TBI Recovery and a Higher Power

Recently, I’ve had many chats with a close friend recovering from a compulsive disorder.  While I won’t claim to understand everything he talks about, I am more than happy to chat through things with him and hope that my thoughts are in some way helpful.  Among the things I myself take from all our discussions are the parallels between recovery from his disorder and TBI recovery.

A major part of recovery for my friend is accepting a higher power can help us recover, but also learning to give up control to that power.  (Recovering alcoholics may know these as Steps Two and Three of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.)  This may seem difficult to believe, but recoverers from compulsive disorders experience more control over their compulsions by wilfully giving up on having control!  That idea’s not a simple one –I think it took me some proper thinking to even start to get it – but please bear with me while I talk through what I think it shows for TBI recovery.

With this idea in mind, I thought through my TBI recovery and realised I’d touched on it in my post, Having Faith I Will Figure It Out.  In the post, I describe how I keep myself going by having faith that, sooner or later, I’ll work out a way of solving, or at least of significantly reducing, any problem I run into.  Sometimes I think me working it out comes from getting a sign – in the post, Listening to Your Body: Sweating and Cravings for Salt, I wrote about how I (eventually) realised one sign: my body was showing it was lacking salt by giving me cravings for salty foods.  Maybe my giving it up to a higher power is accepting that, whatever issue comes along, I’ll be given a sign about how best to deal with it.

On the question of fatalism versus freewill, I fall very much on the side of free-will: while I believe a greater power might give me a sign as to the right way, I believe it is entirely up to me to follow it.  Please let me know if you agree or have any thoughts about my attempting to reconcile fatalism and freewill for TBI recovery.

Furthermore, this is not a simple subject: like I said, I still think I’m figuring it out.  I also think it’s critical to the daily decisions we make in our recoveries.  Please feel free to comment on here if you any further questions on it.  If you’re wondering about something, no doubt others are, too.

Cheers,

Mike

Another Update on Mike's Recovery

Hi guys,

It’s been a while since I last posted, but, after a pretty busy first half of this year, I’ve recently decided to ease back a bit and live a more balanced life.  As part of doing that, I promised myself I’d restart writing posts for this blog.

As an update, things are well here.  As you may have seen from my previous posts, I completed the first of two major goals for this year back in March: racing the Ironman New Zealand triathlon.  I had hoped to be finished with the second goal, completing a Masters thesis in Economics at a New Zealand university, around the middle of this year.  Regretfully, my progress towards that goal hasn’t been quite as smooth and I now hope to have it (nearly) all done by the end of this year.

As I said and in spite of still having a bit to do, more balance in my life means more writing for this blog.  First up, is my post, TBI Recovery and a Higher Power.

Cheers,

Mike

Media Coverage of My Story

Of course, with my accident, recovery and build-up to Ironman, there's been some media coverage of my story. That culminated in the week of Ironman with a story about me being aired by the New Zealand current affairs television programme, Campbell Live.

The story's available on Campbell Live's website here (regretfully, I'm unable to embed the video).  I think it may be most interesting to my readers because it contains a whole series of videos of me shortly after my accident.  Be warned, I'm not in a good way in those.  Fortunately, though, I've improved since then and firmly believe, it's the comeback that counts! :-)

(With Ironman now over and out of the way, I'm enjoying the return to the quiet life and not having nearly so much fuss around me!)

Cheers,
Mike

Finally Running Home an Ironman!

During a quiet training ride, just two weeks before I was to race Ironman New Zealand 2005, I had a spot of bad luck: I was involved in what should have been a minor traffic accident.  Because I was on a bike, however, it was anything but.  I suffered a severe traumatic brain injury and missed my race, what would have been my first Ironman, because I was still in hospital in a coma!  I lost my health, I lost my career, I almost lost my life!  Through all of it, though, I never lost my desire to race an Ironman, slowly but steadily rebuilding my strength, fitness and abilities.

On March the 6th this year, five years after I should have, I finally ran home an Ironman!

(This is my favourite photo from Ironman because, while it shows me running towards the finish, it doesn't actually show me crossing it, as if my race isn't over.  I like it because, as I explain below, I don't feel like "my race" is over yet!)

For me, Ironman (which involves a 3.8k swim, 180k cycle and then a 42k run) wasn't what I'd expected at the start of the day.  I had a good swim...

(A shot of the mass start involving over a thousand swimmers - I'm in there somewhere)

... and a reasonable bike ride... 

(looking settled)

... only to have problems on the run!

(feeling the pain!  That is a frown, or as much of one as I can manage!)

Unfortunately, I became quite ill about a quarter of the way through the run.  However, after the saga that's been my build-up to Ironman, I wasn't going to let a bad stomach get in the way of finishing.  Things gradually improved, particularly when four supporters came off the sidelines and starting running with me.  Gradually, my running style came back together and I truly enjoyed the final stages of the race, running home in a time of 12.54.

(me with my fantastic support crew afterwards!)

How does it feel to have finally completed my goal and raced an Ironman?  In a word, fantastic!  Ironman has been such a saga these last five years; although my race wasn't the best, I feel like I've been released, like I can now go on to other things.  And there are indeed other things!  Of course, finishing my 50,000 word Masters thesis is currently my biggest goal, but really there's a whole bunch of things I want to improve at.  My recovery - my race - isn't over yet!

I remain committed to the process of recovering.  Ironman was only a step along the way and I hope for all the best in furthering recovering.  I wish other recoverers out there well and hope I hear stories of things other people have gone on to do, following their brain injury.

Cheers,

Mike 

An Update on Mike's Recovery

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

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