What Did My TBI Feel Like? Cloudy!

My Dad recently reminded me of the way I described my TBI not long after I received it! For me, my TBI basically made me feel all cloudy. I'm lying there in a bed in my rehab centre; I'm not in pain, but I'm just trying to take it all in. Yet things are so confusing and my head just feels unable to cut through that confusion.

Of course, I've just been thrown into this new environment. I've got very new limitations - I can't walk, I can't even talk properly - and I've now got a very unfamiliar outlook on where my life's heading. What will my recovery be like? It stands to reason that I'm going to be confused, but my brain just can't seem to get started on making head or tail of it! I find myself in this surreal world where I just can't find my bearings.

Fortunately, things do start to fall into place. They slowly begin to make sense and you get more certainty about where things are headed. The cloud lifts.

Getting clarity on where things were at was the start of looking at/thinking about what needed to be done. So it feels more like I should finish this post by saying, the cloud's lifted, let the Games begin!

Cheers,
Mike

My Starting Point

A comment on my post, TBI Recovery - Not About Restoring the Old Me, But Improving the Current Me, led me to think about yet another aspect of acceptance - what I use as my starting point when I talk about my recovery. Early on, many recoverers (and I definitely include myself here) compare themselves and their abilities to how they were before their accident. It is very easy for others to see how pointless such a comparison is, but, for the one making it, it can be remarkably difficult to break!

For TBI recovery, it is very common for the recoverer to have no recollection of either the accident or the time immediately following it. My accident must have been such a shock and I was in such a bad way for weeks following it, people often ask, would I really want to remember that time. The only reasonable answer would have to be a definite no!

There are also other reasons for strongly remembering the time before my accident. Chief among them is that I really used to enjoy that time. My accident brought it to an end, but I really want to get back to it!

There's one small problem with focusing on the time before, though: I had a TBI in between now and then. The jolly thing came very close to killing me and I've been incredibly lucky to pull through. I've came to feel a lot better about that - about where I've been - once I came to accept I'd had my TBI. Once I learnt to accept it, it's so much easier to see my starting point not as my pre-accident days, but as the day of the accident, which I ended near death, laid out in a hospital bed!

In terms of remembering better days, acceptance means I'm better able to think of what I enjoy about my current, post-accident life. Yes, it lacks some of the things of my old life, but it has other stuff the old life didn't. I can now accept I've had my TBI and focus on the stuff I enjoy of my new life.

Cheers,
Mike

The Right Stuff

After my posts, At Least It Wasn't Worse!, You Can! and The Game is Still Wide Open!, you might now be picking up what I see as most important for TBI recovery - attitude. Conversations with Jason, the author of this TBI and spinal core injury blog, have led me to focus here on my view about attitude. In Tom Wolfe's book, The Right Stuff, test pilots and astronauts need it to succeed and survive. To recover well from TBI, I think people also need "the Right Stuff" and I define it here as being about attitude.

Being stubborn is a big part of the Right Stuff! Never accept any constraint from your TBI. Always believe you can and will recover well! Constantly look for doors to kick down!

Acceptance is another key part. Accept that you've had your injury and now things may be different. Know that you cannot kick down every door and be comfortable coping with constraints whenever you do come across them. I've written more about the concept of acceptance in another post, The Hardest Thing of Mike's TBI Recovery? Acceptance!

Over the top of that stubbornness and acceptance, the Right Stuff is about being positive: always look on the bright side of things. Don't bother worrying about the past, focus on the future.

Don't worry if you don't think you have one or more of these things. I don't think I developed complete acceptance of my TBI until over a year after my accident. I've written more about how I did so here. In this post, I'll say that I don't think it's ever too late to find the Right Stuff.

Some recoverers have great trouble accepting their injuries. The Right Stuff is extremely difficult for them to find. I've written this post not for them, but for people still thinking about their approach to their TBI. If this is you, please think about having the Right Stuff. Work on being positive and accepting while being as stubborn as all hell!

Cheers,
Mike

Feeling Sorry for Myself

In the post, At Least It Wasn't Worse!, I set out a pretty good way for me to avoid feeling sorry for myself. I think about how lucky I am to still be here and still be here in fairly good order. It's good to remind myself of that from time to time. To do that, I hang out with guys that are very affected by their TBIs.

For much of the first seven months following my accident, I was in a brain injury rehabilitation centre. It was very easy to get to know the people that lived there, some of whom were so affected. Those guys can't do things like speak or walk let alone work, drive a car or live by themselves, but they're very much still alive.

Getting to know them, it's very easy to see that they've had such a rough deal from their TBIs, yet they're still really good people. It's no problem having good, rewarding conversations with them communicating through body language or communication devices like the Lightwriter.

