Dr. Diane's Blog

2    Packages (10 oz each) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

2 1/2   Cups jarred tomato sauce

1- 1/2   Cups part-skim ricotta

4    ounces thinly sliced prosciutto

1    garlic clove, minced

6    no-boil lasagna noodles

Course salt and ground pepper

1 Cup shredded part-skim mozzarella (4 ounces)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Make filling:  In a medium bowl, stir together spinach, ricotta, garlic, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, set aside.  In another medium bowl, stir together tomato sauce and prosciutto.

2. In an 8-inch square baking dish, spread 1/4 cup tomato sauce.  Layer 2 noodles, 1/3 filling, and 1/3 remaining tomato sauce; repeat twice.  Top with mozzarella. Bake until browned,  35 to 40 minutes.  Let stand 5 minutes before serving

SERVES 4              PREP TIME: 10 MIN    TOTAL TIME:  55 MIN

Per Serving:  448 cal; 17.3 g fat (8.9 g sat fat) 36.2 g protein; 41.2 g carb; 7.7 g fiber

Grief is rarely mentioned in coping with a brain injury.  No, the neurologist discusses the various physical symptoms, while the mental health professional discusses the psychological, trauma or family situation.  The rehab specialist usually discusses how you are functioning in your recovery, yet no one ever talks about how the person you used to be…died.   In the despair of this reality, there is the question of why are you still alive or, whoever it is that is alive, that doesn’t feel like you.  In 1990, I had 3 offices and over 256 patients; then on March 5^th, all that changed.  I lost being a mother, wife, friend and psychologist.  I used to wonder why I ever came out of the car alive. The only person I could count on to be there …..me…was gone.  I used to spend hours thinking of how to end my life and couldn’t figure out why I was kept alive.

In those dark hours of despair, there was still hope and an inner force that kept me going for which I’m grateful.

All cultures and religions have developed rituals and customs of mourning to assist the grieving process.  It is important to acknowledge that there was a loss.

By honoring their memory, you give hope.  It is important to recall achievements, or special moments in the past, as you would at a wake, funeral or at the home of a beloved one; so too, with a person with a chronic illness or dysfunction. Grieving allows the person with a disability to move from the old self to develop new dreams and hopes.

I often describe myself as being similar to a restored house.  There is a program on PBS, “This Old House,” where they refurbish old houses.  I think of my prior self as an old house.   I was a woman, daughter, wife, mother, psychologist, musician and teacher.  I enjoyed and loved the house which was me.

Then, similar to a hurricane coming along, the stroke, a 60mph head-on auto collision, brain surgery and a recent auto accident destroyed portions of the house, which was me.

The months and years of rehabilitation are similar to adding new lumber and new materials to the original design.  To outward appearances, the restored house looks the same as the original, but it is not.  It is a composite of old and new materials.  This is the same for me.

I look and sound similar to my old self; but instead, I’m a composite of the old and the new.  Because I do look the same, it is often hard for others to accept who I am… now.  I had to learn to grieve the person I used to be and have learned to accept who I am… now.  By doing so, I’ve helped others to accept who I am now, instead of who I used to be.

I had a stroke.   I am… brain damaged.  I am… a person living with a brain injury.  I have a disability, but am no longer handicapped by it. I have gone from being a victim, to a survivor, to a person who has sustained a brain injury.

It is from within the human spirit that hope can lead to new life.

Hope does not take away the symptoms of our disabilities; rather it helps us to have the courage to go beyond our disabilities so as not to be handicapped by them.

Dr. Diane

Well, I picked up my new Blackberry…Storm2 and thought it was working perfectly.  I checked all the features, such as voice activation, which is extremely important for people with a brain injury and a stroke.  Everything seemed to be working perfectly, thus I went home from the Verizon store a very happy camper.   Then, 3 days later, we had a power outage in New England.  More than 119,000 homes were without electrical power.  I had a meeting scheduled with my accountant and we were planning to go over my Quickbooks files that are located on my computer.  Since there was no electrical power, I decided to reschedule seeing my accountant.

