Beyond the Scan

Only 98%!

If we haven’t met before, a very warm welcome. If we have, a very warm welcome back.

This is one of three hemi stories, much more in the hemi blog. It isn’t, in fact, much about me, a right homonymous hemianopia. Rather, it’s the two conditions that walked out of the Royal London Hospital [image 01] with him and me more than 50 years ago and one that joined us later.

Mr T.T. King and his team had just completed saving his life from a brain abscess he’d acquired in a tiny island in the South Pacific five months earlier - the island had had no medical facilities of any kind [image 02]. The two conditions are mild epilepsy - my epilepsy hemi companion [image 03] - and steadily recovering complete communication loss – my rewiring hemi companion, 30 years later started to fray slightly at the edges [image 04].

After two weeks of friendly headaches on Uki [image 05], his tiny island, his brain had blown, the pain well above the equivalent of the 10 points Richter earthquake scale. Paracetamol, all that he could offer himself, had returned faster than he sent it down. He couldn’t sleep for five days and nights, and was still unable to eat or drink when he finally ceased awareness.

Identified as an abscess or tumour in the little hospital in Honiara, the capital of the Solomons [image 06], that served a vast sway of ocean, he reached the nearest neurology department 14 days after his brain blew, a remarkable achievement on the part of the unknown people who helped him along the way.

Discharged prematurely in Australia, though almost certainly the reason why he’s still alive, his brain blew again back here a week later, this time stimulated by a fit. An impossible combination of circumstances found him in “the London”. 

He’d found himself still able to understand, yet unable to communicate for himself. 

His Friendly Connection  

That was except for three syllables first thing in the morning and in the afternoon if he’d been asleep, the syllables left over from his time on Uki. He could articulate them four times over 10 minutes or so. If he said them too quickly, added something, or tried something new, his connection immediately cut as if in anger. Say the syllables more slowly than the  expected normal and the connection would again be lost, yet this time in a friendly way as if saying “goodbye” and “see you again”.

Only once over nearly two months was there no connection, neither in the morning or in the afternoon. It was a bad day. He hadn’t realised how important even this briefest of connection had become. It made him feel he was still engaged. Now no longer, he was completely on his own. He started thinking of people thought to be brain dead. Except he wasn’t. His friendly connection was back the following morning as if nothing had happened.

His friendly connection reminded him of an elderly battery [image 07]. Charged overnight it came across clearer and for longer than in the afternoon as if the recharge time available hadn’t been enough. He wanted to share his friend, in part for confirmation. However, he lacked the words required to do so.

He felt sad being unable to say “thank you” and “goodbye” after operation 4 switched on his reconfigured wiring. For him, the connection was completely real and would still like to know what it meant?

Moving On

The recovery was gradual, yet firm enough to save him from any more Jack and Jill Book 2 [image 08] sessions trying to help him learn how to communicate again. He was advised the loss would recover within two years to 98% of his past – pre-hemi time and speed. Such precision was fully understandable when told by Mr King. Or perhaps even 99% in 21 months.

He remembers little about his recovery other than steady improvement, on just one occasional feeling to be above the ground. Then a bit odd to find himself back at university within a couple of months [image 09]. Fortunately, his course was undemanding unlike his previous one, and for a time a fellow student somehow understood what he wanted to say better than he did. He enjoyed prime colours plus green as he never knew which would come up next. All the other colours seemed limp, black and white immediately dismissed.

His only notable difficulty after recovery had been completed was when he started to say something or at the end, with no problem in between. He knew what he wanted to say, the first word would come out as required, the next three or four already disappeared. Which, in fact, became a game he was good at when starting, finding instant replacements for the words he’d forgotten, the replacements always correct. He wasn’t so good when finishing, sometimes hesitating, very occasionally drying up.

Safely away from university, he never considered my rewiring hemi companion and me as employment obstacles. He didn’t accept the idea of being disabled in any form, naturally no one being aware of what was happening inside him. For a time, he had a job that flew him to such places as Haiti [image 10] and Gaza [image 11], always on his own and without any concern of anything going wrong, such as the implications of having a fit.

Naturally, he no longer read the paper from end to end, though that had been an unnecessary habit and, anyway, he had the radio as an alternative. His half-eyes tortoise speed reading was good enough for any conventional office work required of him including two fingers typing. There was nothing to suggest he might have problems with letters, words and numbers. It started later.

