It's about time I wrote an update on how my recovery's going. As readers may have noticed, I've had little time recently to write posts for this blog. That's because my recovery's all go! Right now, there are two major parts to it and it's these I want to fill readers in on.
The first part is my second attempt at racing the Ironman triathlon in Taupo, New Zealand in March 2010. Readers may have seen in other posts that I received my brain injury in a traffic accident I had while training two weeks before the same race in 2005. An intense desire to race Ironman is something that's always been a special motivation for me to recover more. I'm really looking forward to finally achieving this goal.
The second part is a Masters degree I recently started in my favourite subject, economics, at a university here in Wellington, New Zealand. The degree involves the preparation of a 30-40,000 word thesis, which I am hoping to complete about June next year.
I continue to think about brain injury recovery and what readers might like to hear about my experiences as I attempt to complete these two goals. Unfortunately, finding time to write them up and put them on here is a bit of an issue, right now. But readers can rest assured that I'll get them up here at some stage soon(ish).
Cheers,
Mike
Friday, 18 September 2009
An Update on Mike's Recovery
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
14 comments:
Hello Mike, I'd be interested in how you feel you are doing in your Master program. I'd be most interested in the math/statistics/analysis side of it.
My son in his engineering program clearly notices that his cognitive skills are not where they were pre-injury. There seem to be a couple of issues. The first is his brain injury stopped and slowed down college progress. Some of his difficulties are that his higher level engineering classes use material he learned 2+ years ago. So time has impacted him as well as cognitive deficits. He manages through this a couple of ways. First a reduced number of classes. Second he gets extra time on exams through the Universities disability office and lastly spending 2x or more time working on his classes than he did before. I would say that his deficits potentially drop him 1/2 to a full letter grade than his potential was before his TBI.
Having said this with a great deal of determination and effort on his part he can nevertheless can be successful in his classes. Successful being defined as a C or better.
His injury was only 15 months ago so he is actually recovering as he attends university.
I would be very interested in hearing about your experiences and perspectives on attending university pre and post your injury.
Best wishes as you pursue your goals Mike.
Best regards,
Bob
Hi Bob,
Thanks for the comment. I think my key "cognitive deficit" is that my brain doesn't work as fast as it used to. I put that phrase in speech-marks because I believe it's only a deficit if you're not managing it. I prefer to thing about things as either strengths or weaknesses.
Your son sounds like he is managing his studies very well and deserves applause because of that. Maybe some things are more difficult that they used to be, but, hey, your son's attending classes in engineering at university! These are well beyond many people who've never even had a brain injury.
If you'd like to have a discussion on this, please leave an email address we can talk over. Please also pass on my regards to your son and wish him the best of luck with his studies and further recovering!
Cheers,
Mike
Hi Bob,
I'm Mike's sister. I did an engineering degree (though I haven't had a brain injury). I'm deeply impressed with anyone who can manage that degree with a brain injury. Is he doing it at Canterbury, NZ?
As for a "C" counting as success, to any engineer a C is the most efficient and thus best grade, it maximises benefit relative to energy input. :)
Hi Tracy,
We are in US in North Carolina. Steven is a student at NC State Univ. in Raleigh. I'm an engineer myself, so I know the the demands of an engineering education (and without a laptop computer in my case, just my trusty newly invented invented TI scientific calculator).
Steven is in his senior year in mechanical engineering so his classes are now team project ones. They are very rigorous. He and the teams he is on, worked until 4AM-5AM several days last week to finish up their projects.
It has to be difficult for him given that he has to work so much harder now to be successful. He lives at home and drives to school, so I often walk by his room to peek in to see him working at his desk. I am so grateful to be able to see that. He was never expected to recover to the degree he ultimately did, and his Doc's are just amazed at his recovery and his determination and drive.
Like your brother, he has a never give up attitude. It would be very easy just to throw in the towel and say he can't do it.
He gets extra time on exams, usually taking them in the universities disability office. He has frank conversations with his professors on what happened to him and what his strengths and weaknesss are. One of his challenges is that he appears to his professors as to not have any issues. They really don't show up until he is challenged with material that even the other students struggle with.
Congratulations on your engineering degree. Steven should be completing his BSME in Dec 2010 and it will probably be one of the most incredible achievements I've seen.
