After concussion – I’m not stupid, you just think I am

This is an extension of the piece I wrote years ago (January, 2011), called “After concussion – you’re not stupid, it just feels that way“. I’m writing this after seeing a physiatrist for a follow-up appointment regarding neck & shoulder pain/stiffness and tingling and weakness in my left hand and arm. They had given me a prescription for a physical therapist to get some help, but I never got PT help, because:

1. Carving time out of my schedule is a challenge. I already have two standing appointments after work, each week, and a third (and sometimes a fourth) usually shows up, which doesn’t leave me enough time to rest.
2. The one PT who I am interested in seeing has an office a good hour from my home, which not only makes it tough to find the time, but it also threatens to wipe out any benefits I get from them, while I’m driving home.
3. It’s hard for me to explain what’s going on with me, because I get turned around – especially when I’m tired, and my symptoms shift and change. It’s hard for me to A) remember from one day to the next how I’ve been feeling, B) track how I’m feeling without it being disruptive, and C) put into words the impact of my issues. Not being able to explain — especially to people who do not know me, and who do not know how to parse out all the information in a meaningful way… it’s just a waste of time.
4. The PTs I’ve worked with in the past have had no clue (I mean, NO CLUE) what to do with me, when they found out about my head and neck injuries. They either treated me like I was mentally deficient, or they got so in a tizzy about my different injuries and whole host of aches and pains and issues, that they were no use to me at all. They were so obsessed with being careful, that they achieved nothing at all.And what they showed me was stuff I already knew how to do.

So, no, I didn’t follow up with a PT, and I told the doctor a few of the points above. I should have written it down, but I didn’t get to it.

The doc was a little taken aback, probably because I had seemed so compliant and cooperative when we’d met. I explained to them that I hadn’t had good experiences with PTs, and anyway, I thought I’d try to fix the issue myself with some light exercises… which has worked. Strengthening my trapezius muscles in a specific way and also stretching my neck has resolved my issues. That, and being determined to not get hooked into a healthcare system that is A) clueless about me, and B) too impatient to be of much help to me.

In the end, we parted ways with them telling me that I was going to be fine and I guess trying to be encouraging. That’s fine, but it was also a bit infuriating, because (cover your ears and/or close your eyes) Jesus Fucking Christ They Treated Me Like A Goddamned Simple-Minded Idiot. They talked slowly and said “Good job!” a lot, like I was a goddamned puppy learning a new trick. They were complementary towards me for taking things into my own hands and being pro-active, but the way they did it seemed forced, like they were making an extra effort to accommodate my “disability”.

I do not have a disability. I have a history of injuries that have changed the ways I process information, and just because I’m struggling to find the right words — “X-ray”… “arthritis”… “traps” — doesn’t mean I’m not parsing all the information as well as the next person. My brain works differently — not worse. But every time I stopped to find a word or I had to work at putting thoughts into a sentence, they got a little more “accommodating” and remedial with the way they interacted with me. The worst thing was when I started to tear up over explaining why it’s hard for me to get help.When I get angry or frustrated, I tend to cry. And you’re right, if you’re thinking “How inconvenient… How infuriating.”  It is. And that makes me even more prone to tears. Arrrrgggghhhh!!!!! &(*$^%#*!!!!

I’m sure they were trying to be compassionate and empathetic and whatever, but their total affect came across like they had to talk more slowly and put ideas into small words and lower their communication level for the simpleton in the room (that would be me). It seemed like they thought that I was less intelligent and less capable of processing information due to my history of TBI, so they had to talk to me like a 5th grader. Plus, they kept saying that everything that’s happening to me, is just because of my getting older. They said that a lot, last time I saw them. And they kept saying it with this air of “professional resignation”, like that’s just how it is, and I was a mentally deficient person who was getting all paranoid with bad thought habits, thanks to my history of head injury.

The thing is, my 50 years on the planet might be a factor, but my family members regularly live well into their 90s and  past 100, so I’ve got another 50 years ahead of me. At least. It’s medically possible now to live till 120, so we’re probably looking at 150 being possible, by the time I near that. That’s my plan, and all this talk about “well, that’s just what happens when you get old” is not helpful to my plan. It’s just a bit resigned. Pessimistic. Cynical. None of the things that actually help me… or are consistent with my own attitude towards life and living it to its fullest.

Now, if I were going to see this doctor regularly for an extended period of time, I could do something about this. They would get to know me. They would change their mind about what “has” to happen as we grow older. They would realize that they don’t have to give me me special treatment – they just need to have a little patience while my brain coughs up the right word. And I’d be able to educate them about the ways in which I am strong – so strong – instead of just what they see with the verbal issues.

But I’m never going to see them again. I can deal with my issues on my own. I don’t need to be constantly told to adjust my expectations down, thanks to the inevitable march of time. And call me crazy, but adding an hour of driving, breaking up my work day, and spending $40 a pop to go see someone who is just going to talk down to me, no matter how helpful they’re trying to be… seems like a waste of time. It was a great lesson to learn — next time I’m not going to bother going back again, if I’m actually not having any more issues. Consider the lesson learned.

It’s best that I just steer clear.

And while I’ll never have to deal with them again, most likely, this is the thing that makes me NUTS about people and their cognitive prejudices. If you’ve got difficulties putting words together verbally, people assume you’re less intelligent or are “slow”. If you have little tics or fidgets, they think there’s something wrong with you. If you don’t answer them immediately with a definitive reply, they take you for weak-minded and indecisive, and they sometimes get angry to boot. If you get tired and distracted and lose track of what they’re talking about, they think you’re not interested in what they’re saying, and they get angry. If you can’t remember things that happened only a few minutes ago, they think you’ve got Alzheimer’s or some other degenerative condition that’s making you lose your mind, and they start “helping” you remember things.

Doctors are just as susceptible. They are human, after all, and medical education doesn’t always impart insight or interpersonal clue-fulness. Maybe this physiatrist has seen other folks with concussion / TBI, and they needed the extra help. But it’s really demeaning to treat people in that way — like children, or developmentally delayed “dearies” who just need love and understanding – not cold, hard facts.

For as long as I can remember, my parents have treated me like I was “special”. Like my inability to remember things marked me as less-than. Like my losing track of things and getting lost with directions meant I was functionally impaired.

I am not an idiot. I am not simple-minded. I am not intellectually impaired.

I have a handful of issues that get a lot worse when I am tired, in unfamiliar conditions, or under pressure. I have a handful of issues that I have learned to work around. I don’t need anyone’s condescension or “help”. I just need people to cut me a break, be polite, and treat me professionally. I need them to treat me like the adult I am, and with the respect I deserve.

Is that so much to ask?

Getting MTBI diagnosed sooner for better medical outcomes

I’ve been reading more this article: Mild traumatic brain injury in persons with multiple trauma: the problem of delayed diagnosis and I’ve been thinking about why MTBI tends to be overlooked by doctors treating folks with multiple injuries (multi-trauma).  I’ve also been thinking about what benefits might come from diagnosing a mild traumatic brain injury along with other injuries.

I hear it time and time again – from people who read this blog, to people who post on forums, to people who post to comments on websites about mild traumatic brain injury – they got hurt, but the doctors didn’t pay any attention to the TBI issues they were having. This is especially true of veterans who return with a host of issues, with their physical injuries taking precedence.

Obviously, it’s easier to assess and understand physical injuries like broken bones and torn muscles. You can see them, you can measure them, you can tell when they’re healing and measure how well they’re being repaired. But the treatment of these injuries is just the first part, and long-term it seems to me that diagnosis and treatment of any brain-related issues goes hand-in-hand with the treatment of bodily injury.

Because one of the keys to a good recovery is compliance with doctors’ orders. And compliance can depend on a number of things

• first of all, understanding what the doctor(s) said,
• secondly, understanding the need for following instructions, and
• thirdly, having the capacity for following those orders independently over the long term.

If the brain has been injured, it undermines you in at least three ways:

• First of all, it can make it hard to understand what the doctor(s) said, and (perhaps worse) it can make it hard to know that you didn’t understand. You can’t very well ask for clarification, if you don’t realize you need it. And when you have TBI issues around organizing your thoughts and making yourself understood, it complicates that very critical first step of comprehending what your doctor is telling you about what’s wrong, what you need to do, and what you can (or cannot) expect to happen as a result of your treatment.
• Secondly, TBI can undermine your ability to understand the need for following instructions. If you don’t understand why you need to follow the doctor’s orders, the chance of motivation is a whole lot less than when you know why you should do what they’ve told you to. Compliance with doctor’s orders is notoriously difficult, and a lot of people just don’t do it, even when they do understand everything that’s been said to them. Take away that ease of understanding, and you’re further complicating an already challenging situation.
• Thirdly, TBI can reduce your capacity for following those orders independently over the long term. This can be cognitive or energetic. If you’ve got big problems with fatigue and confusion and organizing your thoughts, and your entire life becomes a trial, day in and day out, and you have your hands full, just doing the stuff you’re familiar with, what are the chances of you going above and beyond to take on extra-ordinary activities to further your healing? The issues you have at the outset may continue unabated — even worsened — over time. And even if you start out fully compliant, if you don’t have the ability to sustain your efforts, your long-term recovery can be dramatically impacted. For too many TBI survivors, life can be so draining and confusing that even the most basic of activities leave them exhausted and depleted, frustrated and agitated, and them have no energy left to go above and beyond. So, long-term maintenance — or choices for extended recovery — can fall prey to that dynamic.

