Sylvia's Journal

According to the certified neuropsychologist, Axel is very smart but something is wrong with his executive function and it has to do with his ‘memory to learn.’ We already knew this. It was, once more, confirmed by the neuropsychologist who Axel went to see at Beth Israel yesterday to discuss the results of the long and grueling neuropsych test he took some weeks ago. Suddenly the scientific debate on what to do about ADD (or executive ‘mal’ functioning) is in our living room. Pills or exercising and organizing the brain processes? He used to take pills but since the accident he has been off those and now it’s all about learning techniques that work around the handicap. He came home with a book written by a neurologist who watched her own brain collapse and then recover (stroke of insight). It is funny to think that I originally embarked on a career of neurpsychology but (a first) marriage diverted me from that pursuit. None of what happened would have happened if I had stuck to both. A lot of other things would also not have happened.

Axel is functioning quite well with his handicap and to prove this, he was inducted into town officialdom last night at his first attendance as a member of the Manchester Community Preservation Committee. It is a good place for him where he can combine his love for preserving what is worth preserving in the town with his knack for bringing people together around a common vision. I watched him and others, years ago, campaign for getting the CPA approved in Manchester. It took some perseverance but in the end they succeeded. This is where I learned, by observation, about the art of coalition building. I still use those notes in my teaching.

I spent another whole day at work plus too much time in traffic. It is supposed to be lighter now because of vacations but when I left at 3:30 it did not look that way. Two hours later I was home. Halfway through my commute I had to stop for some strong medicine (coffee) because I was practically falling asleep over my steering wheel. The coffee place is, strategically, situated in a bookstore. I was able to confirm Axel’s observation that there are lots of books out there about brain. A quick scan of the ‘hot book’ table shows ‘green’ and ‘brain’ to be the hot topics of this summer’s reading. We’re not doing great on either but we are working on both.