He didn’t find anyone or anything to tell him he mustn’t drive, therefore did so with perfect ease for two years outside London, a right wingmirror standing-in perfectly for my right hemi blank side [image 12]. Cycling in London, however, was a bit foolish as he instinctively cycled in the fast lane, fast as he always had and also as the safest lane – he could see almost all of it and very little of the slow lane [image 13].

Then for 10 years he was able to as good as forget about me. Fate landed him with another of his rescue jobs, this time cooking day and night in a hemi perfect kitchen instead of community centres. As to be expected, no one had ever heard of a hemi and he was still so hemi ignorant it took him another 10 years to realise that, if I’d been a left hemi, he’d have hardly seen the stove.

However, there’d been a pointer to the future. He did his best to avoid using the till, even more so the calculator [image 14]. He could see a single column of digits in the calculator’s weird order, then another followed by a third, a fourth he could ignore. One moment all the digits, then only three once again.

He was immensely relieved to be out of the kitchen, yet regretted it at the same time. Over his 10 years hemi holiday, computers had taken over the world and he’d been left behind. His calculator was a warning of what was to come. Start with hemi computer phobia – find File on the computer screen and his half-eyes see nothing more – followed by my rewiring hemi companion, his tortoise speed reading already with him.

 “The Watershed”

And now “the watershed”, no more hemi images to stop him from wondering off to somewhere else [image 15].

30 years after his abscess had been drained, three worrying things happened that might be interrelated. He hadn’t had an epileptic fit for coming up to 10 years when he had one out of the blue. One night he lost all his hearing in his right ear as instantly and completely as my right hemi blank side. At a public meeting he’d said £500,000 instead of £300,000 and denied it.

He’d already had an immense amount of borrowed time and the life expectancy of a reconditioned car is surely shorter than a car with a clean record. Yet a scan found nothing. So, he’s treating the “three watershed conditions” separately, my rewiring hemi companion still unexplained. 

 My Epilepsy Hemi Companion

"Standard Fits”

His epilepsy experience has been in three parts, before “the watershed”, his fits returning, then disappearing again.

Part one was also in three phases, testing his medication requirement, having periodic fits, then their disappearance. He fought taking pills, having an abscess had been nothing. Pills meant he’d lost control and was no longer whoever he used to be. And to an extent he was right as he’ll be coming to.

In due course he settled down with two pills twice a day. His fits weren’t frequent, no more than two or three a year, always at night. There were no apparent side effects other than annoyance. Then they stopped, for a time not even realising, perhaps eight years after they’d started. He continued taking the pills. By then he’d taken them for granted. Presumably, the lack of fits meant they were doing their job.

For a reason unrelated to his epilepsy, he spent a few days in hospital. A doctor, not a neurologist, was horrified at his still taking the pills and said in a manner he’d never medically experienced before that he should stop.

It left him feeling uneasy. He would have liked some advice, yet didn’t know where to turn. And, of course, it was easier to stop than continue. Nothing happened when he did, no new “standard fits” as he’s now calling them, the doctor had indeed been right.

Nothing appeared to have happened to encourage the return of his “standard fits” 30 years after his abscess had been drained. Once again, they weren’t frequent, much the same as before in frequency and side effect. Except now they were during the daytime and often in inappropriate places - a swimming pool, a multi-stage crossing of a main road he hadn’t intended to cross, smashing his head on the pavement early in the morning when no one was about. Fortunately, their infrequency allowed him to continue as before.

Then the “standard fits” stopped once again, the most recent probably 15 years ago.

“Mini-Fits”

The first “mini-fit” coincided with the end of his “standard fits”. They always happened when he was drying after a swim – the centre had allowed him to continue even after his two “standard fits”. His right arm froze, he sat down if standing, nothing else happened other than his knowing he’d be unable to respond if some called. He simply waited for a moment or two, his arm relaxed, he continued as before.

He probably had five or six “mini-fits” of this type, perhaps a few more. He wondered whether they were influenced by his level of swimming effort, though he never slowed down. They didn’t return after he had two hip operations, possibly due to his having to swim in a different way.

The “mini-fits” reminded him of what happened immediately before his first “standard fit” that took him to “the London” at the start of it all. He was having a bath, a particularly hot one as he was feeling cold. He’d asked his right hand to transfer the soap to his left hand as usual. Except his right hand refused, relenting only at his fourth attempt. Though none of the more recent “mini-fits” triggered anything else.

