QWF Writes

Tag: recovery

  • Writing After A Concussion—By Pearl Pirie

    Writing After A Concussion—By Pearl Pirie

    The first year after I had a concussion was a blur. I was dead to the world for three months, going in and out of sleep, exhausted. I had vertigo and difficulties with light, sound, and language. No reading. No computers. No writing. Definitely no multitasking. I had to rest for far more hours than seemed viable and consequently had to suddenly quit a few organizations I led, with no succession plan in place. I closed my small press, or as it turned out, put it on hiatus. I simply had no choice.

    As with a stroke or cancer, a traumatic brain injury can be an opportunity to reexamine one’s life and priorities.

    I had been heading towards burnout, and my concussion forced me to adopt a more balanced life, once I’d recovered enough. Now, when I overdo it, I go on concussion protocol: no screens, no concentration, less activity. The concussion encouraged me to do fewer things better, to slow down, to spend more time in nature and quiet and with friends. To go deeper, not further.

    I stopped attending so many activities. I moved out of the city and started working on editing more, writing deeper. This concussion changed my capacities. I still can’t concentrate for those fourteen-hour editing and writing days like I used to. After one or two hours I need a full break. But I can go deeper because of the slowness and the focus needed to keep on a track.

    You probably had a concussion as a kid. About six out of a thousand people per year get one. After a light bump you may see stars but not black out and feel fine within fifteen minutes. That’s a mild, or Grade 1, concussion. If you’re knocked out and lose memory from the time around the impact, it’s severe, or grade three.

    The kicker is, each time you get a concussion, the next will be worse. I think I’ve had four or five of them, with two at a grade-three level. The one that tipped me over was a Grade 2 concussion.

    I now know of a dozen poets with lasting effects from concussions. Some struggle with physical balance, some with emotional balance, others with energy. Laura Stanfill writes eloquently of how her concussion brought aphasia. A.H. Reaume describes how brain trauma affects her writing. As she makes her way through the brain fog and frustrations of not “getting it,” there are days with spoons and days when she says: “there is no way I can push myself past my capacity even though I desperately want to.” Jane Cawthorne has been compiling interviews which will come out as a book in mid-2021: Impact: The Lives of Women After Concussion.

    The brain is a complicated thing. It follows that traumatic brain injury is as well. Some patients with severe injuries rapidly recover from symptoms, while some with mild injuries have severe, long-term post-concussion symptoms that disrupt daily functioning for weeks or months. When it’s longer, it’s called post-concussion syndrome, which is what I have. (If you’re curious, there’s a scale here.) I’ve always been called out for persistence. I guess sticking to things is on a cellular level.

    My reading rate is slower. I’m impatient for speed, but because life feels more fragile, I have to balance being present with resting enough. I can’t do extended concentration like I used to, and I have to switch up my routine more since extended reading or writing or editing isn’t given carte blanche bodily clearance anymore. So, I compose in my head. Instead of moving ideas visually or digitally, I compose by rolling things around in my mind, editing there first. And by letting things go, instead of making precious and publishable the minutiae. My memory is short, and my working memory is small.

    I try to treat myself as I would a pet. Soft voice, kind acts, clean water, good food. It takes more energy to do things, so I am more conscious of investing or calling it a waste and cutting losses. I prioritize a few people more because I have fewer spoons to go around or to do All The Events. I give myself permission to leave early, to show up late or to not show up, instead of being the first one to come and the last one to go. I socialize mostly though my computer since outings are more taxing. During outings, I take more breaks, pressure myself less. I float and accept catching less than I did.

    Perhaps in combination with anxiety meds, the concussion means I’m better at being methodical and tracking deadlines and calls. Who knows? I may write less, but I get published more. My writing is different, at least. I’m a different person, and so I can resonate with different people. But would I opt to get a concussion? A big no to that.

    IMG_E4449Pearl Pirie’s fourth collection, footlights, comes out in fall 2020 from Radiant Press. Her newest chapbooks are Call Down the Walls (Frog Hollow Press, February 2019) and a haibun collection, Eldon, letters (above/ground, August 2019). Her next chapbook will be Not Quite Dawn, out from Éditions des petits nuages in the spring of 2020. Her next epistolary haibun chapbook, Water loves its bridges: Letters to the dead, is due out in December 2020 from The Alfred Gustav Press, by subscription.

