| Case of the Mute French Again |
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Wednesday night I finished ‘early' at 5:30 pm. What can I say, at 5:45pm the beeper went off, the radio channel had ‘Piguah (apres terrorist) music'-soft tones, philosophic melodies, and I turned around and went back to the ER. _option_option_option_optionA sample of ‘weird cognitions' and ‘magical thinking' was that I hadn't ‘sent-off' what I had written of the last Piguah. Putting my experiences on the computer has been my way of getting them out of my consciousness, maybe that was why... The ER was popping. There were over 100 people injured in this bus bombing on a busy thoroughfare, both for pedestrians and buses and cars. This time it seemed that more patients than ever were dissociative. They ‘were somewhere else'. We ‘normally' see that in patients that have been traumatized by early life experiences. These people ‘just' had normal life histories, but ‘normal' has taken on a different meaning here. Without being too graphic, what they saw, and smelled was overwhelming, well out of ‘the range of human experience' as the DSM is want to point out. They were not PTSD (or maybe they were), but in Acute Stress. One young woman, middle 20's, could not speak. She was brought in (without a scratch) by ambulance, and when the Psychiatrist called me to her bedside, the only sounds that emanated from her mouth were ‘clicking' sounds. My association was the film "The Gods Must Be Crazy", which takes place in Africa, and the hero has a coke bottle land on his head, if I recall correctly. Anyway, the language of his locale is ‘clicking' of sorts. After seeing her file, I introduce myself as a neuropsychologist. ENT, Ear-Nose-and-Throat, Neurology and Psychiatry had already seen her. I tell her that I work with the Brain-Behavior Relationship. Does she want to go home? Emanating from her are clicking noises as she excitedly shakes her head in the affirmative. I say okay. As I stepped into her curtained area, I saw her mother standing by, speaking French with her sister. (It turns out that her identical twin sister was in a Piguah, but not physically injured, a year and a half ago.) I ask her in French if she understands French. She clicks and shakes her head, yes. I tell her that her brain will not allow her throat, which smelled horrible things, and her language, which verbally encoded horrible sights and sounds, speak her native language. (The psychiatrist's eyes open VERY wide!!) She nods. I tell her, as a Neuropsychologist, I know we can ‘fool' her brain. She should try to breath and elicit sounds from her stomach, as an opera singer does. I then say, in French: "Now we will only speak French". She says: "Bien". And we are off and running, until my high-school French runs out. The mother, sister and psychiatrist are staring. I tell her about people who stutter. They can generally sing without stuttering, because singing uses the right hemisphere of their brain, and speaking uses the left hemisphere. Does she want to get released sooner than later, because I am sure ‘her condition' will get better ‘sooner or later'. "Oui", she says. Then you will have to be able to at least sing in Hebrew. How about the ubiquitous kindergarten song, "Habaita BeSimcha Raba" which translates as "To home with great happiness, to see mother and father..." She sings it, and I sign the release form. |
