The story of our life starts the moment we are born into this world. Our story is full of what makes us human: joy, failure, triumph, heartbreak, perseverance, love, facing obstacles and learning what it takes to live. As stories go, each story has a beginning and has an end, and we, at some point during our lives, become aware of our mortality and learn to deal with the concept of death in our own way: Some of us pretend we are indestructible and live as though we will not ... Read On
Lost My Car & Nearly Fell Into the “Brain Injury Trap”
I get a laugh when I mention to somebody that I lost my car in the parking lot and they respond with, "Oh yeah, I do that all the time." I know they are just trying to be cute and funny or to find a way to make a connection with me, but what these people don't understand is that there is nothing cute or funny about a brain injured individual ... Read On
My Mental Balancing Act-Post Brain Injury
For the last forty three years, since my car crash and month long coma, I have essentially been performing one big balancing act. Over this time I have learned what it takes to maintain my balance on the brain injury high wire; balancing what I used to be, what I was becoming, what I thought I was and my new reality in order to build a ... Read On
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“Strategies” Are Important, but We Need Solutions
After we experience a brain injury we want answers to some important questions: when will I be my old self again, and how do I get myself back? Unfortunately, there are no answers. We learn quickly that, much to our dismay, there is no roadmap for life after brain injury. There is no schedule. There is no "approved method" for living. The best we can do is listen to doctors and therapists, as well as other survivors who have already travelled this road, hoping we can find ways to improve ... Read On
The Truth About Football, CTE and Us
The last several years we have learned about the repercussions of repetitive hits to the heads of our football heroes. Do we really understand though? We see stories about them on the news or read about them in newspaper articles, focused, not on past glories or achievements, but on present day despair. On regrets. On wishing they had lived their lives differently. We see these men in what were supposed to be their retirement golden years: days which were planned to be spent reaping the ... Read On
How I Dealt with Abuse Following A Chronic Injury/Illness
Those of us who have experienced a chronic injury or who have a chronic illness are used to being treated poorly by others. You would think people would be more understanding, but apparently, that's not the way it works. Our Reality We all have war stories. We can all testify to the number of times we have been insulted, demeaned, overlooked, made fun of, criticized or not believed; all because of the way we look, act or function. What makes it so confusing and frustrating is that even ... Read On
Living Large and Howling at Our TBI Demons
Everyone has their demons; ghosts that haunt us because of something that has or hasn't happened in our past. For those of us with brain injuries, our collection of demons is varied and extremely powerful. We feel overwhelmed when we face those things that haunt us: peoples' comments, the can't do's, the used to be able to's, the relationship issues, the work issues. They are popping up all the time. Many of us feel as though our demons are not like anyone else's and we put them on ... Read On