Thanks for your comment Tracy. Looks like your parents raised some awesome kids.
Best regards,
Bob
Hey Mike, I was 17 years old when I got in a car accident this year on January 28th 2009. I substainined a severe traumatic brain injury with a glasco scale of 3. Being a senior in high school who planned to go to a 4 year college, compete in college swimming and major in some sort of business.
There has been a miraculous recovery with my TBI. Being a competitor named "Swimmer of the Year" for my high school team this year. I have had extreme ambitions to physically get better. Now I am walking great with the only difficulty is to run, jump and go up steps.
I was in a wheel chair until May but the next month I managed to walk using a walker with my graduating class of 2009. My parents decided for me to get tutored with my high school and postpone college. I was not ready for college physically or mentally. Being a high school student again now I have been relearing Algebra, and college prep english very quickly.
I plan on going to a 4 year university next year. Since you live in a different country. I doubt you know about any money that deals with the United States for TBIs. But you are attending a college! I know that all brain injuries are different. My speech language therapist has done tests on me and noticed that I lack cognative thinking. I am fully aware that I can't have any alcohol. I just wanted to know if you have any learning advice for when I go to a college? Or any thing that may help me out in any type of way that I am not aware of?
Evan
Hi Evan,
Thanks for your comment. Happy to chat. Yes, there is heaps that can help you out in your progress back to a level suitable for college.
Firstly, congratulations on your recovery so far. Yes, you may well have so much more to do, but I think it's important to look back, every so often, on where you've come from. That's fantastic that you managed to graduate with your class. Everyone must have been stoked for you!
On getting ready for college, the trick, I think, is small steps. As Bob and I have just been discussing, the option most likely to be successful is the one that involves slowly taking on more and more demanding challenges: never over-reaching, but always pushing yourself. So please stick with the tutoring and only move up to university when you feel good and ready.
On your swimming, have you been having any physiotherapy? Depending, of course, on the nature of your brain injury, a good physiotherapist may be essential to learning to walk up stairs, run, jump and even swim well. I highly recommend getting plenty of physiotherapy if your goal is to get to a level involving competitive sport.
Email me if you want to discuss any of this. You should find my address on other posts on this blog.
Cheers,
Mike
Hi Mike - I have been reading your blogs with much interests. I too had a severe accident in mid 2009 in Adelaide (Oz) and am having trouble recovering (I think) so wonder if we could share some notes.... can U email me ? Rowan
Hi Rowan,
Regretfully, I am currently pretty short on time, being in the last stages of training for my second attempt at the Ironman triathlon and moving further on with my Masters thesis. Currently, I'm unable to devote any time to general conversations about recovery.
I do feel some responsibility to other recoverers and am more able to make time to chat about specific issues. If there's something specific you want to discuss, please email me. You'll find my address in other posts on this blog.
Kind regards,
Mike Wilkinson
Mike - Congratulations on completing Ironman. A fantastic achievement I'm sure you're feeling pretty proud of. I was in Taupo watching my sister and her husband compete and if I'd known you were there I would have looked out for you.
Best wishes for your thesis.
Helen Twose (ex-FNZC)
Hi Mike, I suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm june '06 leaving me with a few challenges. I too am studying and am doing a Research Paper at the moment about "How Animals assist in Brain Injury Recovery" Any thoughts? or knowledge you may be able to send my way?
Many thanks, Gail :-)
Sorry, Gail, other than being a dog and cat lover both before and since my accident, I've no real experiences with animals and rehabilitation.
On reflection about your thesis, I think that anything that increases recoverers' ability to interact with people can only be a good thing. If animals are what it takes to help some people interact, then that should only be encouraged!
Cheers,
Mike
Hi Mike., this is randybrown when I was searching the blogs of traumatic brain injury I found your blog it is very amazing to see ur blog and it is very hard when life follows a path that is far from what you hoped and dreamed.I hope u to recover soon...
Thanks Randy and best of luck with your resource. Life after brain injury isn't a walk in the park and, in some respects, I don't believe one's recovery is ever really "over". Still, in the same breath, I'd absolutely say that one's life isn't over, either; living with a brain injury can still be lots of fun.
It's so much the trick of recovery to keep it so.
Cheers,
Mike
Post a Comment