I can assure you that, for me, this certainly isn't a competitive thing. I don't look at them and feel good that I've recovered better. I would absolutely love to see them recover further. In the mean time, I will continue to do my best to drop by and say hi when I get the chance. It's the least I can do since there probably wasn't much at all that stopped me from being more like them.

Cheers,
Mike

Why Am I Recovering Well?

Making My Recovery Count

In this earlier post, I talked about how I felt better able to cope with the weight of my recovery because I felt so lucky that my accident wasn't worse. I am aware, however, that there is still the question for some of exactly why wasn't it worse. Why did I survive? Why am I recovering well?

A couple of years ago, I met a Canadian couple who had an extremely close shave on the island of Koh Phi Phi, Thailand during the 2004 tsunami. They were swamped by the wave, but very thankfully survived by climbing on to the third floor of their hotel. Having such a lucky escape, though, the issue they had to deal with was, why did we survive while so many didn't? I guess this idea extends to brain injury. Why did I survive? Why am I recovering well when others are not? What stopped me ending up like them?

I don't have much opinion on any question of why things happened the way they did. If you've read some of my other writings on here, you may have guessed that, when I'm involved, an opinion is never far away! :-) Now that I am recovering well, I fully intend to make it count. I feel like I've been given this amazing gift, this strong recovery. Now it's up to me to use it how ever I please. And I am determined to use it and use it well!

Making my recovery count is a one reason for writing this blog. By simply reading this now, you are helping me make my recovery count further. So thank you.

Cheers,
Mike

Another Chance at Life, Why Waste It?

Part One of an Interview with Fellow TBI Recoverer, Johanna O’Connor – Her Accident, Recovery and Overall Attitude

Johanna, can you start by telling us about your accident?

Ok, my accident:
I was a 20 year old university student and most of my friends were starting to turn 21. The first of my friends to have his 21st party was a good mate from high school. On 9 August, 2003, Jared, my boyfriend, and I went down to Hamilton for the party. We arrived about 3pm and headed out for a walk down River Road……

My next memory is my mother asking me if I wanted to put my running shoes on, as they had finally found the second shoe. This was on the 20th of August; I had been in an induced coma for 10 days and suffered multiple injuries.

Both Jared and I had been out walking; but, when I woke, I was the only one still alive. We had been hit by a car that swerved off the road and ran into us on the footpath.

Jared had been declared brain dead and was held on life support till his sister arrived back from Scotland. On the 11th August, the life support was turned off. His funeral was held on the 15th August, so I had missed this and still can not bring myself to watch the video of it.

Starting at the bottom of the body up, I dislocated my left knee and lost all the ligaments and cartilage in both knees, fractured my right hand and shoulder, dislocated my right shoulder, and I completely smashed a plate in my face (this is what nearly killed me). I also suffered from intense bleeding on the brain - leaving me with a very bad head injury. For the first 5 days out of my coma, I had no control and no recollection of anything that happened. As my family later explained to me, I was extremely honest and a wee bit crazy (in a funny way).

I was in hospital for three weeks. This was a very short time considering I was to be in the hospital for up to 6 months. My Mum is a nurse and could take care of me, plus I was determined to go home. It helped that I had amazing support from my friends and extended family. I think I ended up with over 100 soft toys and over 100 bunches of flowers. It was amazing!

I guess we should all be so amazed you even managed to survive. Yet you've astounded everyone by performing incredibly well at your sport. We’ll talk more about that in a moment, but can you tell us now about what guided you, overall, in your recovery?

With my head injury, my intolerance and stubbornness came out in a big way. I could not tolerate sitting on the couch, something I have never been used to. I felt as though I was wasting my life away, I had been given another chance at life, why waste it? I had always been a sporty, outdoors sort of person who would try and achieve everything I could. This was the only way I knew how to live.

Most normally, recoveries are about downs as well as ups. What are your regrets? God willing, it won't happen, but what would you do differently if you had your recovery again?

This is a very hard question, regrets..... I don't have any really. I have learned to live without regrets. If I am to look back on my life if I didn't make those mistakes I would not be the person I am today.

There are things, though, that I wish I could have done differently, but I would not call them regrets. I wish I had more control over my head injury and could tolerate things, especially my friends and family.
But I figured out it is always those that care about you the most that will take the time to understand what you are going through and will support you through it all.

The other thing I may change, is how far I pushed myself some days, but in saying that if I didn't push myself that far would I have gotten as far as I have today or got there as quickly I did?? I had to learn my limits and I guess I always tried to exceed them. Some days I would get a little further some days I would not.

You've already done so much amazing stuff already! Where will your recovery take you next?

Where will it take me...... I don't know, I wish to start my own business sometime soon. I want to travel the world (I'm half way there). There are so many things I want to do, I don't think my short life will allow me to achieve everything this world has to offer me. As for my sport, I have many years left in me, I still suffer from my injuries, with a number of operations still to come.