Now, in previous power outages, my land line phones that are the older models which use no additional electrical power, have always worked.  Well, not in this power outage.  All of the phones were dead.  Seeing the problem, I thought of using my new Blackberry Storm 2, only to find out that the green “call key” did not work, nor did the “dialing” function.  It never dawned on me to try these out, since…dahhh these are the main features of a phone.   So, to make the call, I had to use the voice activation feature to call someone on my contact list and have them call the accountant to cancel the appointment. Yep, you guessed it…another 4 hours at the Verizon store.  Did I say that the iPhone is becoming more appealing?   I only wish that it was through Verizon because AT&T has a higher drop rate and who wants a therapist to be dropped off in the middle of an emergency phone call?  So, 4 hours later, I got another Storm 2.  Oh, I did look at the Droude, however, the Bluetooth feature doesn’t work with the voice activation…a minor glitch.   So far, all the features and functions are now working properly.

I sure hope that I do not have more to write about this!  Side note…after 16 hours at the Verizon store I can name most of the clerks and tell you how many kids they have!

Dr. Diane

1/4 cup apricot Jam

1/4 tsp red-pepper flakes

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (about 6 oz each)

Course salt and ground pepper

1.  Heat broiler, with rack set 4 inches from heat.  In a small bowl, stir together jam and red-pepper flakes; set glaze aside.

2. Place chicken on an aluminum-foil-lined baking sheet; season with salt and pepper.  Broil until chicken begins to turn opaque, 5 to 6 minutes.

3.  Brush glaze on chicken.  Broil until glaze is browned and an instant-read thermometer inserted in thickest part of chicken registers 165 degrees, 4 to 5 minutes more.

Serves 4

I received a notice in the mail from Verizon that I needed to upgrade the software on my Blackberry Storm.  How long can that take I thought??  I first tried to follow the directions my office computer, only to have it go to a blue screen, because the Blackberry Manager was not on that computer.   This caused me to lose my internet connect and 30 minutes incurred to recover my connection.  So, I went up to the main office computer where the Blackberry software is loaded, only to discover that it was out dated.   I had to upgrade that software.  Another 30 minutes gone by.

After the success of upgrading the Manager software, now to upgrade the Storm software.  Now no where on the site, did it indicate that it was going to totally reformat my phone.  When you upgrade your Windows software or OX- for Mac, no where do you believe you’re going to lose all your other applications and data.  Thank goodness, I did back-up my data.

Well, the upgrade took another 30 minutes only to find out that my Facebook, GPS, Calendar, voice activation and contacts were all affected.  Now, I had to download all of these again and interface them.  Now another 60 minutes has passed, only to find out that the voice activation was not working properly.   I called Verizon tech support only to have them send me over to Blackberry tech support, who told me that there must have been a glich in the download of the core application and I had to do it all over again.  They suggested I back-up again.  Did I say I’m now on 4 hours to upgrade a phone?   How long does it take to upgrade an iPhone?

Well, I backed-up the data again, did the upgrade again and then had to download the apps again.  I did start this so called “simple project” at 8pm, and it is now getting close to 1am.  Oh, the voice activation finally worked, not the calendars, touch screen, contacts…oh yah, lost the data for voice mail.

So, at 9am Sunday, I’m now on the phone with both the tech support for Blackberry and later for Verizon.  I finally got my phone working again by 11 am Sunday or 6 hours later.

I could have gone and bought a new phone for less time and it surely cost me. The frustration did not help my brain injury, yet the thought and challenge of getting my phone working, novel stimuli, surely made new brain connections.  Or I need to feel some benefit for 6 hours of time lost on an upgrade of a cell phone.

Now I feel much better for venting.  I did promise both Blackberry and Verizon that this would be posted on this Blog.

~Dr. Diane ~

Brain Injury: Atypical Migraine

The other night I woke up with various neurological symptoms, i.e. ophthalmic migraine and a cold right arm.  Since my first TBI, 3 more, I’ve never had typical migraines with aura and headaches.  Rather I’ve had atypical migraines with neurological symptoms without a headache, which includes one sided muscle weakness, slurred speech, and droopy facial muscles.  In fact, originally the doctors thought I was having a mini-stroke called a TIA or partial seizure.  It took years for them to diagnose my symptoms as atypical migraines from a brain injury.  From my last TBI in February 2008, my right eye pupil was dilated for days.  They first thought I had another brain tumor in the optic area.  Only to discover it was am atypical migraine. Ophthalmic migraines fall in that category.   In this situation, you see either zagged light or objects floating around.

