...I become frustrated when others share their difficulty in remembering names, as it is NOT the same! 99% of the time, I struggle hard to recall names. I can call a person by their real name one minute & seconds later, I can't remember it for the life of me. Very frustrating!! My TBI was in my left temporal lobe 3/06, and these difficulties are apparently permanent.

Can anyone relate to this description, or is more due to the brain surgery?? Thank you!

Hi there,

What you are describing is damage to the language/word generation centers which are located in the left temporal side of your head, back of the frontal lobes. It is also somewhat responsible for sequential processing (one thing following another.)

Even though I was kicked in the right frontal lobe, I have noticed residual problems in myself with name finding for people and things. This kind of anterograde amnesia is really common. (Forgetfulness for things/events post the traumatic event.) And it is annoying.

But funny story: I have peacocks who roost in the pine tree behind the place I live. I was trying to talk about them to my landlady and could get the "pe.., pe...pe" sound out, got frustrated and blurted out penguins. It was a cute visual image of peacocks transforming to penguins - imagine?!!

You might want to have some neuropsychological testing done which can look at how much of a struggle you are having in word finding and word generation. There are two fun tests called Boston Naming and FAS. Since you are six years post your incident, then your symptoms are probably pretty stable by now I would imagine.

Also, I can totally relate to the speed of processing being very cut back. It is totally frustrating. I was supposed to go to an all day training at work in July, and told the trainer I could only go half a day per doctor's orders. It was hurtful when he responded sarcastically, "You mean you can't sit in a chair and listen for 8 hours??" I said no, I'd been brain injured by an inmate and he piped down (I work at a prison hospital.)

But it is hard to talk about, hard to be experiencing, and hard dealing with other people's lack of understanding. My heart goes out to you.

Take care,

Laura

His heavens shall drop down dew. (Deuteronomy 33:28)