For 26 years, everything was a challenge for Cole Cohen.She couldn't do basic sums, reading an analog clock was impossible, and she could never tell how far away an oncoming car was.
It was all put down to 'learning difficulties', and she was put on medication for attention deficit disorder (ADD).
But finally in 2007, at the age of 26, she managed to get a doctor in her native Portland, Oregon, to give her an MRI scan.
Cole Cohen (left) thought she had ADD until she was 26 when a scan showed she had a hole in her brain (right)
In her book Head Case: My Brain and Other Wonders, Cohen describes the moment she and her parents received the diagnosis.
'Dr. Volt is behind his desk; his computer monitor is turned toward us,' she writes, as quoted by the New York Post.
'I don't understand the image in front of me. It's a black-and-white splice of a brain, I assume mine, with an inky black spot on it in the shape of a lopsided heart.
'I tell myself that this is a spot on the film, which it's way too large to actually be. It's something not to worry about, something I don't understand that the doctor will explain away.
'We are all staring dumbly at the image on the screen until Dr. Volt begins to speak. "So, this is your brain . . . and this" — he points with a pencil to the black spot — "is a hole." The image comes into focus. It is not debatable.
Had this hole been in the place of her frontal lobe, Cohen would be severely mentally handicapped. However, damage to the parietal lobe is not as obvious, the doctor explained
"There is a hole in my brain."
"Yes... About 20 eyeballs. About the size of a lemon. Or, say, a small fist? Like the fist of a 10-year-old?"
Dr Volt explained that had this hole been in the place of her frontal lobe, Cohen would be severely mentally handicapped. However, damage to the parietal lobe is not as obvious.
It means fluid has pushed the parietal lobe to the right, leaving her left side impaired.
Cohen says she learned she needs to 'strengthen my brain, not coddle it.'
Her solutions have been staggeringly simple: putting computer folders on the left side of her desktop or sitting to the right of her professor.
The idea is to make the right brain process information coming from the left.
To find out she was born lobotomized was absurd, she told the Post, and eight years later she has yet to find anyone that has the same condition.
For years, she had no definitive answers to why she had such trouble navigating the world.
'Instead it was, 'She takes up a lot of attention because she's bad at math and can't drive'.'
Though she was a star in English, her math classes were confusing.
'We learned subtraction with Cheerios,' she told the Post, 'but I didn't understand that I was supposed to take away the Cheerios. I ate them.'
Using Google Maps is a struggle, she said. 'I can't translate what I see on my phone. I understand that the little dot represents a human being, but I still get lost.'
Even interacting with people requires intense concentration.
'I've actually looked at my watch to see how long to say hi to my roommate.
'Hugs — applying pressure — that's a motor-skill issue. You don't assume it's a neurological issue if you meet me, but it does cause social anxiety.'
But the diagnosis changed everything. Not only was it 'infectious excitement to be a medical discovery', it has helped her understand her capabilities.
She told the Post: 'Transparency has made a big difference. I'm not asked to do things I can't do.
'What I have isn't just about counting change and telling time. It's perception and mapping and how I see the world, which doesn't line up with how everybody else sees the world.'
