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Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Program - FAAST Page · About BSCIP · Vendor Search · Locations · Resources · Loan Closets · Home Modification Guidelines · ITI · Vendor Registration · DME Analyst Stroke and Brain Injury Video - Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor discusses brain function Book Review
My Stroke of Insight When was the last time you stopped to really smell the roses? Or meditated while watching the sun set over the horizon? Or celebrated the connection of all of your atoms with all the other atoms in the universe? Jill Bolte Taylor learned the function and value of those types of right brain activities when she suffered from a large left brain hemorrhagic stroke on the morning of December 10, 1996. Dr. Taylor was a thirty-seven year old Harvard-trained brain scientist and a neuroanatomist by profession when the stroke occurred. She was conducting research on donated postmortem brains to help understand the causes of schizophrenia. So she knew brains and she knew what the function of each part of the brain was and how it worked, or was supposed to work, in a human. What her stroke would teach her was what the dominance of the right side of her brain and the temporary loss of function of her left side would mean to her in her everyday life. Like most stories that can strike a chord in its readers, it is about loss and gain, give and take, and lessons learned. The book starts with some background about Dr. Taylor—why she became a neuroanatomist as well as why the field of brain study and her research was important to her. The second chapter, entitled “Simple Science” gives an easy to understand lesson about brain anatomy so the reader has a better appreciation of how the stroke affected her brain and her behavior. The diagrams are black and white and very simply drawn—but that’s a good thing because the reader probably isn’t interested in Brain Anatomy 101. Just enough knowledge to prepare for what’s to come is all that is needed and that is what’s provided. The book really became spell-binding for me in Chapter 4, “Morning of the Stroke”. The onset and the continuing bleeding into the left side of her brain had Dr. Taylor stumped as to what was happening at first. She tried to get up and keep to her usual “getting ready for work” routine, but couldn’t focus on the tasks involved. Additionally, she felt the disconnect to her memories, higher cognition, and information needed to get through her usual morning routine. This usual routine was being replaced by a “sense of grace” and “being at one with the universe”. By the time she was able to determine that something wrong was happening and she needed help, she was almost beyond initiating the call for that help. She writes about how she kept looking at the telephone, knowing she needed to call for help, but having to continually remind herself that’s what she needed to do. Being able to make her body respond to these disjointed thoughts was a huge challenge. At this point in the book, the reader will likely be calling out to her, “Pick up the phone, pick up the phone…!” Through determination and good fortune, in that she was able to connect with a co-worker who, though he couldn’t understand the noises that she was making that had replaced her speech, was able to recognize who was calling and that something was very wrong. She was also able to complete a call to her physician’s office that was actually put through to the doctor (how often does that happen?). Dr. Taylor was able to get medical assistance that day. She points out that if she hadn’t gotten through to help, the lull and peace she felt was slowly leading her to her death. At the moment death didn’t seem like a particularly bad thing, but in retrospect she is very happy that was not the outcome. The description of what it felt like to have the stroke, what the loss of the left-sided functions meant to her, what it was like to leave behind the analytical and questing brain for one that valued the feelings of peace and the oneness or interconnectedness of the universe, is what makes this book such a wonderful read. Dr. Taylor is quite fortunate that her mother was willing and able to put her own life on hold to stay with her, support her in a way that fulfilled her wishes for how her recovery should be directed, and participate in her recovery. Dr. Taylor did make a tremendous recovery. It is very interesting to this reviewer, as I am sure it is to any of you with rehabilitation training and experience, to learn how she orchestrated that recovery. Dr. Taylor determined that what her brain and body needed the most was rest, rest, and more rest. She was absolutely adamant that she be able to rest whenever she wanted to and for as long as she wanted to. This regime would not have promoted a long stay in a rehabilitation facility. Dr. Taylor might work on a task for 15-20 minutes, find that she was exhausted, and then nap for hours—day or night. She attributes her extensive recovery, which appears to have taken about eight years, to the fact that she gave in to her body’s signals for rest and sleep whenever they occurred. During this prolonged recovery period, she found that she was drawn to people who took their time to try and relate to her as a person—as opposed to those who spoke louder thinking that more volume would get their message across or those who were more concerned with their own schedule or their own agenda for her. All the while, as she relates her remarkable story, Dr. Taylor conveys her delight with her new found connection to her right brain. While I don’t think that any of us would trade our current level of function, regardless of what your current level of functioning is, for one that has significant neurological and physical deficits, Dr. Taylor absolutely gushes with the positive benefits of having to learn to see the world based on the dominance of her right brain. It’s not a bad thing except for the fact that she had to pay such a high price to gain such remarkable insight. All you and I have to do is pay the price of the book to get a glimmer of it. Originally published in FAAST Access Magazine Winter 2009
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