Unlike the first “mini-fits”, the second have been unpleasant, tending to start that way and then ease or the other way around. He’s been sitting at his computer, always at the start of a new line. He becomes aware that something’s about to happen, tries to keep working, then has to accept that a force has taken over. He promises to remember what will happen next as he loses awareness, yet never succeeds other than a sense of it being something similar to what he's just been doing.

Meanwhile, he’s waiting for himself outside. Till he finds himself back at his computer ready to get going again, then realises the force still has control. It starts to leave with an intense pressure. He tries once more as the force works itself into a crescendo, then disappears. It takes him a few moments to fully recover.

He’s probably had 15 such “mini-fits”, on two occasions three in the same day. He now hasn’t had one for three or four years, yet they’re nasty enough for him not to say they’re over for fear of their return.

Is This Also Epilepsy?

Those two “mini-fits” seem a junior version of “standard fits”, both very different from what he experienced during three neurology outpatient appointments after the return of his fits and a fourth several years later.

He was lying on his consultant’s couch ready for his reflexes to be tested, the consultant using a kind of tuning fork exactly the same as Mr King’s 30 years earlier. Except then his legs responded to Mr King’s requests without giving it any thought – both consultants “requesting” rather than “requiring”. And while both consultants most likely assumed it would be the case, now his legs refused, much the same as when his right hand wouldn’t pass over the soap before his original standard fit.

He knew exactly what was being requested of them on each appointment, practicing in advance after his first failure. Yet the result was always the same. Highly embarrassing, though perhaps the consultant hadn’t noticed. The movements requested were so slight that the consultant must have built up a momentum that moved his legs for him. Or was that wishful thinking on his part, the consultant just being polite. Whichever, his embarrassment was such that he never asked why it was happening.

The fourth appointment was five or so years later. His G.P. had booked it in error. The hospital was different, the consultant was different, and both the consultant and he knew they were merely going through the motions. Regardless, he failed once again.

Since then and out of curiosity, he’s tried to test himself when seeing a G.P. or having an x-ray. On one or two occasions just possibly a similarity, otherwise not at all. Though at the time of “the watershed”, these ‘incidents were of his greatest concern - what might happen next?

Back to taking pills after the return of his “standard fits”, his postal repeat prescription had been delayed. Four pill-free days led to his functioning at supercharge. He couldn’t possibly not notice, that was until another fit. So, indeed his pills had taken over, he wasn’t quite the person he’d been. At least he now takes a pill twice a day that apparently has less side effect than the other, though considered not to be quite as effective. So far, for him it’s doing well enough.

Right Ear Loss

The second of “the watershed trio” is the one that’s not directly part of his brain.

He’d just come back from a run and was trying to shake water out of his right ear as sometimes after swimming, except he hadn’t been swimming that night. The annoyance continued for four days, gradually easing. That night it seemed as if it’d been raining throughout, though it hadn’t. It continued for years, only very gradually decreasing. Next morning on his way to work it seemed as if he was drunk, his balance gone. It continued for 20 days then stopped, a day earlier than he’d been advised. Though his hearing had gone never to return, the loss as complete as my rewiring hemi companion.

He was told in outpatients that he had antiphospholopid syndrome and most people have it only in their lower body like having swollen legs. He was horrified at the thought of it and felt immensely relieved he had it upstairs as well as down, only later realising the far greater risk involved with his ear so close to his brain. It was then that he was shown an x-ray of his brain with its left brain moved across to join his right brain.

There was an inevitable period of adjustment to this hearing loss, more intense than with me. It was only then that he realised how important his right ear had been to protect him from my right hemi blank side. It had provided a split-second sensation before an otherwise likely hemi bump. It was then that he went over a car, fate playing “good guy” as he picked himself up from the road, apologised to the bewildered driver and walked away.

Crowds - hemi mayhem in the hemi main story – were frightening at first, seriously frightening at night. Though the adjustment didn’t take that long except at night in places he didn’t/doesn’t know. Remarkably, the split-second warning of a hemi bump has returned despite no longer having any help from his ear.

More to the point with fate still playing “good guy”, it had given him a right blank ear. If it’d been his left ear, his life would have been unpleasant, constantly aware that something was wrong on one side or the other. As it is, his only relating problem is being unable to work out from which direction sound is coming - voices, phone calls, police car sirens as he tries to cross the road.

Years on, his G.P. notes told him he’d had a stroke. Which confuses him. Anyway, thank goodness he wasn’t told then if it was the case.

