned up his cut. Amazingly, there was a nurse there who was a HUGE help. Luckily, we didn't have to take him to the ER to get stitches on Christmas or anything, but the poor kid is so dang cute and sad looking all beat up.


We had to put a band aid pretty much covering his entire eyebrow, so the dark you see there is really just blood. I'm dreading changing his bandage. He's going to scream so much.

$10 Million for a Segway Accient

Wow. I read an article by The Daily Mailer Report about a 23 year old man who was riding a Segway for some company demonstration thing (I have a really hard time with pronouns since my injury and I don't understand what company it was or why he was riding a Segway, or who owned the Segway or anything. I bet YOU could read the same article as me and get so much more understanding out of it.) Anyways, for some reason he was doing an obstacle course with NO HELMUT and BLINDFOLDED. Some company, not sure which, didn't even provide helmuts. Poor, poor guy.

In the end, he had to drop out of college and is now a handyman. He sued Segway (and won) for 10 million. I believe he deserves it. No helmuts?? And his whole life is now hindered. He can't do anything. Seriously, if I was supposed to be the breadwinner for this family, we'd be living under the overpass right now. That poor guy's ife of ever working (outside them home) is over.

When we went on our Segway tour of the Marriot in Az, they told us they never had a baby before, but if we brought a carrier for him, that would be fine. They put no helmut on my baby, but they did on us. I remember thinking "I doubt this is safe, but I'm sure they wouldn't do it if its a liability for them." If my baby's head got hurt, I think we would probably be new owners of every Marriot. And probably Segway too.

Tone-Deafness

A couple weeks ago I took a quiz at here at musicbrain.com (as you can tell, I really like to take online quizzes. I was on a role a couple weeks ago). I took the test, and it said it would email me the results, and it hadn't by the next day so I forgot about it. The results were just emailed to me. Although it wasn't a quick turn around, I'm glad I did it. The results were very interesting. I've always figured I was either tone deaf or really close to it, but as it turns out I really just have NO rhythm. To directly quote from my emailed results, "not only are you not tone deaf, you are in the top 10% of our database!"
2 things:

1. Seriously?! Cool. Wheres the rhythm test?
2. Did I read a double negative? Or is it not? Not top 10% in grammar skillz.

ARIZONA

Eddie, Archie and I went to Scottsdale, Az to visit my parents this past weekend. My brother and sister also came. My mom's 50th birthday is on the 16th and Archie turns 1 on the 15th so it was a little pre-birthday celebration. My dad's taking my mom on a surprise trip for her birthday and we wanted to be home for Archie's 1st birthday, so thats why we originally planned it. Also, Eddie, Archie and I had never seen their house (they moved there like 1.5 years ago) and the boys went to a 49ers football game. Eddie's a big fan and hes never been to a game and my dads always been a fan to.

Let me tell you the highlight of the trip. We went on a segway tour. Call me a dork but that makes my list as one of the top funnest things I've ever done. No one told me. I heard they're actually pretty fun and not to hard to do, but it wasn't "pretty" fun, it was really fun. But, I know like all things, it is what you make it, and I made sure I had fun.

Eddie put Archie on his back (could that be legal?) and we toured the grounds of the Marriot in Scottsdale? I don't even know. I didn't care where I was going. I have the worst balence and even I could do it. Its not hard. Actually, I got the hang of it really quickly and felt comfortable and confident right away. I am a good segway rider. So comfortable that I hit a speed bump (against the instructors wishes) going pretty quick and its been reported that I got a couple feet of air. Here is my family on the segway tour.

One Thing we Can Learn From NHL

I was reading (in an article on Yahoo! Sports by Sheryl Ubelacker from The Canadian Press) about the discovery that former NHL enforcer Derek Boogaard's brain shows signs of a neurodegenerative disease linked to repeated head injuries. That MIGHT have something to do with the fighting that often goes on in the sport. Is it really a good idea to put your brain through that sort of treatment? Not to mention the rest of your body?

Derek Boogaard was 28 when he died in May 2011 of an accidental overdose. His family donated his brain for examination and it was then discovered that his brain had been injured. Apparently, this guy was pretty intense and almost out of control in his hockey games. He was involved in a lot of fights.

Hockey is a pretty physical sport, and while we're talking about it so is football. In 2008, BYU Professor Dr. Erin Bigler proved how much a concussion affects the brain in the long term. How could any one assume that you can get a concussion while playing sports and you only have minor effects? I think we need to be more careful with our brains. I know I will always were a helmut while working with horses. But I would hope I've learned my lesson!

Ruby Jane's Service

Just recently I got to participate in a wonderful service project. Lots of cemeterys nationwide have an Angel of Hope, and once a year, on Dec. 6th, they have a memorial service for all of the parents who lost a child. Remember my friend Ani Taylor (I blogged recently about her here)? Whose daughter, Ruby Jane Taylor, didn't get her liver transplant in time and left us? Well, in Ca, Ani organized a group who went to the cemetery on Dec. 6th, and cleaned the headstones and left flowers on the graves. Read about it here. Lots of people who lived in different parts of the United States did the same thing at the cemeteries in their areas. So I went to the nearest cemetery with an Angel of Hope memorial and did the project in Utah. The closest one was at the Ogden City Cemetery, which is about 1 1/2 hours away from Provo (about 1/2 from Salt Lake City). They had a "smaller" cemetery with about 220 headstones. They didn't have a children's section, so I had to walk up and down the cemetery and do the math (its a good thing I graduated college).

