Brains and Miracles

According to my understanding of the current teaching about one’s brain, as I learn to do new things – like this blog on the computer – I’m actually creating whole new thought patterns in the part of my brain less used until recently.

I’ve always thought of myself as the creative, articulate type but who knows, there may be a whole new personality waiting to be accessed.

Do I want that?

Not really. I mean, for better or for worse, I’m me. But I think it’s good to develop our brains. Especially as we get older! I reckon I need all the thought patterns I can create up and running.

I used to know a man whose brain was radically damaged in a car accident. In fact, at the request of Openbook Publishers, I wrote a book where he was one of the main characters, so I got to know him quite well.

Craig was a highly talented musician – a composer, conductor and piano and double-bass player. His music had been selected to be played during a function with the Duke of Edinburgh visiting and the Duke had complimented Craig on the music. Craig had travelled to various countries as a musician.

When he was twenty-five and at the height of his musical career, he was in a car accident. It was 1977. Rear seat belts were not compulsory for back seat passengers then, as far as I know. Craig was a passenger in the back seat and his head took the full impact of the car roof hitting the road as they rolled over and over again. After many days in a coma in hospital with concussion and a cerebral oedema, he awoke completely unable to think or communicate normally.

When he was finally released from hospital, the doctors said he would be watching television sixteen hours a day for life – if he were lucky.

It was a long, hard haul but with the help of many specialists including the brilliant Dr Wood, an eminent neuropsychologist, he actually ‘learnt to think again’, using a different part of his brain. He never regained his ability to compose music but after some time he was back playing instruments, recording in an elaborate studio he had built himself, running a business – and doing various other things such as conducting a band in a local school.

When I interviewed him, I saw no evidence of a brain-damaged man. Only a highly gifted one. And when I interviewed his neuropsychologist in Adelaide, I asked him if he considered Craig ‘normal’ now.

He looked at me in horror.

I looked back apprehensively.

“Craig’s not normal,” he said. “He’s way above normal. Gifted.”

He is, that’s for sure, a walking miracle. A miracle produced by his own perseverance, the talented doctors, and God. There were, needless to say, many people praying for him throughout his trauma.

Our brains are amazing creations!