 My Rewiring Hemi Companion

It was the third of “the watershed trio” that caused him the most concern after his reflexes performance. It was for three reasons. At a public meeting, he’d said £500,000 rather than £300,000 and denied it. While the other two conditions were immediately identified medically, this one wasn’t and still hasn’t. And whatever’s going to happen next?

He started trying to test whether the incident had been a “one off” or not, if “yes” was it numbers alone or letters and words as well. He tried to test himself when reading at night. It wasn’t easy to assess as later. What did seem apparent, however, was that he now had a problem he hadn’t had before, and a very nasty one with numbers. It’s they that, ultimately, caused Paradise Lost 2.

Given these three new medical experiences and his record, he was given a scan that found nothing. Relief, though not completely. He had no idea how a scan could confirm or otherwise he was making mistakes, mistakes he’d never experienced before.

So, what to do? And again, easier to do nothing than bother the NHS any further. As always, he’d had the best possible health check. Almost rude to seek anything more. Except he was still making mistakes and had responsibilities. He had to be prepared for whatever might happen next after all that had happened in the past. And a repeat of his £200,000 public mistake would see him out of a job.

 The Psychologist

Now something only fate could have come up with. I hesitated to include it as it’s critical. Except it’s yet another of fate’s “impossibles”, never possible to happen to anyone else, almost as good as never happening.

If he wanted to take his third “watershed concern” further, his consultant referred to an annual intelligence test. Take one every year to check for any deterioration in my rewiring hemi companion. Though he was warned the test would be unpleasant and he didn’t have to go through with it.

This confused him, most especially having an appointment with a psychologist apparently responsible for the test. Of course, it was entirely up to him whether he had the test or not. Embarrassing perhaps, not that it mattered as it was nothing to do with anyone else, and this first test would be nothing more than a benchmark for future years. Anyway, if the results were worrying, at least it meant the tests were doing their job.

A large building, unwelcoming, seemingly empty, mentally cold, ideal for a horror story, the psychologist playing the lead, the script starting with an offer of pills.

Pills? What pills? All he could think of was illicit pills. He was disgusted.

He was asked again and the penny dropped. Depression pills. Yet he’d come for an intelligence test, not a quick fix and away. He was offered pills again at the end of the first of three weekly sessions, whether he would be coming back again as well? Certainly not after what he’d already experienced.

Except, once again, he’d come for an intelligence test. At the same time, had the psychologist made any allowance for me in the test? Most of it was of the tick-box variety and he was working against the clock.

He fully accepted no one would have arranged a test specially for him, most probably not specially for hemis alone, though certainly he couldn’t be expected to perform in the same way with me on board as if I wasn’t. And if it hadn't been for me, he'd never have met any the psychologist.

In the end he didn’t ask. It would have been taken as a challenge, while all he’d come for was the start of his annual intelligence test.

Now fate's entertainment, one of its best. The test completed and without referring to anything, the psychologist told him he wasn’t as intelligent as he should be given the university he’d attended.

He didn’t mind the insult as such. He’d never had any idea how he’d got there. Yet for a psychologist, any psychologist and even more so one well into their 50s with all the airs of importance surrounded by formal family photos…...It was outrageous.

No reference was made to any test results and what was to follow. Years later and again discovered from his G.P. notes, he found he’d been diagnosed as mildly depressed which his G.P. had apparently – and fortunately - ignored. The entire experience had indeed been depressing.

He’d no option but to complain. Months later the psychologist phoned to tell him he could be slotted in the following day due to a cancellation. That could easily be read as another insult and the last person he wanted to see was the psychologist. He left it at that, putting the receiver down unanswered. The NHS had already done more than enough for him to take the psychologist’s behaviour any further.

 Numbers – Meter Reading                                                       

After such craziness, yet again what to do? Give up and hope that nothing else would emerge, or try to find a way to monitor himself - would his mistakes increase, in what form if the answer was “yes”, and what would be the implication?

The answer turned out to be immediate and completely unexpected. Fate arranged for him to be made redundant one evening - nothing to do with my rewiring hemi companion or me. The only job it could find for him in the local paper next morning was as a meter reader. Which was precisely the job he needed, checking simple numbers all day.

The job was of the simplest. The hard work was finding the correct meter address, whether anyone’s in, finally the meter itself. Once found, transfer the four digits, occasionally five, on the meter dial to the meter reading device in his hand and away he went.

Except every third or fourth meter “read” he got a digit wrong. He seldom realised it immediately. A brief moment of approval, then an awareness that something was wrong, as if one of the digits had just changed itself, most likely the second or third of the four.