Personally, I’d like to see doctors be better educated about TBI in general — especially because of these issues which can directly impact not only quality of care but quality of outcomes. Improving outcomes is everyone’s desire, so why not address these issues from the get-go, and help patients gain a better understanding of their total situation, so they can take appropriate steps to offset the effects of a brain injury?

Part of the problem, that I can see, is a dearth of medical knowledge about mild traumatic brain injury. It’s not difficult to find research on severe or even moderate brain injury, especially where there was some external injury. That’s quantifiable, it’s measurable, and it graphs well. You can track it. With mild TBI and/or closed head injury, when results don’t show up on the CT scan or other imaging/diagnostic mechanism, you’ve got a conundrum. And when the doctor in question doesn’t have the perspective of pre-morbid (before the injury) behaviors and experiences, how can they actually tell that something has happened that is out of the ordinary?

Medicine as we now know it isn’t particularly well suited to recognizing and addressing mTBI, and in failing to do so, the quality of care — the possibility of quality of care — can be pretty strongly diminished.

Which is a shame. Because nobody wants to pour all their time and energy down a gaping black hole. But by ignoring mild traumatic brain injury in multi-trauma situations, by the force of sheer ignorance, that’s exactly what people are helping to make possible.

So, what can be done about this?

• Well, education helps, for starters. An understanding of the actual impact of mild traumatic brain injury on cognition (I’m not talking about IQ, which is a completely separate issue), mood, behavior, and willingness to engage with the world, may help.
• Also, making education a priority not only for doctors but also patients is a good step. Making sure patients and their caregivers understand that certain things may be happening — confusion, depression, irritability, anxiety, agitation, disrupted sleep, and a whole lot of other things that tend to get chalked up to psychological states — may help ease some of the uncertainty and agitation that often complicates the situation, and makes a tough spot even worse.
• Knowing what you can do about these symptoms can also help. It gives you a greater sense of control and hope. Initially, rest is critical. Being smart about taking it easy and having good medical help is also good. And understanding that rest is not a punishment, but an important part of recovery, can also be helpful.
• For physicians, it may be a challenge to not have a pharmaceutical solution for concussion/mtbi, but this just highlights the importance of addressing patient mtbi issues — you can’t give them a pill to fix it, you need to rely on their cooperation and compliance to improve outcomes. And that means addressing their brain injury issues in a constructive and supportive way. This may be a departure from how things are done for many, but I really feel it’s worth the effort.

One blog post isn’t likely to change much, I realize, but if one person in medicine reads this and takes a slightly different approach that factors in TBI when treating multi-trauma, so much the better.

Normal MRI and EEG… or not?

One thing that has saved me from obsessing about my job situation is my neuropsychological fall-out from my TBIs. Not only did my partner finally (after more than six months) get to sit down with my neuropsych and start to ask questions from a qualified health care provider, but my copies of the MRI and EEG results/interpretations came from the hospital, and it appears that my tests were not 100% clear of all disruptions.

It’s been an exquisitely excruciating balance of good news and who-knows-what-kind-of news. And it has totally kept my mind off my job situation, which in my more vulnerable and fatigued moments just drives me ’round the bend. As much as I want to focus on my strengths and keep firm and steady, I still have a tremendous amount of insecurity around how my TBIs have affected me, work-wise, and I have deep-seated reservations about how well I’ll be able to perform, if I’ll be able to keep up, if I’ll be able to be the kind of team player I was before my fall down the stairs in 2004.

But things are moving along with regard to the neuropsychological exam, and good things are brewing there. That promise of improved coping abilities and good information made available in a way I/we can use it… as well as finding out I have a small pineal cyst, and learning that there was some rare theta slowing in one of my temporal lobes, have pretty much eclipsed my vocational concerns.

On an up note, my partner and I had a great session with my neuropsychologist last week. From the mouth of a professional, descriptions of my situation and my “challenges” sound a whole lot less scary, and my neuropsych had straightforward answers and suggestions, where I generally get turned around and agitated and even sometimes a bit combative when pressed for information. My partner got to ask the questions that have been burning in their mind for months and months, and they got total access to the doctor sitting across the desk from them. They got to see that my folder about my testing is 4-5 inches thick, and there are tons of tests I took, all of which rendered pertinent results. They got a real sense for how complex my situation is, and how good my doc is — how they really take their time and make sure they’re thorough and cover all the bases, which is a good thing.

I think it was a total relief for my partner, who was starting to think — I believe — that my neuropsych was lolly-gagging and taking their sweet old time. One other thing that was very beneficial was that the doctor had to take a call and talk someone through the steps of tracking down a loved one who was impaired, and keeping them from being a danger to themself. I’ve had appointments canceled and rescheduled with this doc numerous times, due to things like this, and my partner was thinking I was just being brushed off. When the phone call came in, they got to see the doctor in action and just having that experience really did a lot for their confidence in them.

I think my partner and I both have more good info to work with now, in regards to our marriage, and they can see that the problems I’m having are not necessarily due to my being deliberately stubborn and trying to yank their chain and ignore them. Yes, I can be difficult, but I’m a lot less deliberately problematic than my partner believes. I’ve been catching crap for years about being too inattentive, too oblivious, too lax, too lazy, too unmotivated, too absent-minded, too flighty… and now, at long last, I’m somewhat vindicated. They were told explicitly by the doc that I have trouble understanding spoken language in the moment, and it takes me longer to process information when someone is talking to me. All those times that I’ve gotten raked over the coals for not being responsive enough quickly enough can now be put behind us. We don’t have to do that anymore. And we can slow down. Something about having a doctor communicate the information I’ve been trying to convey over the past year is helping. I’m not going to question that. I’ll take it — it’s a gift.

On the other hand, my other doctor — the neurologist I saw in January and February — seems to have mucked things up a bit. I got a copy of the MRI and EEG analyses, and while they may read as “normal”, they are not without event. My MRI shows a small pineal cyst, and my EEG shows some theta slowing in one of my temporal lobes. In both cases, the anomalies are not great enough to warrant all-out alarm, but they are both something to keep an eye on.

In addition, the neuro wrote up notes from my visit and sent them to my PCP, and their description is not 100% accurate. They focused a great deal on the “rage” issues I’ve been having. I wouldn’t necessarily call them “rage” — just abrupt swings in emotion, in all directions. And they also mis-characterized my family history, making one of my relatives (who has had a lifetime of symptoms and experiences similar to my own, in some respects) look and sound like a rage-a-holic.

Oh        my        God…

Now I have to back-pedal and compose a letter to both my neuro and my PCP correcting the record. It sorta kinda freaks me out a bit. I’ve had so many unproductive relationships with doctors, I can’t even begin to say. Now, I finally managed to find someone I can work with and with whom I have established a decent rapport… only to have this neuro mis-characterize me and potentially undermine that relationship.  It’s bad enough that the neuro misunderstood me and is working off bad information. But now they’ve dragged my PCP into it, too. Ack.

So, my next steps are to communicate my situation in writing. I am going to:

1. Work through this with my new therapist, who is a neuropsychologist themself, and who knows about TBI and can help me think through my response. I need to correct the record very thoroughly in writing and compose a letter to that effect.
2. Send the letter to this neuro and my PCP.
3. Follow up with my PCP about what to do with all this new information. I may need to do damage control. I want to keep the lines of communication open with them and make sure I’m not digging myself yet another hole.
4. Probably find a new neuro. I really liked dealing with this one, for once, but they clearly were not present and were not dealing with what was in front of them. I’m not sure where they were, at the time we were talking… But no matter. They are so fired, and I’m off to find another neuro.
5. Check in with my new therapist a lot through the whole process, to make sure I’m not making things worse for myself. That would be all too easy to do, and I want to do things different this time.

What this experience has really taught me — and there are some vital, valuable lessons here — is that I really need to approach my health care with my TBIs in mind. The biggest problems I’ve been having with health care, throughout my life, have revolved around communication. I have never had an easy time of describing my symptoms to doctors, nor have I done a very good job at collecting and analyzing information from them. I can see now that I’ve had a truly terrible time understanding what doctors are saying to me, parsing through it all, and then retaining it to act on it later.

And because I’ve had such a terrible time — all the while looking (to the untrained eye) like I should be more “with it,” so what the hell was I being such a freaking space-case about? — and I’ve got a history of various trauma with plenty of PTSD to go along with it, I would get all revved and anxious and become either overly withdrawn or combative in this exaggerated fight-or-flight dynamic that probably every TBI/PTSD person knows all too intimately. And I would either come across as hostile and aggressive, or I would retreat into my shell and not speak up about what was going on with me.

Which never made for very good doctor-patient relations, I can tell you.

Now I need to take a different approach. Put the facts of my situation into writing. Take it slowly and deliberately and seek out help. Because at least that’s a way I can communicate with my doctors with 100% accuracy. And the next time I deal with any doctor, I’m going to summarize in writing my issues and give them to them — along with a note from my neuropsychologist that explains that no matter how bright I may look on the outside, no matter how extensive my vocabulary may be, no matter how conceptually “with it” I may be, my speed of processing is slower than one would expect, my ability to process spoken language in the moment is impaired, and my short-term memory is for shit. And I don’t mean to come across as hostile and argumentative — I just have a hard time dealing with my “asymmetrical” challenges.

The next thing I do  — after I correct the neuro’s info and send it to them and my PCP — is get a brief summary letter from my neuropsych explaining both the strengths I have and the limitations. I cannot see any more doctors until I have that in hand and I can give it to them in advance, so they can understand I am not malingering, I am not deliberately being difficult, I am not trying to make their lives more complicated, I’m not a malpractice risk, I just need help when it comes to communicating, and I’d appreciate it if they wouldn’t jump to conclusions about me, just ’cause I fell down and got hit on the head a lot over the course of my eventful life.