    Photo credits: Pearl Pirie (header banner); Brian Pirie (headshot)

  • My Invincible Summer: Rebooting My Writing Purpose by Susan Doherty Hannaford

    My Invincible Summer: Rebooting My Writing Purpose by Susan Doherty Hannaford

    In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
    – Albert Camus, Return to Tipasa

    In May 2014, I learned that the publication of my debut novel, A Secret Music, would be delayed by twelve months. It was heartbreaking news, but not unusual coming from a small Canadian publisher who grooms first-time authors.

    During the interim, I began what would become my second book, The Ghost Garden – a deep-in-the-trenches, creative non-fiction work about one woman’s forty-year struggle with schizophrenia. I spent my days researching. I even worked in the field: I volunteered at group homes, in the Douglas Hospital and at Nazareth House, a shelter for homeless men. I worked with those suffering from extreme psychosis, and many people shared the heart-breaking stories of their volcanic lives with me.

    Then, finally, my box of books arrived this May. It was one of the most gratifying moments of my fledgling career as a writer. But as Claire Holden Rothman told me, “This is just the beginning, not the end.” Days later, I had my Montreal book launch, quickly followed by a Toronto launch and several library readings, book talks, radio interviews. Somehow the euphoria of my launch allowed me to cartwheel over a dire condition that was progressing in the most virulent way. My adrenaline overshadowed the symptoms that persisted all of May and June and July.

    “Somehow the euphoria of my launch allowed me to cartwheel over a dire condition that was progressing in the most virulent way.”

    I had migraines, fevers, night sweats and swollen lymph nodes. The radiologist who examined the CT scan pointed out a possible lymphoma that would need to be confirmed by neck biopsy. (Take that off your bucket list.) The results of the biopsy came back inconclusive. The lymph nodes were necrotic, meaning that all cells were dead. I was back to waiting and wondering what was wrong.

    On August 1, my condition became acute and I was hospitalized for what turned out to be a month at the Jewish General Hospital. My fevers were raging around the clock, reaching over 40.5 degrees. I had biopsies, MRI and PET Scans, and a lumbar puncture. The good news was that I was cancer-free, but the diagnosis – a rare illness called adult-onset HLH – seemed just as ominous.

    HLH is an autoimmune disease where the immune system goes psychotic. It never turns off. It hunts your body for tumors and bacteria and viruses, and when it finds nothing, it destroys your blood cells. (Think of a John Deere mower in your beautifully groomed garden, without a driver, operating in tenth gear.) The treatment protocol is aggressive. Chemotherapy. Corticosteroids. Antibiotics. Neupogen. I needed twenty-two blood transfusions before beginning chemo.

    I began chemo on August 6 at 7 p.m. At 9 p.m. HLH launched its final spear. For seven hours I had convulsive chills, fevers, profuse sweating… but also, visions. I saw the cells that were dying. I saw the macrophages leaving the bone marrow. I saw my deceased father agonizing over me. When the fever finally ended, the gratitude I felt was overwhelming. I felt the weight of a thousand hands lift me back up.

    “For seven hours I had convulsive chills, fevers, profuse sweating… but also, visions.”

    As sick as I was, I saw my purpose as a writer. I’d written A Secret Music to heal a part of myself, but in The Ghost Garden, I saw an opportunity to enlighten a society where the everyday violence of movie theatre shootings and Greyhound bus beheadings had stigmatized the mentally unwell more than ever. I wanted to be a voice for those who had none. The Ghost Garden needed to be written. My ambition as a writer would be re-focused on a higher purpose. From that exact moment, I began my recovery with positivity and the certainty that my health would return.

    I consider myself lucky. The diagnosis for HLH is most often missed until it’s too late. I was diagnosed within the two-month fatal cut-off. Writing is a passion, and faith is a grace note. Blissfully, all my passions are still intact.

    Susan Doherty HannafordSusan Doherty Hannaford is a Montreal writer. Her debut novel, A Secret Music was published by Cormorant Books in May, 2015

    Photo (headshot): Kathy Slamen