Saw Dr D on Thursday.

Sitting in her office, I watched as she moved about in preparation for the meeting. This observation triggered a memory of my first visit with her after the accident. I had been uncomprehending – observing, but not understanding her activity on my behalf.

Discovery of the injury was a month long, multi-stage process. I performed some volunteer work, and wondered at the sudden decline in my performance. There were strange pains which made no sense. Walking was no longer natural. It now required concentrated effort to maintain a normal gait. Despite multiple job applications, I had zero prospects for employment; my interview performance was uncomprehending and out of touch. There was difficulty remembering the names of people I knew. Word recall was extremely poor. While engaged in a task, I would find the thread of concentration broken leaving me staring blankly at a computer screen, or standing in the kitchen holding a vegetable and wondering what it was I was attempting to achieve.

Lacking a family doctor, I went to a walk in clinic. The doctor ordered a comprehensive blood test. The results proved negative. I was then referred to a hospital in Gatineau for an MRI. Visiting the hospital, I was referred to an outside clinic to see a neurologist. From the staff at the clinic, I learned there was a wait time of one years duration.

Subsequent to seeing the doctor at the walk in clinic, I realized I had failed to mention various phenomena and experiences. I was forgetful. I should have spoken of this strange event, described this other odd happening, made mention of a series of unusual behaviours. All these events had been forgotten, left unmentioned. During my time at the clinic, I was at pains to appear normal. I had no conception of having had a brain injury; I knew absolutely nothing about closed wound head injury. My only awareness was of behaviours that appeared to be “off,” an odd collection of events not easily explained.

When told of the year long wait to see a neurologist, I became worried. In the space of that year, I would likely forget most of these strange events. I knew I had already made an incomplete presentation at the walk-in clinic. My recent memories appeared faulty, indistinct. I needed to make an accurate presentation one year in the future. I began to write down all the strange events I could remember.

It took a month to write this catalog, no more than five pages long. Once complete, it became obvious it was not a case of just one odd little event, but an entire series of odd behaviours and events, none of them immediately explainable. The occurrence of all these events traced back to the immediate aftermath of the motor vehicle accident.

Something was clearly wrong. I needed to find work. Whatever was haunting me interfered with my performance, made me forgetful, obtuse, unable to follow the thread of a job interview. Waiting a year to get this problem addressed seemed unwise. I appeared to be subject to some form of ongoing mental deterioration. What condition would I be in a year from now?