I am so done with dealing with doctors who don’t have all the information and can’t use their heads to observe what’s right in front of them. Maybe that’s not how medical professionals do things, but God gave them two eyes,  two ears, a nose, and a mouth, and it seems to have worked well for millennia, so why not avail oneself of one’s native abilities?

I’m also fed up with not being able to “read” what they are trying to communicate, and being held back by my broken brain’s penchant for meaningless detail. I’m tired of struggling with something I “shouldn’t” have problems with, getting lost… and not realizing I’m lost till several hours after I leave the doctor’s office.

I’m sick and tired of this whole hidden disability trip, all the ignorance, all the half-assed information, all the bias, all the cluelessness… and how the lowest common denominators seem to drive the situation. I’m tired of having to navigate the seas of truly debilitating difficulties, without anyone else realizing they’re a problem for me — and giving me shit because they are.

I am also fed up with doctors who don’t take time with me. I need to figure something out. I had considered double-booking appointments with my doctor — reserving twice as much time with them, so I don’t feel as rushed and I can ask all the questions I need to ask at a speed I can actually sustain. Either that, or I’ll get an “interpreter” to go with me and help me understand what the doctor is saying to me — and who can help me get them to slow down and stop rushing me. I think that having another person in the room with me to help me sort things out may be the way to go.

Honestly, does my health need to suffer, just ’cause someone doesn’t want to slow down? The rest of the world may think so, but I don’t. I’m just not going there. Something’s broken. And I’ve got to fix it.

Prepping for my neuro visit tomorrow

I’ve got another neuro visit tomorrow — this one is finally a substantial one, when I’ll actually be reviewing the results of my MRI and my EEG. It’s been about a month since I got my MRI, and it’s been nearly 3 weeks since my EEG, and the suspense has been really intense at times.

In my more dramatic moments, part of me thinks, “Today is the last ‘normal’ day/week of my life.” And I get all worked up, thinking that these test results might come back with terrible news or some sign of a horrible condition/disease/tumor/whatever that will sideline me permanently — or at least turn my life into one big detour.

I worry that I won’t be fully functional anymore. That I’ll have to invest all this extra time and energy in overcoming a real issue that I’ve blissfully ignored for a long time. That I’ll be officially disabled. That I’ll be “less than human” and have to live a second-rate life as a result of what the pictures of my brain show.

I also worry that they won’t find anything at all… that I’ll turn out to be crazy and people will look at me like I’m just looking for attention… making things up… malingering… defrauding professional service providers.

Worst of all, I think, would be getting inconclusive results that will waylay my energy and keep me pre-occupied trying to track down the root cause of stuff that’s been getting in my way for a long time, but I’ve been able to brush off and minimize until the past year or so.

I’d almost rather get no results than inconclusive ones. But whatever happens, happens. And I’ll just deal with whatever comes up. I always do.

This waiting around for test results is really exhausting. Especially since I never got any medical attention for any of my multiple TBI’s, and I don’t have a lot of reliable medical records describing my symptoms and issues in medical jargon-y detail. I’ve never been able to articulate my issues to doctors with any level of accuracy, and most of the time, I’ve just given up and said, “Oh, forget it — it’s not that bad, really…” and went off to lick my wounds where I was safe and warm and able to tend to myself and my problems on my own terms.

I swear, this cognitive-challenge/communication-difficulty stuff just makes me nuts. I have a hell of a time articulating my issues out loud to doctors, who are all too often looking for medical data and/or some Latin-based vocabulary in order to properly assess my situation. I don’t know Latin, and I don’t have medical records that show evidence of my injuries. All I have is my life experience and a muddled, garbled mish-mash of out-loud observations that don’t come across right, when I’m talking to someone who doesn’t know me personally (and even if they do, can’t for the life of them imagine that I’ve actually been injured). Absent concrete data, I’m out of luck… so, I’ve been largely resigned over the years to just being out of luck.

Oh, well… what’s next? Life is waiting…

But tomorrow, I will actually be having a discussion with a doctor about real, honest-to-goodness medical test results. Imagine that. I am really looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to it so much that I’ve been studying up on MRI’s and EEG’s and learning to recognize what they show.

I found a couple of great sites for learning about them — with plenty of pictures, which I desperately need.

There’s the section on Electroencephalography and Evoked Potentials followed by their Electroencephalography Atlas over at Medline. I have been studying the page on Normal Awake EEG
so I know what I’m looking at, when the doctor shows me what’s going on with me. I’m studying the normal EEG, as well as other types, so I can tell the difference — if there is any — between what my EEG looks like and what a normal one would look like.

Normal Awake EEG : A 10-second segment showing a well-formed and well-regulated alpha rhythm at 9 Hz.

I’ve also been studying MRI’s over at Harvard’s Whole Brain Atlas, which shows what a normal MRI looks like — with the different slices — so that when I look at my own MRI, I can see if/how it differs from how it “should” look.

They have MRI slices from different scenarios —

• Normal Brain
• Cerebrovascular Disease (stroke or “brain attack”)
• Neoplastic Disease (brain tumor)
• Degenerative Disease
• Inflammatory or Infectious Disease

And you can look at the slices from different angles, which is way cool!

I’ve been studying the normal brain MRI slices, so I am better able to understand what — if anything — is wrong with my gourd.

Now, on a wireless or dialup connection, the images load a little slowly, but on broadband/cable modem, they’re speedy.

Okay, so I know I’m a bit of a nerd/geek, but this just fascinates me. I’m also studying EEG electrode placement patterns, so when I look at my own EEG, if there is any abnormal activity, I can see what area of my brain it takes place in.

Electrodes are placed on 10-20 different areas of the scalp, and they’re lettered/numbered by position. F means Frontal Lobe, T means Temporal Lobe, O means Occipital Lobe, P means Parietal Lobe, and combinations of them mean the electrodes are getting data from more than one lobe. The numbers are odd on the left side of the head and are even on the right side. Here’s an image I’ve been studying:

I think it’s fascinating. And I have a lot to learn. I think I’ll get myself a balloon and blow it up, then write all the electrode numbers on the balloon with a permanent marker, so I have a 3D version of the placement to take with me to the doctor. I’ll let the air out of the balloon, so I can take it with me easily and then blow it up at the doctor’s office so I can see what’s up, when they start talking about the different readings of my brain.

Of course, this may be moot, if my EEG comes back perfectly normal, but in case it doesn’t, I would like to understand where/how/why things are ‘off’ with me… what it means… and if/how any of my prior TBIs have specifically impacted certain parts of my brain.

This stuff just fascinates me. It’s a lot to take in, and it can actually be pretty serious, but for now I’m going to entertain myself… not to mention distract myself from all the different scenarios my broken brain is coming up with.

Sometimes the inside of my head is a scary place to be.

Better today… of pain and ptsd

Well, I got to bed by 10:00 last night, and I was able to sleep through till 6:30 or so, which is an improvement over what I’d been able to do over the last weeks.

I’ve been kept up by anxiety over what my neuropsych evaluation is going to reveal — that’s coming up this week — me being terribly afraid that I had given wrong information or I just couldn’t think my way through certain things… I’ve been second-guessing myself for days and days, wondering if I answered as accurately as possible… of if maybe I’m more crazy than head-injured… or that my head injuries have led to some sort of mental illness that’s invisible to me because of my anosognosia… or maybe I’m just on this wild goose-chase that will end up being all for nothing.

I try to be level-headed and logical about this and remind myself that my neurpsych has been doing this for many years, and they have certainly seen worse cases than me. But still, not being able to be a full participant in the process and being a subject of examination and enquiry… well, that makes me uncomfortable, and even if I do trust the doctor. I just don’t know what to expect, and I cannot manage my wild rang of emotions, if I don’t know what I’m managing for.

Fortunately, I do feel better this a.m. — not so much pain, not so much tenderness. I got a bit of a massage yesterday p.m., and it really, really helped. Even if it was painful at times — I don’t care. Short-term pain for long-term benefits. I’ll take the pain in the short-term, if it will help me feel this much better in the a.m.

I still have discomfort when I move – especially in my hips and lower back. And my elbows are still sore. And my thighs are still tender. But I can push up my sleeves, so they’re not chafing my wrists, and my body isn’t screaming so loud I can’t hear myself think.

I tried the Arnica yesterday. i can’t say I noticed an immediate effect, but I’m going to keep trying it — 4 tablets dissolved under my tongue 4 times a day, for a few days. I’m going to take it again after I finish my cup of coffee. (I’ve heard that you have to be careful taking homeopathic remedies when you’re eating or drinking. It’s my understanding that the remedy needs to be the only think you can taste… or I could be wrong.) I’m not off caffeine entirely — that would be too much. But I am cutting back. I only had one cup yesterday, which I think helped me sleep.

This arnica experiment is definitely going to be totally screwed up by my other changes I’m making. In a “real” test, the only thing I would change would be taking the arnica, not getting more sleep or changing my diet or getting more exercise. But dude, I’m in pain, and I need it to stop, so I can get on with my life.

Thinking about the role that pain has played in my life, I think there’s a definite trauma aspect to it. I have friends who specialize in treating trauma, both in medical and psychological environments, and they talk a lot about it. They also love to tell me I’m a “trauma survivor” — having had a whole bunch of accidents that left me progressively more impaired, as the years went on, along with the social, interpersonal, and physical after-effects of my impairments that haven’t helped me get by in the world.

And since I have a history of trauma — physical, as well as psychological — I have to admit I do show signs of PTSD.