What I saw was like looking inside kaleidoscope and seeing moving object.  My right arm was cold and numb.   The symptoms of a mini stroke, seizure and atypical migraines can be similar and what is scary is that most physicians do not know the subtle difference.  In fact, in New England, there are very few neurologists that specialize in traumatic brain injury.  Hence, you might be put on medication, as I was, when I did not need it, only to have side-effects from the medication that only compounded the symptoms.  It took almost 3 years for the doctors to figure out that my symptoms were atypical migraines.  Thus, the anticonvulsants were discontinued and I went on the homeopathic: natrum muriaticum and then later the herb, Feverfew. Both really worked for me.  It is important and any naturopath or homeopath will tell you, they need to discern what is best for each individual. What I totally forgot about until writing this, was to take these.  Instead, I took Bach Flower Rescue Remedy which did help to some degree.

After I calmed down I remembered about the Natrum muriaticum and the symptoms went away.  I did contact my neurologist who concurred that my symptoms were from an atypical migraine.

Will keep you posted.

Dr. Diane

Brain Injury: Arsenic & Heavy Metals can affect your body and mood.

Over a month ago, I was having joint pains and was examined by my nutritional educator, Dr. Martha Lindsay, only to be diagnosed with heavy metals in my system, especially silver.   I have well water and my property abuts an abandoned silver mine.   Now, two days after being diagnosed, the pump on my well stopped working.  When the plumber brought up the pump is was totally rusted away.  I had bought this new pump only 6 years ago and this was the 3^rd pump in the last 30 years.  Both of the previous two pumps were destroyed by either excessive salt from the salting of the nearby roads or heavy metals.

Recently, I had symptoms of despair and fatigue.  Since I cope fairly well and am not prone to bouts of depression, the feelings of despair were atypical for me.  I showed no signs of depression, i.e. slept well, ate well, had good energy, energy was fine, except when in these bouts.  Knowing that this was not usual for me, I started investigating what could be causing these symptoms.  Also, I noticed the symptom of excessive thirst.   Now this all makes sense knowing the ending of the story, although I did question if I was having signs of diabetes, yet the mood didn’t make sense.

Two weeks ago, I presented the entire package to my nutritional educator and she discovered that I had arsenic toxicity in my body.  I was immediately put on a nutritional regimen for getting the heavy metal and arsenic out of my body.  I am feeling much better and all of the symptoms are now gone.

In addition, I am going to see my primary care physician and have my blood tested, along with having my well water tested again.  It is important to check everything out.  The moral to this blog is that in this world where everyone is explaining every symptom with being psychological…stress or depressed, often environmental factors are affecting your mood and need to be evaluated before going on an anti-depressant or other mood medication.

Dr. Diane

              Steamed Salmon with Snow Peas                 

4 Skinless salmon fillets, about 1 ½” thick (1- 1 ½ lbs)

1 tsp grated fresh ginger

1 clove garlic, minced

1 TBLS freshly squeezed lime juice (about 2 limes)

2 tsp reduced-sodium soy sauce

1 tsp toasted sesame oil

2 scallions, thinly sliced

1 pound snow peas, trimmed

1 Cup chopped avocado

1. Rub the fillets with the ginger and garlic.  Coat a steamer basket with nonstick cooking spray and arrange the fillets in the basket.
2. In a saucepan, bring 2” of water to a boil.  Place the steamer basket in the saucepan and cover.  Cook for 8 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the lime juice, soy sauce, oil, and scallions.  Set aside.
4. After the salmon has cooked for 8 minutes, top with the snow peas and cover.  Cook for about 4 minutes, until the salmon is opaque and the snow peas are crisp-tender.
5. Make a bed of the snow peas on 4 plates, top with the salmon, sprinkle with the avocado, and drizzle with the reserved sauce.

Preparation time:  10 minutes/Cooking time: 12 minutes/Makes 4 servings

One serving:  330 calories,   27g protein,   13g carbohydrates,   19g fat,   3.5g saturated fat,   67mg cholesterol,   176mg sodium,   6g fiber.

“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins—not through strength but by perseverance.”

~ H. Jackson Brown ~

“We may not be able to do any great thing, but if each of us will do something, however small it may be, a good deal will be accomplished.”

~ D. L. Moody ~

           Inspiration 365.