September 28, 2009
WWRC
I went to Woodrow Wilson Center for Rehabilitation last week for an evaluation. It went really well. I wont know for a while till I’m accepted, but I really do hope that I am. I am so looking forward to going up there for vocational rehabilitation and further physical therapy. Its a wonderful opportunity. It will give me the opportunity to receive training and classwork in a setting where I can get the special attention that I would need. And with their team of therapist evaluating me for the vocational training program I can train for and work toward employment in a field that would suit me best based on my weaknesses and strengths. I really would like to go there and I think that I’m ready for that. It is going to be a big change for me. I would live there in a dorm and there would be rules and curfews and things. I understand why they are necessary – because there are people with various degrees if handicap there on campus. That will be a little hard for me. I haven’t had to get permission and notes and follow rules in a long time – other of course than the laws and social standards. So, that will take alot of getting used to. But, I wanna go there so bad. It is such a great opportunity!
September 21, 2009
My Thoughts Again
It has been a while since my last blog. I’ve been really busy. My caseworker found me a position volunteering at the Virginia Museum of Natural History. I love it. Absolutely love it! It’s a wonderful for me to see what I can do and what is hard for me to do now. I work on the computer, putting their artifacts in a database. I have been really happy with what I’ve done so far. I was afraid that it would be disappointing like “the test from hell”, my neurophsyce evaluation for social security. When I took that test it totally knocked me for a loop. I didn’t realize that the things I had to do would be so hard for me now and it really hurt my feeling, hurt my pride, just HURT when I realized that my memory was so bad and it was so hard to recreate images with a puzzle. Fortunately, I haven’t had any experiences like that. I write stuff down so I dont forget what goes with what. So, it is really making me feel so good and useful again. It was really starting to wear on my mentally to feel like I had no use and like I was just worthless. YAY!! I feel so much better. That is great! Now, for something that has been bugging me. I STILL haven’t cried, over anything – sad movies, sad books, sad stories – nothing! I haven’t shed a single tear since my injury in June of 2008. It has bothered me for a while. I mentioned it once in a blog and I someone suggested the term emotional lability. I wrote about how much it bothered me and ticked me off to have someone suggest that I was emotionally labile. I am still struggling with that term. I still havent cried….but I refuse to accept that I am emotionally labile. I am struggling with something else. I had a boyfriend and we were so close, had been for a little over a year when I wrecked. Had known each other for several years but didn’t date. Well, he had been so supportive of me when I was in the hospital. He came to visit me in the hospital for the first time, it wasn’t known what my prognosis was – not known if I’d ever walk again or even think straight again, and my grandma said to him before he went into my room that he could just walk away now that nobody would blame him if he just walked away. And he didn’t. He came to 2 hr drive to see me every evening for the 1 1/2 months that I was at Baptist hospital. We went through me in the hospital, me being in a wheelchair unable to walk for a few months after I came home. We talked on the phone every evening while I was living with my grandparents. We went through so so much together. Not only was my life just stopped and every dream that I had lost, but every plan that we had made together, every dream that we had together was gone. It has been just a little over a year since the accident and I have made so much progress. But, he and I just couldn’t stay together. Neither of us knows what the hell happened. I miss him! I miss the dreams that we had and will never come true! I’d love to hear from other people with a brain injury. I’d love to know if other survivors have this problem. Its like we fell out of love. We still love each other, so its not like we dont. It is just that we dont have a future anymore because of this fucking injury. I am angry at the injury, I’m angry at myself, I’m angry at him. I am just fucking angry.
April 9, 2009
Careers
I have stayed in my home by myself again for the third time. Its working out well. I miss having my career, but, you what, I can still go back to having that career, or a similiar one. Just because I’m not working at the same place doesn’t mean that I can’t work doing the same thing somewhere else. So, my career is what I want to write about. When I first wrecked it took a long time to get my interests back. Slowly, bit by bit, I got them back, one by one, a little at a time. So recently, I’ve begun noticing things that I would’ve noticed last year, right after the accident. I’ve started thinking about ideas that I used to get. See, I worked in Commercial Real Estate. I did site selection and property management. So, I’ve started noticing what sites would work for which businesses and noticing things that a Tenant of a property would notice and call the Landlord about. That was my career. That was my business. I’m taking my interest as a positive step for me. It makes me proud of myself and happy for myself that I am still interested in things like that. I was starting to be afraid that I had changed, that my personality and what made me be me was gone. I’m pleased that it’s coming back. I’m glad that I’m thinking like that. So, much to my surprise, a brain injury does not mean that life is going to be drastically different. Yes, some things are different for me, but I’ve learned that some things can return after time. Patience is something that I am lacking, but something that is totally necessary for handling a brain injury. The doctors told me that time to heal would be necessary. Time! No one said how much time, so there is no way to figure it out. That in itself is hard for me. I am the type of person that needs to have things scheduled, that needs to plan ahead for things that I know are going to happen, when they’re gonna happen, what’s gonna happen. So, this whole thing has me as a fish out of water. I can’t know whats gonna happen next, I can’t plan ahead, I can’t count on anything, Shit!, I dont even know what to count on!! So, a special gift that someone who has suffered a brain injury can have or earn is patience. I wish all of those people patience.
New Territory For Me 