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!
May 4, 2009
Recovery is so slow…
When I was first diagnosed with a brain injury nobody gave me a time frame. The only thing that anyone ever told me was that it would be slow. I had no idea what slow meant. So, that was about 11 months ago. I had really really gotten depressed. And I mean seriously depressed. I thought that I was about as good as I was gonna get. I know that having a brain injury is a constant state of growth, so I knew that I would improve slowly, for the rest of my life, much like no one stays the same regardless of their health. Life is a constant state of change. However, I thought that my memory would stop getting better and that I had no hope of getting any better, that I just had to get used to how different life is. But, a doctor told me last week that he had reviewed my files and tests and xrays and stuff and that with the amount of injury that my brain had suffered and with the length of my memory lapse that about two years is the time period for “recovery.” I’m not even halfway there. It is such a relief to be able to put a time frame on it. Regardless of how factual it is, at least I have a time frame now. So, that really picked me up. I thought that my depression would get better when I had a time frame. And now I’m staying on my own some now, so I’ve got some independence back. I’ve been driving again. Both of those things are great for me! However, I am still unhappy. It’s not that I’m unhappy. Unhappy isn’t the right word. I guess depressed is the right word. So many things have changed, and that makes me sad. I’m trying to get over the pain of not working. I never thought that not working would hurt this much. And I keep comparing myself now to the way I used to be before the wreck and I know that is not healtny at all. Because it just simply the past. But I cannot help but compare myself. I was so successful at my job, I was really going places. And that is lost, I don’t know if I can still do that. I relied so much on memory and figuring stuff out and I’m afraid that I cannot do that anymore. Only time will tell. I keep asking people of way that I improve. I ask people who suffer from a brain injury what they do…have done, anything…to improve after their injury. And I am just struggling to accept that no one has the answers. There is no right answer, no wrong answer, no new suggestions for me. The real struggle is for me to just pick up and go on with my life. This is my new reality. I”m trying to just move on and I want to not be treated differently. I want to be accepted. Im ready to just move forward but others, several of the people that love me and are concerned for me, are not ready to just move on. I understand that my family and my friends are still not ready to let me go, but I need it. I need to be allowed freedom, even if that means failure. And, I know that I will taste failure. I know that it will hurt and frustrate me to find out what is now hard for me, but I have to test the boundaries.
March 24, 2009
Thoughts
I had a busy and eventful weekend. I stayed at my house for the first time. I stayed by myself friday night. A friend came over and we cooked dinner and watched a movie. He stayed with me till about 1:30 am, then left. I slept well. It was great being in my own bed again. I never thought I’d be so homesick, that I’d get ready to go to my own home and not stay with my grandparents in my childhood home, but I am so ready to do that. Maybe it’s because I can’t go home, that I want to go home so bad. I understand that I can’t go home because it isn’t prudent for me to do that, that it would be something that I need to do a little at a time. The reasons make sense to me. It is just hard to accept that is all. But, anyways, I did get to stay at my house friday and saturday night. I spent most of the day Saturday alone at my house after I got up. I cleaned the bedroom. The first time in months that I had been cleaned. I took a bath in my own tub. I read in a book laying on my own bed. I really enjoyed me time. I needed the me time in my own house. Then my friend came over and we met our friends and their kids and her sister and bro in law at the bullriding event. We all went to the civic center and then out to eat at IHOP. It was great seeing all of them again. I used to work with my friend and I hadn’t seen her in a long time. She came down to the hospital to see me when I was in the car wreck, but I don’t remember her. She really did alot for me, was really concerned and helpful. I miss her alot! It was good seeing her, but yet, it made me wonder if I am now really so different. It made me miss how I used to be. There are alot of things about myself that I wouldn’t go back to. In fact, I guess I like “me” better now after the accident than I like the “me” before the accident. I had alot of baggage that I was hauling around. I kept living a nightmare over and over. Now, with all the great things that I have lost, I have also lost the bad stuff too. So I guess, in hind-sight, I wouldn’t trade all of these things I’m dealing with now for all tbe misery I was putting on myself. Anyways….enough already huh?…after we all went out Saturday night I came back to my own house and he stayed with me Saturday night and we went out Sunday to a bird show. We got back to my house around 5 and I called grandma and papa to come on down and get me and bring me back to their house. It was a busy busy weekend. Physically draining and emotionally draining too. It was emotionally draining because emotionally I ran the gammut. I ran back and forth between feeling happy and sad, smart and stupid. I had to deal with what was different and that hurt. I had to deal with what was different and that was great. Emotionally…it was draining! I don’t know what is gonna come up. I don’t know what direction I”m going to head in. I don’t know what my future holds and that is scary for me. That scares me to death to not be able to plan. I need to revise my old plan. And that is scary. I’m having such a hard time dealing with all of the differences in my life. But, I have faith that I can handle whatever comes my way. I have faith that I can figure something out. Basically, I just have faith in myself.
March 12, 2009
today is a good day…
The past few days have been good days. I’ve been to the chirorpractor and got some acupuncture, shopping, to a support group. But, the weather was fantastic. With the warmth and the sun it reminded me that spring will soon be here. It seems that things are starting to look up for me. That I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (not sure if its the headlamp of an oncoming train or not). Basically Im feeling more content and more hopefull. Nothing familiar in my life – my job, driving, living on my own – is back, but I’m starting to figure out ways that I can move in that direction. I still have the hope that things will turn out as I had planned, and you know, I’ve had time to examine me – the real me, not the me based on my career – and that examination has made me not like the “old me” very much. With all of the changes I’m having to get used to and to deal with, I still wouldn’t go back to my life a year ago because there are so many things about it that I don’t like. So many things that I did then, that I would never do now, that I don’t like. So, I guess I’m glad that I have the opporunity to examine myself and to be the person that I want to be, that I can be a person that I’m proud of. I really don’t like how much mental skill I’ve lost, but I don’t like the emotional skill and baggage that I was carrying around before my TBI. so…today is a brand new day! Thank the Lord. I’m here to enjoy it and all of the gifts it brings!
New Territory For Me 