And it wasn’t a matter of doing another quick "read" and away. Rather, his half-eyes were now staring at the dial, carefully monitoring the physical transfer of the digits from dial to device even more so than before to check for any unrealised movement along the way, confirming their successful arrival, then having to admit something had gone wrong once again.

Even more frustrating and amazing, once he'd got a “read” wrong it could take him five or six more before he could convince himself he’d got both dial and device correct three times. Not necessarily three times in succession, that would have been too much to attempt. The psychologist must have been cheering.

He started taking a notebook with him to help. Except how could it? How could digits put in his notebook be any more reliable than those in the device? And by then could he really be certain the digits his half-eyes were seeing on the dial be any more accurate than those in the other two?

It was uncanny, his mind ordering four digits of its printer only to find the printer had views of its own, perhaps not completely unlike when he couldn’t communicate while his abscess was still active. No rhyme or reason, good mornings and bad evenings, then the other way around, next the mistakes in good order between right and wrong, something like 6,000 in total, as good or as bad at the beginning as at the end.

Numbers - Digital Camera

He never imagined he’d find anything even vaguely related to meter reading to compare “then” and “now” as a stand-in for his intelligence tests. That was till he bought a digital camera to help support the hemi main story with hemi images. Amazingly, the key camera reference numbers are based on digits, the same as for meter reading.

Though, after that, the similarity between the two is limited, easy with meter reading, the opposite with his camera, until the end.

As a moment ago, for meter reading all his half-eyes had had to do was lower themselves from the dial to the device in his hand, any other action required on his left. Nothing more.

In contrast, his camera and its controls are all on my right hemi blank side. Therefore, his half-eyes can’t see them immediately. When they’ve turned, they see a cluster of tiny actions needed, the relevant four digits not the most immediately apparent. It takes only a moment, yet longer than when meter reading. 

Now the transfer of a numbered hemi image and, unlike meter reading once again, may not be immediately apparent, perhaps hiding instead in a cluster of hemi images or further along.

In addition, his half-eyes and his mind have to contend with two hemi headaches most likely unique to right hemis. First, there’s always the risk of his half-eyes missing a hemi image if it’s at the far end of a line of text – the gap between “seeing” and “not seeing” half-eyes is nothing more than a single “dot” (see main Hemi Story p.p.13-109). 

Though the real hemi headache’s my blank hole (see Hemi Main Story p.p.8-9). As his half-eyes search for the next hemi image, his half-eyes will most likely be doing so at pre-hemi time and speed – it’s as if he still has full-eyes. Which means they’re turning too fast back and forth to find the hemi image if it’s somewhere along the line even though it’s been marked in bold. Slow down to hemi time and speed and now his half-eyes can see what he’s looking for. This he can’t find in Google.

Now similarities between “then” and “now”. When a mistake’s been identified, both frequently require several further attempts before feeling able to proceed. Another similarity, his attempt to use a notebook, at first expecting it to solve his problem.

Intriguingly, there’re some digits that never give his half-eyes any problem, others the reverse, time and again leaving him feeling foolish. Intriguingly as well, more recently there’ve been occasions when his half-eyes watch his mind making fresh mistakes and setting off regardless.

All this activity is some justification for the major increase in the mistakes I’ve been causing along with my rewiring hemi companion. The one in three or four for meter reading it’s now down to one in two or less, as good as meaningless. Though there’s at least one simple conclusion from “then” and “now”. At present, there’s no need for an intelligence test.

Letters and Words – Reading and Writing

He’s had difficulty finding a letter and word comparison to numbers in line with “then” and “now”. And unlike numbers, he’s had to cope with my letter and word mistakes ever since I arrived, numbers only since “the watershed”. His half-eyes even had to have some additional hemi learning due to them.

Or is it really hemi learning, remembering the occasions when he’s struggled with number mistakes, making five or six attempts and never being completely certain one of them is correct?

Even more so, he made letter and word mistakes before I arrived and he’s still at it. The mistakes I cause are in the hemi main story, such as his assuming “instinct” has ended as such without slowing down to check for any alternative, “…ive”, “…ively” or “…iveliness”.

Now the outcome of “the watershed” with my rewiring hemi companion introducing new forms of mistake. An easy one to start with - the disappearance of an everyday word. It’s word-shaped, though nothing more. Wait a moment and the word may quickly return, or more likely a little later. At least these days, unlike at the “the watershed” itself when so much was uncertain, he knows it will. And there’s even some entertainment, catching up with the word again further along in its normal self.