Over at Wikipedia — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_stress_disorder — I found this (note: my comments are in italics):

The diagnostic criteria for PTSD, per the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (Text Revision) (DSM-IV-TR), may be summarized as:[1]

A. Exposure to a traumatic event – multiple head injuries over the years, along with other accidents and fights/clashes with people that threatened my safety
B. Persistent reexperience (e.g. flashbacks, nightmares) – I’ve had lots of them over the years… where do I begin?
C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma (e.g. inability to talk about things even related to the experience, avoidance of things and discussions that trigger flashbacks and reexperiencing symptoms fear of losing control) – some things I just will not talk about… you can pump me for details till the cows come home, but I’m not talking about certain things that have happened to me, unless I can know that it’s not going to ruin my life, if I do
D. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (e.g. difficulty falling or staying asleep, anger and hypervigilance) – well, yuh, I’ve had more restless nights and being jolted awake at 3 a.m. with my heart racing and my body soaked in sweat… than I care to think about
E. Duration of symptoms more than 1 month – try months and months… sometimes years later, after the initial event is over
F. Significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning (e.g. problems with work and relationships.) – just ask my friends, family, and co-workers… just ask my 17 former employers

Notably, criterion A (the “stressor”) consists of two parts, both of which must apply for a diagnosis of PTSD. The first (A1) requires that “the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others.” The second (A2) requires that “the person’s response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror.” The DSM-IV-TR criterion differs substantially from the previous DSM-III-R stressor criterion, which specified the traumatic event should be of a type that would cause “significant symptoms of distress in almost anyone,” and that the event was “outside the range of usual human experience.” Since the introduction of DSM-IV, the number of possible PTSD traumas has increased and one study suggests that the increase is around 50%.[48] Various scales exist to measure the severity and frequency of PTSD symptoms.[49][50]

Now, this is all pretty thick stuff for me to get into. Personally, I don’t feel like I can take on much more to process, other than just dealing with my own pain… but I have to say, the pain is worse, when I’m feeling the after-effects of some past trauma. When I’m dealing with people who have really physically hurt me in the past — like adults who used to really knock me around — or I’m interacting with people whom I have hurt in the past because of my bad behavior and poor social integration.

When I think back on being a kid, I remember a lot of pain, both from internal sources and from without. My pain issues date back to fairly early childhood – I was not a very limber kid, and I had a lot of difficulty doing things that other kids could just do, like touching toes and climbing and jumping and doing cartwheels and such. I had a lot of trouble with my balance, and I couldn’t do a somersault until I was about 5 or 6. I can’t remember exactly how old I was, but I do remember the day I did my first “real” somersault — I didn’t fall off to the side, but was actually able to just roll right over and keep my balance. When I tried to stretch and extend, like other kids could, it was very painful for me. But I kept trying, and I just forced myself to stretch and extend… until the pain was too much, and I had to stop… which was usually far short of where I wanted to be.

I wanted so much to participate, to take part, to be a part of what was going on. I hated being on the outside, not able to do what other kids could as easily as they could, so I pushed myself — very hard. There was a lot of pain, but that was just the price I paid for being able to be a part of what was going on.

The other source of pain was from the outside. I was raised by parents who didn’t know how to relate to me. I tended to get over-stressed and over-extended with all the stimuli going on around me (including the pain), and they tended to discipline me. Grab me. Jerk me around. Take hold of my arms and pull me to where I was supposed to be. It was excruciating, and it was shocking. My memories of childhood are full of instances where my mom would grab me out of the blue — I wasn’t following what was going on, and I didn’t understand what she wanted me to do, so she would yell and/or grab me and pull/push me to where I was supposed to be. With my sensitivities, it was like just being pounded out of the blue, time and time again. I could never prepare for it, I could never brace for it. And I didn’t really “get” why it was happening, a lot of the time.

I wasn’t able to explain my “bad” behavior to them, and they didn’t seem much interested in finding out if I was having problems, or if I was just a bad kid who needed discipline. I think, because of their religious orientation and the role that my very religious grandparents had in our lives, they “went with” the religious explanation that I was a “sinner” and that “sin” or the “devil” had taken hold in my life, so I needed to be disciplined to stop my acting out.

So, they did. I got called a lot of names, when I was little, because I couldn’t keep up cognitively or physically — spaz, space cadet, bugger, doofus, spastic… that was my dad. My mom preferred to call me pathetic or disgusting or asinine (asinine was her favorite). I was actually shielded from their wrath a lot, because I didn’t understand till I was 7 or 8 or 9 (?) that they were actually talking to/about me. I thought they were just saying what they were saying into the blue. It didn’t occur to me, till I had been in school for a few years, and other kids were calling me names, that my mom and dad were calling me names, too.

Actually, come to think of it, it didn’t occur to me that my mom was calling me names, till a few years ago. Somehow, being mistreated by my mother is a lot harder to take than being mistreated by my dad.

Even when they showed affection, my family’s hugs and touches were extremely painful. My family — for whatever reason — loves to give big, hard hugs, and it hurts like crazy when they do! I don’t know what it is that makes them think it’s okay to just throw their arms around someone and squeeze so hard… or maybe they can’t really feel it, themselves, so they have to have hard hugs and forceful contact, to even tell someone is there. My grandparents were hard huggers, and my mom was/is, too. She loves to reach out and grab people as a sign of affection, which is a double-whammy — I don’t want to shut her out, but I cannot take the force of her contact. Just over Thanksgiving, she was walking by me, and she reached out and grabbed my arm as a sign of affection. And when I was getting ready to drive home, with the weather being as rainy as it was, she got scared for my safety and she just threw herself at me and hugged me really hard, which really hurt.

I still haven’t figured out how to tell people that when they touch me, sometimes it feels like they’re pounding on me. It’s embarrassing, it’s troubling, and I dread people knowing just how much pain they’ve caused me. Being in pain is bad enough, but then “spreading it around” by telling others about it — and telling them there’s nothing they can really do, but keep their distance — is just awful. I’ve done it before, and it’s awful. Awful to be pushed out to the margins. Awful to be forced to push people away. Awful to have to hold them at arm’s length and never let them close, without pain.

Thinking about growing up in constant pain, raised by people who repeatedly hurt me terribly, is definitely not easy to take. I have to tell myself my parents weren’t fully aware of the effect that their behavior was having on me, and that if they’d known what it was like for me when they grabbed me or hugged me, they would not have done it. I have to tell myself that they had no idea, that they were innocent. Believing that my parents would intentionally harm me, is more than I can process right now.

But it’s probably worsening my pain, to hold back from that belief. Now that I’ve been away from them for a whole day, I’m starting to relax, and I’m starting to be able to adddress my pain. I think when I was in the midst of it all, I was so shut down that even if I’d been in terrible pain — which I may have been — I wasn’t aware of it. I was up in my head. I was too busy talking. I was too busy trying to stay out of arm’s reach of both my parents.

I rarely notice until days after the fact, but when I am in the midst of family at holiday/Thanksgiving time, I hold as still as possible for long periods of time — both as an attempt to not draw attention to myself, and to keep myself from acting out when I get stressed. When I’m stressed, my brain stops working really fluidly, and I end up needing to take more time to explain myself. But when things are all wild and woolly, like at my parents’ place at Thanksgiving, I don’t have the time to fully explain myself, and I end up hurting people’s feelings from a poorly told joke, or an attempt to josh around with others, and then I start flashing back to all the other times I said/did things that people took the wrong way.

Yes, I hold very, very still during the holidays… both for my own protection and that of others.

And it probably doesn’t help my pain — because of my rigidity and my disconnection from my body.

And it doesn’t help my PTSD. Because I go back to that place where I’m on auto-pilot, where I’m just keeping my head down and keeping moving, where I’m just doing what’s in front of me, and not aware of whether or not I’m hungry or tired or anxious or stressed. And when I’m not aware, when I’m just soldiering through (as I do so well!), I tend to push myself even harder — do more stuff, take on more tasks, be more manic, be more forceful, be harder on myself and add more things to my to-do list — and that cuts in on my sleep, it cuts in on my rest, it cuts in on my physical well-being.

And I have pain. Lots of it. Tearing, ripping, screaming, shooting, chafing, burning, crazy-making pain.

So, in a way, the pain is like my barometer for how I’m doing, stress-wise. It tells me if old stuff is coming up that’s making me do things and make choices that aren’t healthy. It tells me if I’m falling back on old patterns, letting my fears and anxieties and old hurts stop me from living my life. It tells me if I’m tired — and it tells me that I’ve let myself get over-fatigued and ill-nourished.

It’s an objective measurement of how I’m doing psychologically and physically. And it gives me a great “excuse” (in my mind, when a simple reason won’t suffice) to step back and cut out all the shit I’ve got on my plate… focus in, take care of basics, talk over my issues with my therapist, and make sure I get plenty of rest. It tells me, loud and clear and in no uncertain terms, that I’m totally f’ed up, and I need to stop doing what I’ve been doing, and just take a break. Take care of myself. Have a long, hot shower. Take care of myself. Now.

Unless I do, I’m going to stay in pain. That’s just the way it is. And it’s my choice.

In a way, pain is my friend — but only because it’s my mortal enemy.

New tbi screening tool

If you’re anything like me, you have some difficulties communicating with doctors (tho’ I’m sure a TBI isn’t required for that! 😉 and the consequences of not being able to communicate may be substantial. As in, misdiagnosis that can lead to years of pain and anxiety (been there!)… dismissal of issues that cause you serious issues, because you can’t convey your experience to the doc (been there too!)… and potentially either a long wait for the right kind of help, or no help at all — which means not waiting around for the doctor to figure things out well enough to be able to help.

