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Brain Go BOOM!
Author/Survivor: John Cooper
specialist and it was explained to me that I had dystonia. “John, it is an involuntary contraction
of your muscles. Instead of, let’s say, a thousand involuntary messages being sent from your
brain to your hand in one minute, you are having something like ten thousand messages being
sent which is causing your fingers, hand and wrist to contract and turn inward.” Why?
That stroke to my right basal ganglia area of my brain was the root cause. It affected my
fine motor coordination and functioning. It was a delayed domino effect of sorts. The sequence
is as follows: subarachnoid hemorrhage caused by a giant, ruptured brain aneurysm, seven clips
surgically inserted to repair it, clot may have formed from a clip, clot breaks away causing a
stroke in right basal ganglia area, depression rears its ugly head, then an overabundance of neural
messages are sent to my left hand.
A new challenge was born: dystonia. This challenge was put on my plate, but I couldn’t
butter the toast on my plate. Where was that name derived from? Dystonia…maybe it’s the
name of long lost city near the Finger Lakes. I’d like to think so. This brain injury gets me off
track and I think about stupid things like that every day.
My hand specialist is one of the best on the East Coast. He recorded some basic hand
tests and took several notes. “What can we do here, doc? It’s annoying, cumbersome and most
importantly painful. Can you just go in to sever and cut out the nerves? My left hand is useless,
besides for carrying grocery bags.” His suggestion startled me, “Botulism injections.” Huh?
Was I in a plastic surgeon’s office? I know that all of my conditions have aged me a bit but did I
look like I needed Botox?
“The Botox injection will provide temporary relief, up to about 3 months, by blocking
those extra messages being sent from your brain down to your hand.” “Okay, sign me up!”
After playing tennis with my insurance company, the ball landed in my court and botulism
injections were finally approved. Some of those injections have worked while others haven’t
worked at all. The process is quite intricate, as my doctor has to identify the exact nerve while a
needle is in my arm, hooked up to a low voltage device which sends small pulses of electrical
signals to locate the correct nerve that is causing Gimpy. When located, the Botulism toxin is
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