A Nod to OTs

The turf of the Occupational Therapist. By talking about things like managing TBI fatigue and returning to work, I'm going to be treading on it sometimes. But, during my recovery, I've developed a great amount of respect for OTs.

These guys are the masters of problem solving and strategy creating! No everyday life problem brought on by my accident was too much for them. While I still had trouble walking, they made sure I was safe using a wheel chair. They came to my work and chatted to my boss about my return there. They even helped me figure out ways to remember what I'd said to people to save me embarrassing myself by saying the same thing twice.

So I hope this site contributes to, rather than detracts from, the noble profession of the OT.

Cheers,
Mike

Everyday It Gets Easier!

Sometime in to my recovery, I was lucky to hear the wise words of a nice man, himself a stroke victim. He told me something that helped me a lot with managing fatigue. He said, the thing with most brain-injury fatigue is that every day it gets a little bit easier. Every day you get a little bit stronger and last a little bit longer.

Remembering that did keep me going. For me, fatigue was such a long battle. But it felt good to think everyday, I was getting a bit stronger. And everyday, I was winning my battle a bit more!

Cheers,
Mike

The F Word!

The biggest thing for me in my recovery was fatigue! That was partly because it was unlike anything I'd come across before - prior to my accident, having a nap or some quiet time every so often was just not the way I did things. And it was also because, particularly early on, it had a tremendous impact on my day-to-day life - early on in my recovery, I wasn't able to sustain more than one hour's concentration basically on anything at all.

And there was simply no way of avoiding fatigue - I had to learn to deal with it! If I ever let fatigue build up, it would get a massive amount worse on me. So bad that I could barely do anything except stay in bed at home for days at a time!

Fatigue is one of the topics that I most want to write about on this blog. I want to write about the things I did that went badly and lead me to spend days at home. And I want to write about the things that went well for me and made me feel like my fatigue was nothing at all. I continue to look forward to telling you more on here.

Cheers,
Mike

A Diffuse TBI

I've written that I sustained a diffuse TBI in my accident. I'm doing my best to stay away from medical terminology on this blog. No, I definitely do not present myself as anyone who has received any sort of serious medical training. I'll try and explain what I mean in plain English. A diffuse brain injury is one that affects more than one area of the brain. And a focal brain injury is one that is confined to only one area. If you want to get right in to the terms, try the Wikipedia article here.

I understand that diffuse brain injuries are quite common TBIs. That's because they can happen when the head suddenly accelerates or decelerates - something that happens when you fall, get run in to or, like me, you find out how your head gets on when you ram it in to the side of a van at 40 kmh (about 25 mph)! ;-) The brain injury happens because the brain bounces around inside the skull. That's really not good because a) the brain is very soft and b) the skull is very hard!

Yet it's often more than one area that runs in to the skull and damages itself. The brain can bounce off one side and run in to the other, for instance. The end result is that it can be very hard to know what parts of the brain are injured.

A focal brain injury, by comparison, might happen if something penetrates one part of the skull. A foreign object, for instance, might try and see what the inside of the skull looks like. If that's the case, it can be more obvious which part of the brain is injured.

So that's what I mean when I say I had a diffuse brain injury.

Cheers,
Mike

A Backgrounder on Mike and This Blog

While out cycling one morning back in 2005, I had a very close brush with death in a bad bike v van collision! I suffered a severe diffuse TBI.

I was lucky to survive. And a long recovery followed.

It felt like the accident threw me to the bottom of a very high and very steep mountain. And, to get the life I still wanted, I had to scale it. It has been a very long journey. And, in a number of ways, it isn't over yet - my recovery continues!

But I've been lucky. While bad, the accident didn't kill me. And, during my comeback, I've had the support of all sorts of people - a wonderful family, understanding friends and a big collection of very helpful health workers.

I've learnt a lot about recovering - about what works and what doesn't - during my comeback. Some of the stuff I tried is almost enough for me to call this blog, How Not to Recover! Yet, to help repay the people who helped me, I want to share what I've learnt about TBI recovery with a wider audience.

So I created this blog to share my thoughts on ways to recover from TBI. It certainly isn't a complete coverage of the topic. Every TBI presents differently. And, fortunately, I've only had one! :-) But I hope talking about my ways will, at least, stimulate thinking for all those other TBI recoverers out there.

Cheers,
Mike

P.S. A brief overview of my recovery can be found in another of my posts, Have Hope!

I'm Not a Patient, I'm a Recoverer!

As I was thinking about this blog, I pondered what to describe myself as. Calling myself a patient didn't seem quite right. I'm not sick, I'm just recovering!

I don't lie around all day in bed. I much prefer to be out trying to do stuff again. Of course, I can't do as much as I could before my accident. And, when I do try to do stuff, often I don't do it very well! But, with in the limits I now have, I still do as much as I'm able.

So how can you call me a patient? A word to describe someone who's recovering seems much more fitting!

Cheers,
Mike

Have Hope!

One of the first things I want to write about here is how long recoveries from TBI take. And, therefore, how important it is to have hope. The brain is an incredibly complex piece of equipment that, when it works well, performs a massive number of functions seamlessly. When it stops working well, we suddenly discover the amount it normally does without us even thinking.


This is me, only a few hours after my accident! A severe TBI is a pretty good way of stopping the brain working well. :-)

As well as my accident, I picked up a pneumonia in hospital that also came close to ending it all for me. It's fair to say, the odds were stacked against me! But, as a garden-loving relative jokingly said to me, it takes more to kill off a weed than that! :-)

When it comes to TBI, we can rely on another activity of the brain - recovering! And, in many cases, the brain will do a good job of that as well - all it needs is a little time!


Here's me and my Dad on my birthday almost three weeks later! The balloons are because no flowers are allowed in hospital.

For me, it did indeed need a good chunk of time. I was in the coma-like state called Post Traumatic Amnesia for a total of 54 days. This photo shows the blank, vacant stare of someone in PTA. At least I'd managed a thumbs-up and a 'kind-of' smile! I'm so thin too! I dropped 20% of my body weight following my accident! Also, you can see my tracheostomy in my neck and my gastric feeding tube in my stomach.



But slowly I came back to the world...


... just in time for a good cup of coffee! :-)

Still, my recovery was far from over - you can see I'm in a wheelchair in the previous photo. I had to relearn almost every muscular function - all the way from swallowing up through to walking and finally to running. I'm still learning to do the latter properly now - almost three years after my accident!

I finally walked again unaided on my own Independence Day, 4th July 2005 - about 4.5 months after my accident. Still, my walking was far from perfect and there was a lot of room for improvement! Here I am shakily demonstrating my newfound ability to walk to my brother almost two weeks later:



My recovery has been a long road with many ups and many downs - if you want, have a read of My Regrets. In the end, though, I'm pretty happy with the way I've recovered. I do, however, want to make one thing clear - it is a long road and the end can be very different from the start. So, if you or someone close to you is also recovering from a TBI, have hope!


Time for a proper grin! Hangliding over Rio de Janeiro a little under two years after the accident.

In some ways, my recovery was as a pretty short one. I once spoke with another TBI recoverer who lost his sense of smell following his accident. It came back, all of a sudden, fully nine years later! There is no question of the brain's ability to repair itself given a bit of luck and the right amount of time.

But there is much that can be done while we wait for things like that to happen. And I look forward to talking to you about some of that stuff on this blog.

Cheers,
Mike