[Hattie]

Hi everyone,

It's now been 8/9 months since my injury and PCS is still a huge daily problem for me. I went for a neuropschological aseessment a few weeks ago and just got the results.

It confirmed that what I was suffering was genuinely PCS even though I had been told this by both my own doctor and a neurologist. However it says also that there is no damage or injury to the brain. What I don't understand therefore, is exactly what PCS is on a pathological or physical level? Is it something physiscally wrong with the brain or not? And if it isn't, why is it there and cause these problems?

Certain aspects of my neuropsych results are really good, my verbal comprehension and communication for example which was in the 95 percentile (so better than 95% of people?). However, areas like my performance IQ was 14 and my processing speed was in the 4th percentile. So my thought is there is clearly something wrong there, but if they say it's not physical damage then I'm wondering what it is.

On a slightly separate note the thing that I've found near on impossible since my injury is reading. I can read for about 10/15 minutes before it makes me feel so nauseous, dizzy and headachey that I just have to stop. I've been trying to build up reading for slightly longer periods of time but it just makes me feel so awful. I can read broken up text or short things but paragraphs and books are another realm entirely.

Unfortuantely for me I'm in the middle of a literature degree, albeit on a break until this all gets a bit better. I'm worried about being able to go back. Has anyone had similar reading problems, and if so, how have you adapted to get around them?

Thanks,
Hattie xxx