Which confirms his mind’s been fully active since “the watershed”, yet my rewiring hemi companion continues to fray a bit at the edges. Fraying any more? Hard to say with so much going on and three sources of mistake. And the words that have been used as a mistake won’t necessarily be used again, just passed on for another one.

Most certainly there was a record of mistakes as he struggled to complete the hemi stories, the detail of the hemi main story going on and on. As a result, it’s impossible to attempt a comparison between “then” and “now” with letters and words, him, me or my rewiring hemi companion most responsible for the mass of mistakes? Instead, just to confirm that, as with numbers, there’s still no need for an intelligence test – and it’s now more than 50 years on since his abscess. Is that a record?

Letters and Words - Spoken

The spoken word hasn’t done so well as the others, more like the reverse, except, unlike the others, it’s had to cope with some external interference.

As earlier, while recovering from his abscess and communication loss he had no problem with reading and writing, that’s even though I’d just arrived. And while Mr King had warned him that the communication recovery wouldn’t be complete, only 98%, he can’t remember any problem in any form after a few years until “the watershed”, that’s except for the problems I cause.

Then “the watershed”. This time it involved letters, words and numbers, not the spoken word. He’s unaware of when and how it joined the others. There was even some uncertainty as to whether it was an extension of “the watershed” or not given the build-up to Paradise Lost 2 and something else that was disturbing him.  

Adding to the confusion, he’d had no communication unease at work until the horror ending of Paradise Lost 2 - years of confidence with the centre a success, then instant destruction that left him suicidal. While even before “the watershed” and also since, he’s had an unease that includes getting words wrong and struggling to engage.

At the same time, there’s been another “then” and “now”, this one going back almost as far as his abscess. His final communication problem as his recovery ended had been finding the three or four words he’d instantly lost after the first word of a new conversation. It was soon a game, somehow always finding the replacement words even though he’d lost the originals that, as a result, then reappeared.  

Now fast forward to the present and he’s wanting to say something again, though always having to double check his words. Which, inevitably, means someone else has chipped in first. Humiliatingly, on one occasion someone was already telling his story, even though they hadn’t been there. Sadly, best pull away.

He felt safe in the gym, though still saying no more than “hello” and listening if there was conversation. Then one day it was pouring with rain and only a few people were present. So, he tested himself aloud. Rain came out as wind, next snow. Rain at last, yet by now his words had dried up. Fortunately, everyone had already moved on.

Though perhaps the spoken word isn’t so disappointing after all. Now that the hemi stories are finished, external influences – the two other sources of spoken word mistakes – have lost their influence. And the hemi stories might well become Paradise Regained, Paradise Lost 2 having challenged him against suicide with a therapy that justified his still being here, the full story starting with Paradise Lost 1 all these years ago. 

Mind Alternatives

11 ways his mind is attempting a word, yet coming up with another one:

1) Looks/sounds almost correct:

• almost - always; evolution - evaluation; agitation - gravitation; monument - moment; appreciate – experience; after – other; words - works

2) Irrelevant:

• impact – seldom; matters – battery; fist – tidy; historical – complementary; original - yesterday; introduction – question-mark; university – hospital; fate- say    

3) Opposites:

• stop – start; first – last; begin – end; important – unconscious; impossible – importance; significant - slight

4) Having to make several attempts:

• patient, permanent, painful, pavement; reference, referral, reflection, reflexes

5) Always picks the other of the two:

• what – that; when – then; go – so; does – goes

6) Missing first letter:

• (i)gnoring, (c)apacity, (t)rigger, (at)tempt, (g)eneral, (a)nything

7) Double letter error – always a delay before understanding:

• disaddear - disappear; refetted – referred; succeffion – succession

8) Mini-scrabble – working out a name in a poster he can’t identify immediately:

• issoa – oasis; Bibraina – Barbican; aworrai - warrior

9) Checking a word, deciding its incorrect and coming up with another, seeing himself in his mind starting to type it, realising the meaning of the new word is the same as the original word, then that he’s actually typing the original word once again, the new word quietly disappearing:

• reorganised – rearranged; frightened - afraid; amendment – alteration

10) Comprehension fog – ceased for several years:

• three paragraphs in a page, the first and last as usual, the second like a child’s toy with the shape of the houses along a road yet with no detail till the fog clears

11) First thing in the morning failure – ceased for several years:

• while normally working at his best first thing in the morning, periodically having to give up and start again later.