| I really feel for this guy. I'm a linux sysadmin in a 24/7 data processing/medical environment. Last november, I fell off my bike, without a helmet on. (I was on paved paths on a college campus during a football game; if I had been playing in traffic or moving quickly, I would've been wearing a helmet. However, I was moving at walking pace and SOMEHOW went over my handlebars. I have no memory of the accident.) I received a closed head injury, cervical spine injury, and had bleeding on the brain, and was borderline for concussion. I spent the night in the critical care unit and they wouldn't let me sleep. It was a pretty serious injury and I was on painkillers due to migraines for years. For several months, I tried my hardest to do my job. But I didn't "grok" things. I couldn't code in the languages I'd known since the late 90s. I couldn't learn new things -- learning Ruby, even with the help of codecademy, was epic fail. I'd go through the classes and put any old thing in to make it work (thinking it wouldn't), and get 100% without understanding WHY it worked. I couldn't keep up with technology and wasn't reading HN and the other news sources I normally keep up with. Eight months after the injury, I suddenly understood my first languages again. Another month after that, I could learn new things, and picked up Ruby and Chef inside of a week. The worst part of it is that I didn't know that I was stupid. I thought I wasn't trying hard enough, and I pushed myself into feeling horrible about the whole thing. The entire experience has given me a lot of sympathy for people who say that they can't do something because it doesn't feel understandable to them, even after they've been shown and guided through it. |
I meant "months". Obviously, not everything's back where it should be. (And this is the truth. After my injury, my brain is not the same tool it used to be. I troubleshoot in the reverse order I used to. I skip items in checklists that I remember reading clearly and damned well know are there. Even though most things came back without much struggle, I'm having to re-learn certain small things that used to be second nature.)
Wear your helmets, kids.