Some things happened and I ended up being there alone but, in some ways, I am grateful for that. It was, obviously, much more personal and meaningful. Walking up and down the rows of headstones and looking for the tiny markers was so sad. It was extra sad when I saw two graves near eachother of babies with the same last name that were a couple years apart. That poor, poor mom. The best we can do is pray for her.

It was insightful looking at the dates. I am not too young to die. There were so many young adults. How come I got kicked in the head by a HORSE and am doing pretty dang good these days? It just made me appreciate my life and my babies health so much. Either I have been blessed or I'm super lucky.

Here are some images from Ogden City Cemetery.


Merry Christmas, guys.


The guy who was in charge of the memorial called me to ask me why I did it and stuff. I told him it was for the Ruby Jane Foundation. I got to explain that one of our big goals is Organ Donation Awareness. I was so happy he asked! I love Ruby, and I love Ani, and I am so happy to do whatever I can for Ani and Ruby's cause.

Autism-Spectrum Quotient

For thanksgiving my family and I went down to southern CA for a reunion with my dad's family.

When I went down there I saw this test posted on Facebook.
It is an Autism-Spectrum Quotient test, and you know if its on Facebook it is accurate. If this doesn't scream test validity, I don't know what does. You pretty much can be diagnosed right there by the test. In the little explanation it tells you that it is "a measure of the extent of autistic traits in adults. In the first major trial using the test, the average score in the control group was 16.4. Eighty percent of those diagnosed with autism or a related disorder scored 32 or higher. The test is not a means for making a diagnosis, however, and many who score above 32 and even meet the diagnostic criteria for mild autism or Asperger's report no difficulty functioning in their everyday lives."

I took it. Why not? Its fun, right? So what was my score? 29. I took it with my dad as I would have responded before I got hurt. I got a 9. There are SO many problems here, but its entertaining and interesting, right? The main reason for the huge disparity in the results, I believe, is mainly because I am incredibly rigid in everything I do now. This is all a compensatory strategy. You know what happens if I change my plan or don't follow my schedule? I forget to turn off the oven, I leave the house with no shoes on, and I forget to put my item I am returning in the car when I go try to return that item.

So anyways, I replied to my friend on Facebook and made some joke about how I scored so high and "just call me autistic." Then I reposted it, because I found it interesting.

Later, my husband ran into that friend who posted the test (the one I made a joke about being Autistic to) and he asked "oh my gosh, did I offend her? Is anything wrong?"

The following is how you DON'T feel stupid:
Me: "OMG, I can't believe I did that, I am so stupid."
Other Person : "Haha, that was pretty dumb."

This is how you DO feel stupid:
Me: "OMG, I can't believe I did that, I am so stupid."
Other Person : "NO! You are not stupid! Don't say that."

Because he thought I was serious, I feel like he thinks I actually believe it and that its sort of true. So apparently this guy really does think I am Autistic. I'm trying to figure out whats wrong with that, anyways. I think the only thing thats wrong with being Autistic is that other people think of it negatively. And plus, I'm not autistic. I had a severe brain injury. Why do people take everything I say so seriously these days? Honestly, if everything I said was serious, there would probably be a lot more dead people right now. Because I'm going to kill that guy who cut me off, right?

That person freaking out because he thought I was offended and just made a new discovery that I was Autistic is the stupid one. I'm going to kill him.

How Music Can Play a Part in Brain Injury Recovery

I read an article by Karen Weintraub in USA TODAY about how music can help an injured brain (read it here). One man, Carey Gordon, loves R&B and when he starts getting stressed or angry, he turnes up his speakers. When he feels those emotions, a dangerous seizure can be triggered, and the music helps him calm down. This article also says that music has also helped him to recover some of the dexterity he lost when seizures partially paralyzed his right side. He can now how hold his chefs knife again, although he can't do it professionally yet! Music helped him get back his "upbeat attitude."

I also read an article about Gabby Giffords, a US Congresswoman from Arizona who was shot about 10.5 months ago, on ABC News. The article and the accompanying video was done by Katie Moisse and Bob Woodruff (I actually wrote about him earlier here). Gifford has since relearned how to talk, largely accredited to Music Therapy. She was injured in the left side of the brain, where language is controlled. However, music exists in both heispheres. The article says that scientists are finding that music can help to rebuild language on the uninjured right side. Amazing. Sometimes I like to think of the brain as a road map. There is the end goal in the distance (like speech in this case). We knew the fastest way there, but then a bullet comes along and creates a road block. So we have to find another way to our destination. Maybe its not as fast, but you can still get there. Maybe the right side has to figure out a new path to speech.

Because, you know, this is my blog, I was thinking about how music influenced my recovery (to this point). I, to, had to relearn how to talk but my injury was different. My left side wasn't hurt. It was mainly my cerebellum. I had "cerebellar mustism," which resulted in Dysarthia (which, according to Wikipedia is "a motor speech disorder resulting from neurological injury of the motor component of the motor-speech system and is characterized by poor articulation of phonemes"). I knew all the words I just couldn't get my throat muscles to say them. There was no music therapy at all.

The year after I got hurt and before I got married I lived at my parents home and they so kindly took me to all my therapies and doctor appointments. And after a couple months to my first class back at BYU (which was Personality and I got a B). Eddie made me a CD that I listened to a lot with music by Nick Drake. "Pink Moon" takes me back to that time and it makes me really sad. Apparently, I must have been pretty sad at that time of my life. Thats the only way I can think that music plays any role in my recovery. It really didn't. It justs transplants me into that time of my life. There you go.