I’m always on the look-out for tools that can help me communicate with the world around me, in particular, doctors and other professional caregivers or healthcare providers can understand.  I’m always looking for better ways to put my situation in words that they can relate to.

Now, it appears there’s a new tool — from an official agency — that may be of use to people like me/us.

Over at http://brain-injury.legalview.com/blog, you can download the HELPS Brain Injury Screening Tool from the Pennsylvania Department of Health

It is a fairly brief screening tool that asks the following questions:

H – Have you ever Hit your Head or been Hit on the Head?
E – Were you ever seen in the Emergency room, hospital, or by a doctor because of an injury to your head?
L – Did you ever Lose consciousness or experience a period of being dazed and confused because of an injury to your head?
P – Do you experience any of these Problems in your daily life since you hit your head?
S – Any significant Sicknesses (that pre-dated your complaints)

While I don’t answer YES to each question — I never went to the Emergency room or was seen by a doctor (at the time of injury) — I answer enough of a YES to the majority, to get onto someone’s radar — which is what has happened with me… thank heavens!

I can’t believe it’s back… Pain redux

I must be really stressed, these days, because lately I’ve been having an incredible amount of pain all over my body.  I think I may have overdone it, driving so much over Thanksgiving — sitting behind the wheel of my late-model Plymouth minivan has a way of doing a job on me… my hips, my knees, my back, my shoulders… But then, I’ve been having intermittent and increasing pain issues over the past few weeks. This last spate is just an unexpectedly intensified version of what has been happening for quite some time.

I’ve had various pain issues for as long as I can remember, with some dramatic spikes in the discomfort over the years, so it’s not something new for me. But this pain is different from the tactile defensiveness I had when I was a kid. It’s in my tendons and in my joints with a vengeance, and it’s really disconcerting to me, because I have not been expecting it. These days the pain is spiking at a level that I haven’t been at in a number of years. What a bummer! And here I had thought that I was getting to a pain-free state. I really did.

This most recent “spate” started some weeks ago, but I didn’t pay much attention to it, because it wasn’t getting in the way. Plus (so I thought) I had other things to think about, than the chronic pain that’s been dogging me ever since that car accident in 1988 (when I was hit from the side by a speeding sedan) that not only scrambled my brain and made it impossible to understand what people were saying to me, but also threw me for such an emotional and behavioral loop that I quit working and started drinking heavily all day, and I almost irreparably screwed up my life — were it not for the presence of people around me who cared about me and were willing to take all my b.s. with a grain of salt…. and hope for better times.

But nowadays, this body-wide pain is “digging in” and making itself really noticeable. I try to get my mind off it, I try to think about all the stuff I have to do each day, I try to relax and “breathe into it,” but it’s starting to make me crazy… showing up in the background of my life, interrupting my thought processes, encroaching on my peace of mind, and reminding me of days gone by when there was no escaping this generalized, terribly non-specific pain that seemed like it would never go away. I become so nauseous, when I think about this being here and never giving me a break. I have gone through months and months and years of persistent pain that showed no signs of abating, and when I think back about it, and I remember what it’s like to be there, I start to feel really ill.

Which makes me feel like a wuss. Because I have dealt with this before, and I’m determined to do it again. But with some kinds of pain, it literally feels like it’s never, ever going to end. It messes with your mind. It screws up your brain. Even more than it already is. Add chronic, debilitating pain to a mild traumatic brain injury, mix liberally and spread it out over weeks and months and years, and you’ve got a potent cocktail for being driven to the brink of sanity.

Back in 1988, before I could put two and two together and had the information that tbi — especially car accident head injuries, or whiplash — can cause an onset of pain and aches, I went to all sorts of specialists to determine the nature of my condition. They came up with nothing other than that it might be an autoimmune condition like arthritis, and I needed to just go on meds, reduce my stress, get plenty of rest, and stay out of the sun, in order to get better. I think I completely forgot to tell them about my car accident. I didn’t think it had anything to do with anything, and I can’t recall them ever asking me about it.

I did all the stuff they told me to do to address my pain — AND I spent a lot of time (and money) going to specialists who could tell me not one substantive thing about what I was going through and what I could do about it. 20 years ago, I spent my holiday savings (that was supposed to go to presents) on an expert located half a day’s drive from my home. I took a day off work, corralled a friend to drive me down, and I spent a very unfulfilling day with a gentleman who had a bunch of gizmos and a rich pedigree of education and experience, but who could still do precious little for me. He couldn’t even confirm or deny what was going on with me. I can’t speak for the others in the very long waiting line of decrepit and suffering folks… I hope he could at least help some of them. Or just one. Anything.

He didn’t do much for me, other than to tell me that he couldn’t tell me anything definitive about my condition.

So much for my holiday presents fund. So much for my day out of work. So much for the next three years of my life, which I spent chasing — in vain — a plausible solution for my condition.

I eventually just quit going to specialists, because they would tell me, “Well, we took a lot of blood from you, but we still can’t tell you anything specific about your situation. But here are some drugs to help cut the pain a little bit.”

When those drugs won’t work, they’d give me something else.

When those would work sorta-kinda, but they would tear up my stomach, the docs would give me something to cut the pain.

“What will this do to my stomach? Will it protect it?” I asked.

“No,” they told me, “but you won’t be in so much discomfort.”

“So, let me get this straight… I’m taking meds that are going to eventually eat a hole in my stomach, but this other pill will keep me from feeling it… and eventually I might have a hole in my stomach, but never even feel it?”

“Something like that,” they told me.

After talking with some trusted confidantes and thinking long and hard about how little good these advanced meds had done me — some of the side effects were things like malaise and short-term memory loss and disorientation… at a time when I was doing contract work in a number of different locations and could not afford to forget where I was(!) — I decided to discontinue my medication regimen. I resisted being “non-compliant” with all my might, but I was left with no choice, ultimately. I wasn’t getting better, I was feeling worse. It was impacting my quality of life in pretty scary ways. And I just didn’t have the money to cover all the testing that was required every month, since I was unable to work full-time in a job that gave me health insurance, due to my pain issues.

Ironically, I met someone at that time who was suffering from fibromyalgia — a condition which involves a whole raft of really difficult and distressing discomforts. This person had to sell all their furniture (since they couldn’t sit/lie on it and they needed the money) and go on partial disability. I knew I was in a lot of pain, but their condition was utterly crippling. That great degree they’d earned from a great university… the good job and the cool apartment they had… their whole shootin’ match was in the process of disintegration because of their “fibro” issues.

I did learn a lot about chronic pain, in the relatively short period I knew this person. And I learned — perhaps most importantly — that no matter how bad I may feel like I have it, there is most definitely someone out there who has it a whole lot worse than me… who I may be able to help in some small way.. and who I can probably learn from and gain some knowledge from. I learned alot about chronic pain, at that time. Even if my condition was far less disruptive than theirs, what I learned about stretching and rest and nutrition, was priceless. And I believe it really helped me, when I incorporated it into my life (I quit smoking, started eating right, made a priority of getting ample rest, and I changed shoes, so I’d have better support and less impact when I walked). Even if they were still in terrible pain – and eventually moved across the country in search of a health solution — which they found in Chinese medicine — I was able to adapt my life in ways that eased my pain considerably.

Here I thought I was in the clear… I have been relatively pain-free for over 10 years now, with intermittent flare-ups that come along when I haven’t rested properly, or my eating habits SUCK (not often, but it does happen, now and then). I don’t do much dancing, as my knees can’t take it. And I do sometimes feel it in my elbows and back and hips. But I count myself fortunate, that I haven’t been wracked with agony the way I was from 1988-1992.

Until recently.

Now, I have that sick, sinking feeling that comes from the pain that radiates out from seemingly every nerve in my complaining body, wearing me down, tiring me out… I try not to pay much attention to it. I try not to think about it. Some days I can even forget that it’s there (till I move, of course). But then it rears its ugly head, and I’m back “in the hole” again. Sheesh!

Currently, the pain varies, from day to day. A lot of it is across my lower back, around where the tops of my pelvic bones can be felt. My hips and glutes are tender, too — tho’ moreso when I make contact with something around me. My thighs feel like they have hot knots of burning rope tied tightly around them, and my shoulders and elbows are taking turns giving me twinges and pangs.

My neck is a mass of knotted muscles that complain bitterly when I stretch them. My fingers are stiff and tight — they ache when I flex them, and they complain when I extend them.

My skin feels like it’s being peeled back from my bones, and my clothing is hurting me terribly. The feel of fabric on my wrists makes me crazy — it feels like someone is wrapping a rusty choke chain tightly around my wrists… and twisting. Hard. I normally push/roll my sleeves up to my elbows, because this sensitivity is nothing new. I’ve had it since I was a kid — along with pain on the tops of my thighs and behind my knees. But these days, the pressure of the fabric on my elbows is really bothering me, so I have to put up with the chafing of the fabric on my wrists.

I’m sure this isn’t sounding really great to you, right now, but I have to tell you what it’s like, so I can report back about what I’m doing — so you can see how well I am able to bounce back.  It’s all about the bounce, baby!

Here’s what I’m planning to do:

Try Arnica — a homeopathic remedy that’s recommended in some places for muscle aches. I’ve used it topically for bruises and achey muscles, and I picked up some little pills to take. I’m to dissove 4 pills under my tongue, 4 times a day.

Take hot showers — this always helps me. I’m bringing a towel to work, because they have showers here, and I may need to warm up.

Get plenty of sleep — don’t rush out of the house, first thing in the morning, but do some work at home. Make sure I have plenty of time to sleep.