My recovery will be an ongoing thing, something I will always have to deal with. All I need to do is to take things day by day because tomorrow who knows what the world will bring.

The head injury I suffered from is not over, but there is no way I will let it stop me from living life to the fullest.

Part Two of our incredible interview with Johanna relates to her sporting achievements. It continues here.

We Are the Lucky Ones

Thoughts on Recovering from Cancer Survivor, Dave Colligan

It’s difficult to describe the emotions you go through when diagnosed with serious illness. For me, it was more relief than anything else, that I finally knew for sure what was wrong with me. At 23 years old, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes. I had two tumours identified: The primary one, about the size of a closed fist, in my chest and the secondary one, about the size of a plum, in my neck. Hodgkin’s is not hereditary and nobody really knows what causes it.

I actually wasn’t that surprised to hear what my diagnosis was as I’d been sitting around in the hospital while all sorts of tests were conducted, reading the women’s magazines in the various waiting rooms – there’s never anything for the guys to read! I read an article about the Australian singer/actress Delta Goodrem, who also had Hodgkin’s, and I just knew.

The doctors told me that my chances of recovery were pretty good, around 75% in fact, so I almost felt like a fraud when talking to other cancer patients during my chemotherapy and radiotherapy sessions as they had typically been told that they had a much slimmer chance than me. The positive outlook that these people displayed under such difficult circumstances was inspiring to say the least

My friends and family reacted in very different ways to my diagnosis. Some people cried, some people were very matter-of-fact – I guess everyone has their own way of dealing with adversity and I tried to help people deal with it as best I could. For me, I just coped by trying to live as normally as possible, and encouraging people to treat me as normally as possible.

I’m usually a fairly active person, but cancer and cancer treatment really saps your energy levels so I passed the time when I had no energy by doing a bit of reading. Two of the books that I read, which will be no surprise to those affected by cancer, were Lance Armstrong’s books It’s Not About The Bike and Every Second Counts. Lance is a very inspiring person himself, but there was one line in particular that I liked which I think Lance attributed to one of the many cancer patients he became friends with:

“We are the lucky ones…”

When people ask me whether I ever think that I was unlucky to get cancer, I always reply that if I had my time again I’d still want to go through what I went through. This is pretty hard for a lot of people to understand, and maybe it takes a ‘life-changing’ event to really understand it, but I really do feel lucky to have had this experience. Sure, chemo’s not much fun, but being faced with the prospect of losing your life puts a lot of things into perspective and highlights what matters to you and what doesn’t. I know it’s a cliché – and a slogan - but life is short and (depending on what you believe) you only have one.

So I reckon it’s good to make the most of it.


Dave

Kicking Down Doors

Time for a bit more combative language!

This is the second half of my answer to how I cope with the amount my diffuse TBI left me to work on. (The first half of the answer is here.) I cope because I actually quite enjoy 'kicking down doors'! Literally kicking down doors would be a great way of hurting yourself and so I mean this figuratively! 'Kicking down doors' is how I describe the process of learning strategies to work around the constraints of a TBI. That description sounds really boring and so I prefer just to say, I kick down doors!

My TBI felt like it closed doors to all sorts of rooms I wanted to get in to - I could no longer reach the goals I'd set myself prior to my accident. I found, though, by thinking carefully about my constraints, I could often work out a way to eventually reach those goals - I could still get in to those rooms. I just needed to kick down the door to do so!

One of the arts to kicking down doors is working out which doors to kick down. Some doors are going to be easier to kick down than others and trying to kick down the wrong one can leave you with a very sore leg! Because of the importance of choosing the right door, I've written another post about it here.

I said above that I enjoy kicking down doors. I'm not quite sure why I do - perhaps wondering why is a bit like wondering why I also like sweets. That's just the way it is. I do believe, though, that a very large part of my recovery is due to my being that way. In an effort to help others find within themselves a determination to kick down doors, I've written the post, You Can!

Cheers,
Mike

At Least It Wasn't Worse!

People often ask me, how do I cope with the amount I have to work on. Indeed, as with many diffuse TBIs, mine left me with all sorts of skills to improve at. Sometimes even I wonder how I keep going! The answer's pretty simple, though - the first part is that at least it wasn't worse!

My accident came extremely close to sending me to my maker twice (the first time was the head injury itself and the second was a pneumonia I caught in hospital). So, if my accident had been even slightly worse, I would be dead. It's as simple as that.

Obviously, almost anything's better than dying. In that vein, if I can't do things that I used to do or that I'd still like to, I never get too worried about it. I might not be doing everything, but at least I'm still here doing some stuff. And that some stuff might be more difficult to do now, but, again, at least I'm still here to try my best to do it.

The second part of my answer to how I keep going is in a separate post here.

Cheers,
Mike