Another player in the bipolar game

Today DH went to see a neuropsychologist. The reason that he went dates back to the three weeks when he was hospitalized about a year and a half ago. At that time, they did some kind of scan, I think it was an MRI, of his brain, and were rather shocked by the fact that it appeared that the left temporal lobe of his brain was severely damaged. Nobody ever followed up on that possibility, though, until now. We've been so busy just trying to keep the bipolar under control, that we had pretty much forgotten about the brain damage thing.

Anyhow, so today he finally went in for some tests. Even though the actual test results won't be available for a couple of weeks, DH was shocked by his inability to answer some pretty simple questions, and his inability to think logically.

He told me that they asked him questions like "what is the difference between a cat and a dog?" and he said, "It was the strangest feeling. I knew the answer, but there were no words for it, and no way for me to explain it. I have never felt that way before. It was very strange."

He also described a test where there were two decks of cards. The person administering the test was to show him one card at a time, and when DH had figured out the pattern, they would put that deck away. He said that the girl who was administering the test seemed very surprised, as DH went through both decks completely and never saw a pattern at all.

Apparently the neuropsychologist mentioned that the tests that DH didn't do well on were all related to the left temporal lobe, so the connection has been made.

A lot of this is not news to me. I've known for at least a year and a half that there was something wrong with his thinking, but I thought it was the bipolar. I'm not sure if its good or bad that it could be a brain injury instead. I have a lot of questions: How is it that the symptoms seemed to get so bad all of a sudden? Is there some kind of therapy that can help retrain other parts of the brain to do things the left temporal lobe usually does? Is it going to get worse? I guess we'll find out in a couple of weeks. So is the bipolar something entirely different, or is it related to the brain damage? It seems like the added meds in the last couple of weeks have made a difference, so maybe its some of both.

And something else the doctor told DH: About a year and a half ago, DH was still functioning normally, and went to the eye doctor. He learned that the glaucoma test had come out "positive" and he was supposed to make an appointment to get rechecked and come up with a plan of action. But it wasn't too long after that that everything fell apart, and he never went. Today the Dr. told him that his left eye is getting progressively worse, and DH can expect that he will probably be blind in that eye within 2 years.

So, even though the glaucoma thing is very upsetting to me, DH is more concerned about the fact that he "flunked" at the neuropsychologist's. He keeps saying "I don't want to be disabled." I said to him "well, you haven't exactly been "abled" in the last few months", and he agreed with me and then we both talked about how things are better now than they were 6 months ago, so whether its the bipolar or the brain damage, we both know things could be worse.

I think for me it will be very helpful to know exactly what the brain damage means. It'll be easier for me to plan, easier for me to accept some things, like his problems with his memory. Instead of me getting disgusted by the fact that he can't remember anything from 5 minutes ago, knowing that there is a brain injury will make it easier for me to accept. To me, knowledge is power. And he's truly no worse off mentally or physically than he was yesterday, he just has more knowledge. I'll keep you updated on what we find out.