Cut out the caffeine — Ouch! But what choice do I have at this point? I need to cut back, anyway — the 3-5 cups I’ve been drinking each day over the past week may have something to do with my pain and my difficulty sleeping.

Pray — to whomever is listening… they got my butt out of some serious trouble in the past, so I’m pretty sure someone out there is listening. Even if they aren’t, I’ll feel better.

I suspect that this pain stuff is leftover stress from the long Thanksgiving holiday I was just on. That’s what I’m hoping, anyway. With any luck, good rest and reducing stress will help me get back to some semblance of okay-ness.

Thanksgiving anniversary #2 — 2004

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Thanksgiving holiday, lately. It stands to reason, since I really got in touch with the impact that my TBIs have had on me, last year around this time. You wouldn’t think that a history of at least six head traumas (most of which knocked me silly and one of which knocked me out), and a lifetime of cognitive-behavioral issues, a spotty employment history, and a see-saw of a personal financial history would escape detection, but I never put it all together and realized that my car accidents, concussions, falls, and blows to my head could have had a cumulative effect, till last year, this time.

But if you consider that head injury has a way of disguising itself (like alcoholism is a disease that tells you there’s nothing wrong), it’s not entirely unlikely. My cluelessness can be explained.

It wasn’t until I saw the long laundry list of tbi-related cognitive/behavioral/physical issues in one place, and made a realistic and honest assessment of my life history, that I realized there was something really, really wrong. I’ve never received medical treatment for my issues. I never had them even identified — till this past year — as something other than “sinfulness” or “character defects”. It never occurred to me that they might be physiological/neurological in nature. It never occurred to me that I might not be BAD… I have just been INJURED.

Anyway, I’m going to quit feeling like a complete and total idiot, and get on with talking about my fall down the stairs in 2004… the most recent time my life was changed by a head injury…

A day (or 2) after Thanksgiving, 2004, I was getting ready to leave my parents’ house after the holiday. I was standing at the top of the stairs at my parents’ house (very steep staircase, about 20 stairs or so), packing bags and carrying them to the car to head home

I was going to walk down the stairs, when someone called to me from the bedroom. I was standing at the top of the stairs, no bags in hand, my head all over the place with thinking about making the trip back.

I turned to listen to what they were saying and see what they wanted me to do, and my feet just went out from under me. I was in stocking feet, which wasn’t the smartest thing, since the carpeted stairs have always been slippery, and the 20 stairs or so are very steep.

It was so surreal… My feet just went out from under me, and I landed on my back and I felt the back of my head hit hard on the top 3-4 stairs, as I went down. My head just bounced off the top stairs, and it took a few impacts before I realized I was even down, and that I was headed for the ground floor. It all happened so quickly — a split second, it seemed like. I’ve always had fast reflexes, so I had the presence of mind to lift my head up as I tried to stop myself by putting my hands and feet along the walls. But I was moving too fast, and I couldnt’ get a grip. I couldn’t stop my fall, and I ended up sliding down the whole flight.

When I got to the bottom, I was dazed and drew a blank. What had just happened to me? Why was I at the bottom of the stairs? I may have actually been “out” briefly — maybe a few seconds. I don’t recall exactly. I do recall there being a bit of a gap in my thinking at that time — things may not have gone completely black, but they did get very faint and dim. I didn’t immediately know where I was or what had happened to me. I remembered going down… falling… sliding… but I still didn’t know why I was at the bottom of the stairs.

I wasn’t sure if I could move, and someone called to me, as though from a distance. They sounded worried… harried… concerned…

I answered faintly, then I got up and went into the dining room before anyone could come to check on me — I just didn’t want to worry anyone. I also didn’t want anyone pulling on me, while I was trying to get my head together. This has always been my way — to shake off others around me, while I collected myself. To refuse assistance, while I got on my feet. Some people have called it “pride”, but I literally cannot think when someone is all over me, talking to me, interacting with me… and I need to keep my head clear, if I’m going to ensure I’m okay.

I got up and went into the dining room to check myself out. I just sat, dazed, at the dining room table, for a few minutes, catching my breath and trying to get my head clear. Gradually, I realized that my back was hurt. I didn’t really think anything of hitting my head.

Someone came downstairs to check me out, and asked if I’d hit my head. For some reason, I said “No” – I’m not sure if I even realized it at that time, I was really dazed — but I do remember that I didn’t want to worry them, and I didn’t want to have to concern myself with that, because I didn’t trust the nearby hospitals. I was also concerned that the hospital would take actions that I couldn’t defend myself against, because I couldn’t communicate effectively. The last thing I wanted, was to be checked into a hospital I didn’t trust, in an area where I was uncomfortable… and miss work. I just couldn’t take a chance on bad healthcare.

I remember that I was more worried about my back being torn up – it really hurt. It had a big brush burn on it, and I focused on getting that taken care of. I had someone put some cream on it and cover the really raw parts with a bandage.

I recall being somewhat out of it, for the trip home, but I made it back okay. I don’t remember much from the days following, as that was a very busy time of year at work, and there was a lot going on. We were at year-end, and a mammoth project I was working on for the last year, was being launched. Tensions were high, and we all had to be 100% “on” — the last thing I could accommodate at that point, was a head injury. Or any kind of injury at all.

I think that urgency, that determination to not be “substandard” may have driven me in ways that kept me from healing. I didn’t get the kind of rest I needed. I didn’t take care of myself. I ate the wrong foods. I really pushed myself and took on too much. I think this is what happens with head injuries — at the time when we need more help and rest and care than usual, our injured heads tell us the exact opposite: that we don’t need as much rest, that we’re fine, just fine, and that we can do more than we realistically can. And because our injury is hidden, and others tend to hate to think we might be cognitively impaired, our drive is not only accepted, but sometimes rewarded by the very people who are also harmed by our injuries.

After that accident, I started having more trouble at work, relationships fraying and straining, not being able to keep up with my work, constantly feeling like I was falling behind, saying inappropriate (and insubordinate) things  in meetings, and becoming openly hostile and verbally aggressive towards others I worked with.  I just was not myself… people became afraid of me and started avoiding me and started pushing me away, marginalizing (or just outright ignoring me) in meetings and openly playing favorites towards others who were competing with me.

I went from being one of the top go-to people in my line of work, to persona non grata and being told I had to leave the group by July of 2005 (8 months after the fall). I’m surprised I lasted that long, but I think my past “stores” of goodwill that I’d built up over nearly 9 years of dedicated, quality service, spared me immediate repercussions.

When I was told I had to leave the group, highly-placed vice presidents offered to help me find a better position. There were people in positions of power who offered to help me, but my thinking was so fuzzy and my behavior was so erratic, that I couldn’t accept their help. I couldn’t understand the consequences of my problematic actions and behavior, and I decided to just take matters into my own hands — another bad idea, compliments of my head injury. I converted from a full-time employee to a contract technical writer at about 60% of my former pay. And four months later, I left the company permanently.

Thinking back, I can’t say that I miss the high pressure and stress, but if I’d had a clue about what was going on, and if I’d been able to manage myself and my situation better, I might not have had to part with hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock options and nearly a decade of quality recommendations and high-performance job history.

It ended on a very sour note… and it wasn’t until this past year that I realized — fully — that it wasn’t necessarily that “awful” company that was to blame for my crash-and-burn. It was my head injury.

So, this Thanksgiving is quite bittersweet for me — bitter because I now realize just how much I have lost over the course of my life, thanks to my injured brain and the ignorance of people around me and my inability to get the help I needed.

And it’s sweet, because I have a lot of love in my life, I have people around me who accept and support me and realize that I need help with my issues, not judgment for my shortcomings… I have my health, I have my sanity, I have access to a lot of quality information, and even though things are sort of dicey, right now, with my job and money, I have the determination and the stubbornness to hang in there till i figure it all out. I also have professionals who can point me in the right direction — whether in person or online — and even though I do have to overcome a lot of deficits just to function at a ‘normal’ level, I can still do a pretty good impression of a regular person… and buy myself time to figure things out for myself.

I never knew, until a year ago, just how much my head injuries had cost me over the course of more than 40 years. Now I know… now I have information… and I can now get help.

And so I shall.

I don’t give up. I just don’t. And for that persistent quality, that stubbornness, that inborn tenacity that refused to take “no” for an answer… that inner wanderer who wrestles with angels and refuses to let go until i am blessed… for all that, I give thanks.

A reply to a comment that took on a life of its own

I had started to respond to NEDream’s comment and the reply really took off… I’m incredibly tired, these days, but I did want to post this…

NEDream, I hear you… There is a lot I would love to be able to do, but given that I’m coming from a place that’s impaired — and often in ways I don’t even realize — it’s hard to know just what to do. I’d love to be able to go on lecture tours, meet with professional caregivers who know far too little about tbi, consult with best-practices people, and generally contribute to the widening knowledgebase for professionals — the front-line care providers and experts in these extreme health matters. But I tend to run out of steam (my high energy notwithstanding). Plus, I’m dealing with additional health issues that had escaped me as being real problems, also I think in part due to my cognitive issues.

