If you're reading through my musings here and haven't yet picked it up, there is one fundamental thing I hope you take away from this blog. It is this: as a recoverer, it's your decision to recover or not to recover from your brain injury!
A brain injury can give you a hell of a kicking! And it will be a kicking the an effect of which others can only guess at. My TBI certainly did. This is me, almost seven years ago.
I stayed in roughly that condition for a long time, too. This photo is taken approximately one month on from my accident.
Yet, do we have it within ourselves to choose to recover? I cannot talk with confidence about what pulls us through when life hangs in the balance. Once we're through that stage, though, I hope all of us recoverers believe absolutely, it is our choice to recover. I've dedicated these last seven years of my life to proving this is so.
Five years on from my accident, I ran home an Ironman from a triathlon that had long been a goal.
Last month, I graduated with a Master of Arts from Victoria University of Wellington after writing, having written an 80,000+ word thesis to complete it.
I believe it is up to us to choose to recover. I hope you will join me in making that choice and that the posts on this blog will help you for it.
Cheers,
Mike
12 comments:
I am much earlier into my recovery than you (26 months) but I agree very much with your point. This is not easy. You can either choose to fight or choose to quit. I choose to fight. Your posts are always very meaningful for me even though I haven't commented. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences.
Thanks heaps for the comment, Heather. It is to help out people like you that makes this all worthwhile.
Best of luck with your fight to recover. If you to chat over anything to do with recovery (I'm not one who likes talking about accidents or how our brain injuries happened), please feel free to get in touch (howtorecover@gmail.com).
Cheers,
Mike
Hi Mike,
Your story is inspiring. I was wondering if you have any advice or suggestions regarding getting back into physical activity? Did you have a problem with exercise intolerance and if so how did you increase the threshold?
Congrats on the Masters : )
Hey Leigh,
Thanks for the congrats. On exercise and almost everything else post-TBI, my only real advice is make sure you enjoy yourself. That is what I think counts.
With physical exercise, did you have some sport that you liked before your brain injury? If so, why not just try that again? If you don't like it, is there something else you might enjoy?
Cheers,
MIke
Thanks Mike. Pre-accident I was fit and into sailing, tramping, skiing and running. 4 years on post-accident, I'm fine with day to day life, but have a problem with exercise. I have tried building up slowly and the threshold has increased a bit, but anything that requires exertion still results in headaches and severe fatigue. I'm interested in how you have managed to get back into physical activities and if you had similar problems?
Sorry, Leigh. I personally haven't had problems like yours since my TBI. I've had (and continue to have) certain problems getting my muscles to work properly, but they only really affect my abilities with, not my enjoyment of, my sport. Still, as I've written elsewhere on here, every TBI is like a finger print: the effects we experience will very often be different.
Your case doesn't sound simple. I'd recommend starting to run experiments on yourself: does it make a difference doing your exercise in certain environments, is it better in the morning or when the weather's fine or when you're well rested? Consider yourself a Sherlock Holmes on your issues. :-)
Most importantly for you, I'd recommend you relax and maximise the enjoyment levels: if conditions aren't conducive to that, I reckon you can find something better to do.
You used the word tramping. You're not another Kiwi, are you?
Cheers
Mike
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the encouragement. Yes, you're right every injury is different. And while I'm thankful as things could have been much worse, I still keep working toward getting back out there.
Good spotting on the tramping : ) I'm in Dunedin so am enjoying the awesome summer we're having down here.
Thanks again for your suggestions.
Small steps, Leigh, small steps. If you want to do those things badly enough, I'm very confident you'll crack the puzzle. With these things, though, I reckon it's best not to hold out for that magic bullet, but focus on the gradual improvements. For me and my sports, those have been what's counted.
Best of luck with it, too. Those are cool activities to aim at and that's a great part of the country in which to do them (I live up in windy Wellington).
Cheers
Mike
Hey Leigh,
How's it going? Hope you're making progress with figuring out the issues impeding you from doing what you want to do.
Last night, I read this article in the Economist magazine. It discusses all sorts of cool devices for quantifying how we live, for helping us understand ourselves better. Unfortunately, no one seems to have invented an iPhone app to suss out post-TBI issues just yet, but I like the Sherlock Holmes philosophy the article discusses.
I think I'll put a post up on this blog about this thinking. Thanks for helping me see how recoverers might benefit from it.
Cheers,
Mike
Hey again Leigh,
I just put together that post I mentioned, if you're interested in a read. Have a look here: http://howtorecover.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/being-sherlock-holmes.html
Cheers,
Mike
Hi Mike,
Your story is so inspiring to me and brings hope as I had a car accident 14 months ago which left me with a TBI.
I would like to ask you if you found it hard keeping in contact with friends as I kinda feel like my friends don't keep in contact with me much cause I am a little different to before.
What steps did it take you to start studying to get your masters as I want to have a degree in a sport subject in the future but I wouldn't really know where to start?
Ben
Thanks, Ben. I'm really glad you enjoy my blog: you sound like just the sort of person I write it for. Keep up your hope, man. If you keep focused on recovering well, I’m sure you’ll do something similar to what I’ve done/am doing, hopefully even better! Doing a sports degree might definitely help you out with that! Go for it!
You asked me about two things. On the issue of friends, I was very lucky to have been raised in a way that I only bother hanging out with people who want to hang out with me. I am a different person now and I’m sure that caused some people I used knew to treat me differently. That’s their choice, though, and, if they don’t want to hang out, well I’ve got better stuff to do, anyway.
In terms of meeting new people who might want to hang out with me, I love picking up new sports, joining new teams or trying new activities. Which activities do I try? As I explain in this post, Get Into It, I love trying things I reckon I’ll enjoy.
In terms of study for a sports degree, I definitely encourage you to go for it! In terms of working out how to do it, I encourage you to find the right people to talk to about it. Do you have any family friends who have done one before? Have a yarn to them about it: it’s time to get talking!
Best of luck wtih further recovering, though. I really hope things work out your way.
Cheers,
Mike
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