How ironic, after all these years of being beaten up by others for being “less capable” because of injuries and deficits I myself could not detect, now I’m able to detect my deficits and identify my injuries, but the people who would/could help me are totally thrown off by my ability to deal… Catch 22, if ever I heard one. And it makes me absolutely NUTS to think of how much good I (and others) might be able to do others like us — I know I would have benefitted greatly from someone like me crossing my path about 10 years ago!!! — yet the experts and people who are guarding the castle of acute health care are barring us from crossing the threshold because, ironically, we’ve been injured. That’s what it feels like, anyway. I might be totally off-base about this, but whenever I talk to a professional psychologist or neurologist or neuropsychologist, I get the sense that they are looking down their nose at me… even though I hold in my possession a vast amount of experience and knowledge that could probably help them become better practitioners… if only they’d let me help them. I do want to help. But I get the impression, I’m not “allowed”. After all, I am brain-injured 😉

I too am really torn about what to do to help. I think that people like you and I are extremely well-placed for this time in history. Not only do we have access to technologies that put our words in front of total strangers and people who may be looking for information we have, but we also have the kinds of experiences that people used to NEVER (and I mean NEVER) talk about. I should know — I came from that world. And I’ve been dealing with this –crap– complicated situation for most of my 43 years. My family was so ashamed of me, they didn’t understand why I did the things I did, why I couldn’t figure stuff out as quickly as others, why I would say one thing and act like I was totally right, when I was totally wrong… why I couldn’t finish any chores they had me do, and I would always miss some detail — like a corner of the hedge I forgot to trim or a portion of the yard I forgot to mow or the leaves I raked into a pile, but couldn’t manage to haul away to the compost heap. They just didn’t understand, they thought — I guess — that it was God’s will that I suffer like that, and I was just their cross to bear. They were grateful to have other children who didn’t have all the issues I did, but I was always there to remind them that something was amiss… even if they didn’t understand what that something was, or why it was.

Now people are talking about this… and I think that as people look back, they will see that head trauma is much more a part of human experience, than we thought, before. My father-in-law was in WWII (he passed away over 10 years ago), and from the stories I heard about how he was when my spouse was growing up, it sounds like he totally had a TBI — if not several — when he was at war, if not earlier in life. He was always a real fighter — always getting in brawls, beating on other guys and getting beaten on — and the stories I heard about his temper, his violent outbursts, his need for silence at the end of a long day, his sensitivities, his quietness that would suddenly explode, his troubles with drugs and alcohol, and his constant remorse over what he’d done wrong in life… well, it sounds pretty familiar to me, and I suspect that he had sustained TBI’s throughout his life that colored his experience. But back then, when he was active as an adult, men were supposed to be the strong, silent types, not show any emotion, not betray anything about what was going on inside him. I think back now, and I can totally see how he just suffered and suffered and suffered in silence, because he — and everyone else — didn’t understand the nature of his injuries.

But as I was saying — and I’ll finish this thought sooner or later 😉 — now people are talking about TBI and they’re starting to lobby for assistance. They’re starting to raise awareness. They’re advocating and agitating, especially on the internet. Now that we have the web at our disposal, we can get the word out there about our experiences. And even though we may be “pedestrians” and “lay” people, we are still experts in our own experience, and we can share with others what it’s like to live — and live well — with (and in spite of, or even bacause of) our injuries. There’s that whole “wounded healer” paradigm that some therapist friends of mine love to talk about. And when it comes to giving people hope, there’s nothing like hearing from others that they’re in the same boat as you, more or less.

One of the things I really disagree with, in regard to current thinking about TBIs is the concept that “every TBI is different”. That may be true, but I think that some health care providers use it as an excuse to not fully engage with TBI survivors and not explore all the options. I think they also say that to cover their asses, so we don’t get our hopes up and have “unrealistic” expectations of them. I totally agree with the author of “Brain Heal Thyself” (I think that’s they title) who really takes issue with that “ever brain injury is different” attitude. Yes, we are all different. Yes, we all have different injuries. Yes, our brains are all different. But we share common traits with one another — in particular, the part of ourselves that’s been hurt — that can unite us and give us a sense of belonging and community. To impose a sense of isolation and alienation on someone whose most prized physical resource has been damaged, is not only unfair, it also strikes me as being a little cruel. All because doctors don’t want to admit that they don’t have all the answers, and they might actually learn something from us… I know I’m over-simplifying and I’m venting. I’m tired, after a long day of being tired… But I think my complaint has merit.

And I’ve got lots of complaints. (I do vote, after all 😉 ) I’m one of those people who cannot help but think critically… not because I hate everyone and everything (though I have my moments), but because I feel that criticism is one of the highest forms of flattery — if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t bother to criticize. I’d just let people wallow and rot. But I do care. I want to help shed light and explore things that people cannot see or have overlooked. Unfortunately, my combination of injuries and personality conspire to make me look different than how I feel, and I often don’t realize that I’m coming across as rough as I am. That’s why I prefer to write — it gives me a chance to edit before I post what I say. Sometimes I speak/write too quickly and I get in hot water, but that’s just par for the course.

I’ve been writing a lot lately, because I’ve been pretty freaked out by some health stuff that’s come up, and I’m worried. No, I think terrified is a better word for it. I’m sure it will all work out, but given my pathetically limited ability to communicate verbally with doctors, I’m really concerned that I won’t be able to communicate with them, and I won’t get the proper care. It’s not a small thing I’m dealing with — and I need to deal with it — but I’m just not sure how I will be able to do it.

I’ll post more about that later, but right now I need to stay on topic and move this along. A lot of things are coming up with me, so it’s not difficult to move *something*. Ironically, the more fatigued and uptight I am, the more I’m driven to write and create and comment on any- and everything that crosses my path. That, and with Veteran’s Day and thinking about how shafted so many of our brain-injured wounded warriors are being… how alone they can be… how lost and alone they are, without sometimes even knowing WHY… it nudged me into action. For my father-in-law, who was wounded multiple times in Europe, and got sent back, time and time again, to be shot up and patched up and sent back in… For the fallen who gave their lives… For the walking wounded who fall through the cracks… for all of us who have been knocked around in this rough-and-tumble world, and may not always have a fighting chance to recover…

I can’t believe that story about your mom’s friend’s husband’s son… I would like to be all cynical and jaded and not be affected, but I literally cannot believe that this actually happened. Pardon my French, but… Oh, for Chrissakes! Holy f*ing sh*t — WTF!?!?!?!? That just totally freaks me out. A neurologist suggested that the guy remove a *vertebra* to deal with the pain?!?!?! WTF?!?!? I mean, is this what they teach people in med school? I have a relative who’s a freshly minted doctor, and they have very little positive to say about neurologists. They just don’t trust them. And after the stuff I’ve been through with some supposedly very good ones, I have to say I’m starting to agree. Of course, there’s also something to be said for second opinions, and personally, even if I was in horrific pain, I’m not sure I’d have the balls to have one of my vertabrae removed(!). That just sounds so extreme. I guess I’m just a wuss, but, man, oh, man — that’s just HORRIBLE.

Okay, I’ll calm down, now, but I get SO upset when I hear about people’s lives being ruined even more than they already are, because some doctor — who is in a position of trust — gives them BAD information, for whatever reason. It’s all the more upsetting, because I really believe it’s avoidable. There are so many of us walking around with this vast amount of life experience, who could open some eyes — if people (including doctors) would only listen. And the experience we carry around with us can apply on both sides of our issues — both towards informing caregivers and experts about what the deal with us REALLY is… and towards informing the walking wounded that their doctor is NOT God, and they can be wrong about so many things.

I think the medical establishment, as it now stands, needs a good deal of work, not least of which is a good dose of humility and the recognition that something is systemically wrong with the AMA and how it trains its doctors. If there were something I would change, right off the bat, it would be the practice of teaching doctors about the human body by using cadavers. I think the practice of studying a dead corpse to learn about the living body is a BAD IDEA, and it starts you off on the wrong foot. Of course, I’m not a doctor, so who is going to listen to me? I’m an engineer and I make my living from creating solutions based on logic, not mystique and precedence-based assumption and a sleep-deprived sense of entitlement, so I’m probably not the sort of person a medical person will listen to. But it seems to me, if you’re going to treat living people, you need to learn how living beings survive and thrive. Call me crazy…

I know I’m just venting, here, and I’m not being supportive and productive and making a positive contribution, but I just don’t understand this whole dynamic with doctors. I don’t understand why they think they’re all that… why they think they can tell people to remove a vertebra… why they think they can toss around diagnoses (correct or not) and pretend that they are God. I just don’t get it. It seems really dangerous to me. Really dangerous and not very bright. I suspect all that sleep deprivation during their training does something to their thought processes, and the fact that so many of them deal with crises so much… and their limbic systems get whacked… amygdala alerts 24-7 can’t be good for the human system. So I think they may end up getting turned into medical machines of sorts. I’m just thinking out loud, here. I do have tremendous compassion for the folks we turn to for our life-and-death decision-making. And I would never have the nerve to step into that role. It must take a very special kind of person to do it properly. Problem is, I’ve met precious few doctors who I’d trust with my life — I do know a few, and I literally would trust them with my life. But the majority… I just don’t know how our society has gotten to a point where we value human life so little, that we turn our fate over to people whose egos are clearly driving their decision-making, no matter what anyone else has to say about it. “They’re the doctor…” And that’s supposed to be enough?

What can we do about this… indeed? The more I think about it, the more impotent and ineffectual I feel. There are SO MANY PEOPLE SUFFERING, because they cannot get the right information, and when they do get information, they cannot decipher it, and they’re left to their own limited devices… just when they need more help than ever. I fell so deeply for the suffering folks — tbi survivors and family/friends alike — who are struggling with this seemingly insurmountable obstacle, given no hope, told that they have lost just about everything, and whatever is left, they’re going to lose, too. I almost can’t bear the thought of all that suffering — especially in the lives of our returning veterans… and their families, too.

It’s just so hard. And I speak from many years of experience. IT IS HARD!!! It is harder than anyone with a fully functioning brain can imagine. It is harder than anyone who has not been through it can possibly comprehend. TBI — by its very definition — defies comprehension. And it leaves us to fend for ourselves, come what may. Some days, I can’t believe I’m still here. All the bad decisions, the run-ins with cops, the accidents, the screw-ups, the near-misses, the close calls… And all the people I’ve totally pissed off and alienated, who had once been valued allies and friends… Man oh man, am I blessed to still be here and be able to write this! I am so deeply grateful to whatever higher power out there thinks my life is worth saving. I am so profoundly grateful to all the strangers who helped me (or who just resisted the urge to take advantage of me)… the friends who bore with me… the (few) family members managed to love and accept me… the partners who — for however long — put up with me. And the person who has managed to hang in there with me for the past 18 years. I am indeed blessed. And I can’t account for it at all. I mean, when I’m in a bad way, I’m REALLY in a bad way… just impossible to live with… How I still have what I have, is nothing short of a miracle.

Now, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I feel utterly compelled to help. To do something. And my “thing” is writing — detailing my life experience in as much depth and breadth as I can. I don’t care much for fame and fortune — well, fortune would be nice, and I won’t turn away financial contributions to help me dedicate my life to educating people about how to live well in spite of TBI — I just want things to change. I want people to hear about someone who has sustained multiple TBI’s throughout their life and has managed to put together a really, really “normal” sort of existence that nobody — especially not my parents — ever thought I would have. I want people to know that they don’t HAVE to lose it all, just because they have a brain injury, and in some ways, they may even find themselves able to do different things better than ever. It takes a long while for a lot of us. It took a long while for me, to sort through everything. But it can be done. TBI doesn’t have to be a death sentence. And it doesn’t need to mean the end of everything you care about and love to do. Yes, you may need to part with some things that used to mean a lot to you. I lost a bunch of stuff, after my last injury, including my ability to spend time in open spaces, be comfortable around strangers, my love of reading fiction, and a really, really good job. My injury cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal net worth. And I lost a lot of friends along the way. But you know what? I’m still here!!! And I’m still loving my life! I’ve let that old shit go, about how I was so wronged and life is so unfair. Of course I was! Of course it is! No kidding. But I’ll be damned, if I’m going to let that stop  me from living my life.

Seriously, money can be replaced. And every day, I’m finding ways of regaining/restoring the things that mean most to me. I don’t WANT to dread reading stories, anymore, so I’m practicing reading story-driven books, like autobiographies and personal memoirs of people who have overcome things like me. I’m also starting to read fiction online, which I can take in shorter bits and pieces, while I’m at work. I’m coming to terms with the anxiety and fear that’s been driving me all my life, learning new techniques for how to deal with it all — the first part being, just realizing how driven I am by anxiety and fear… I never realized it till this past year, when I really started coming to terms with my TBI’s. And now that I’m aware of it, I can actually do something about it!

I’ve also got new friends who love and accept me for the odd and sometimes bizarre creature I am. Jobs come, jobs go. I’m still breathing, I’m still able to put one foot in front of the other. And as long as I don’t hold myself to unrealistic expectations, including the expectations of others who have some pretty superficial values, and I give myself a break and remember I STILL MATTER AS A HUMAN BEING!!! well… I’m fine.

What we can do to help — and yes, now I’ll finish the thought 😉 — is write all this stuff down. Everything. As much as we can record. Put it out there. Spread the word. Make it possible for people to do the social networking thing with our blogs and do social bookmarking and all that. Do podcasts. Do teleseminars. Do webinars. I, myself, have to really watch my energy, and I have such a hard time dealing with people in person, that I’m pretty much excluded from the public speaker circuit. And I get so turned around when I’m actually talking to another person, at times, that I can’t get my words out, and I sound like a real space-cadet. That’s not who I am, but that’s how I present, a lot of times. So, I recognize my limits, realize what I cannot and should not do… and I do something else. Like blog. The things that I cannot do, I really should not do. But the things that I can do, I can do really, really well. So, I figure out what works, and I just stick with that. I let the other people out there do the things I cannot — like public appearances and YouTube videos and podcasts and whatnot. We all have something to offer, no matter how severe our array of deficits. The trick is finding out what works for you, and doing that as well as you can (without completely exhausting yourself, which I am prone to do).

Very, very cool. Wow — something that actually works. Imagine that… I hope it continues to work for you. By all means, do post info about this here, if you get a chance.

Making the most of my self-assessments

I’ve been doing self-assessments on a fairly regular basis, for nearly a year, now. I think the first that I started really digging in around this past February (2008), making notes about what’s been going on with me. It’s been pretty enlightening, especially considering that I had no clue to what extent my issues affected me… until I started keeping objective track.

I haven’t done the best job of staying current with my notes, but I think I’ve collected information that I can use, at present and on down the line.  I’ve resolved to do a better job, moving forward. Even if I just take a few notes at a time, that’s helpful. As long as I have it in a format that I can put with other notes. One of the issues is that I sometimes make handwritten notes, and other times I type them on a computer, into a spreadsheet or a document.

I have been trying to figure out a good way to make use of the notes I do have, so all this experience doesn’t just go to waste. I think I’m getting to a place where I can start collecting my materials and comparing my notes over time, so I can see if I’ve made any progress.

I think I have. I can tell the difference just in the past six months. People I used to annoy to no end have told me I am more communicative with them, and I make more of an effort to deal productively with them, than I did before — when I thought I was fine, but all indicators pointed to me having cognitive/behavioral issues I needed to deal with.

Collecting all my notes and looking at them, I get a little overwhelmed and agitated — angry, too — that I’ve got so much information in so many different places, and that I have to work so hard to organize it all and make sense of it. It upsets me that I’m so alone in all this — that I haven’t been able to communicate well enough with doctors and caregivers to convey the depth of my issues… that I haven’t even known how much help I really need, till lately… that even when I am able to communicate with people, their dashed hopes (about who and what I am and what my personality and life are really like) just get in the way and keep them from being really objective with me… that even if I did manage to communicate effectively with doctors and caregivers, due to recent cutbacks in funding, the chances of me getting help are even less than they were a year ago. After all, I’ve only had “mild” traumatic brain injuries, and I’m still employed, still have my house, still have my primary relationship more intact than many others (even those who haven’t sustained tbi’s)… so I need to step back and let the people with the *real* problems get access to the services they need.

And it’s true, really. I haven’t sacrificed life and limb for my nation. I haven’t had my skull smashed or pierced by a foreign object. I haven’t been in a coma. I haven’t been in the hospital. I haven’t had any medical diagnoses of tbi, because the people around me could never see that I needed help, and I even declined help when it was suggested. I haven’t sustained a terrible, life-threatening, near-disastrous, bloody open head wound that put me out of commission for weeks and months and required me to learn to walk and talk again.

I have been a lot more lucky than that. A whole lot.

But I still need help. And I have to find it somewhere. All the cumulative injuries over the course of my relatively short life have left traces – however faint – of their impact. From mood issues to communication issues. From sensory issues to behavioral issues. From my volatile temper to my willingness to just sit motionless for extended periods of time, doing and thinking absolutely nothing. I still have a long line of jobs that I couldn’t manage to hang onto — some of which I actively or involuntarily sabotaged, when the stress got to be too much. I still have the wreckage of plenty of failed friendships and people I’ve alienated without knowing what I was doing at the time, to show for my injuries.

I still have issues, and I need to deal with them, for the sake of my loved ones, friends, co-workers, home state, and country. I owe it to everyone to learn to cope with these issues as well as humanly possible, even if I cannot get “professional help” or insight and input by experts. Even if the social system is more than happy to let me fall through the cracks, I cannot — and will not — allow myself to go down easily.

I’ve got issues, so I guess I’ll have to address them myself.

I know it’s not “what the doctor ordered” for my condition. I know it’s fraught with issues and pitfalls and danger of just screwing everything up. But my doctor doesn’t really have time for me. None of my doctors really have time for me. Nor does my therapist. Nor does my neuropsychologist. Nor does the system. Nobody really has time for me — and I need a lot of time. It takes me a while to figure things out well enough to put them into words. And then it takes more time for me to work up the nerve to say the words. And then it takes more time for me to clarify what I’ve just said, because people often don’t understand me the first time around. Then it takes me more time to listen and understand their answers.

It just takes too much time for me to get my ideas across and be sure that people understand me. It takes a lot more time than anybody seems willing to give. But I’m absolutely not willing to let myself wither and die, waiting in the wings for them to notice me and take time out of their busy schedules to help me.

So, that leaves me with no alternative than to take matters into my own hands and address my issues (which I cannot seem to get across to others) in the best way possible. I know doctors look askance at this. I know this makes professional experts suspicious. Self-diagnosis is problematic. A proper course of rehabilitation should probably be put together by a qualified, certified individual with plenty of education behind them. And accurate measurements of my progress might not even be possible, coming from me. After all, I’ve got a history of brain injury.

But no one has the time to spare me — not the kind of time I need — so what else can I do? Just give up? Just take a ticket and wait in line for the next available expert, who’s probably all tuckered out from tending to the TRULY wounded? Sit around and wait to be noticed? Make a stink and force people to notice me? Pitch a fit, hire a lawyer, and expect the government to bail me out?

I don’t think so.

I have no choice. I have to deal with this myself. For better or worse, I need to take matters into my own hands and take full responsibility for my own healing, my own rehabilitation.

If the experts have something to contribute to the process, then great.

But I’m not holding my breath.

Now, back to my daily self-assessment… Today I’m doing pretty well… details to come…