Dark Days

In some of my posts, such as my last one on mountain running, I fear I might give the impression I'm something of a recovery machine, that I'm an astounding success at recovering from my TBI.  If I have, that impression would certainly not be correct.  I have made mistakes (such as those discussed in Mike's Regrets), but what I think are more important from a day-to-day perspective are dark days,

I think all recoverees, myself included, sometimes face dark days, days where the weight of recovery seems too much to bear.  As an example showing how not to recover, I'm writing this post to talk about what I think helps for dealing with dark days: don't give in to them.

The ability to feel sorry for ourselves is a common human trait.  Whoever we might be, I reckon it's only natural for recoverees, myself included, to sometimes stand back and think, "man, this really sucks!"  A TBI can cause so much stuff to go wrong, there will likely be much to remind us that life is so much more difficult than it was before our brain injury.  It's natural that sometimes all of us will want to pack it all in, to give up and retreat into some deep cave somewhere.

Therein lies the biggest risk posed by dark days.  Do we give in and retreat from them?  That deep cave seems safe from the outside world.  Why not just head in there for a bit of nap?  The thing to remember, though, is that the deep cave provides little shelter from the effects of our TBI, it's actually quite cold and damp.

I think the trick with dark days is know they come, but don't last forever.  As we're experiencing them,  I think it helps to keep in mind that, while not much fun, things could always be worse.  What's important is to stay out of the cold, damp cave, instead standing in the sun as we keep getting into stuff.  Know that dark days come, but don't give into them!

Cheers,
Mike

My recovery: it'll be over when I say it's over!

People often ask me something along the lines of, "How long did it take you to recover from your brain injury?"  I usually respond with, "My recovery isn't over yet: I still think I'm recovering now."  The natural follow up question is, when will your recovery be over?  Back in 2008, I wrote a verbose post on this blog, How Long Does TBI Recovery Take?  In it, I talked about the length of my recovery depending on what goals I set myself.  One activity recently reminded me of the concept, though: my running.

Running in the hills above Wellington city, New Zealand.

Using my running as an example, I want to explain my new answer to the question of when my recovery will be over: it'll be over when I say it's over!

I had my accident shortly before I was to reach my goal of racing Ironman triathlon in 2005.  Being a goal-focused person, I was desperate to build back up to it.  As I started running again, I quickly realised how physiologically complex the activity is to do.  Gradually, I relearnt how to control my muscles well enough, particularly those in my core, to run properly.  Eventually, I was running well enough to support my finally completing Ironman in March 2010.

Even through Ironman, though, I carried a number of running issues.  A key one was that my right quad muscle group would seem to run out of push after about 20-30 mins of running.  The issue wasn't bad enough to stop me doing Ironman: If I walked ten paces, it would come right and I could start running again.  However, I love my running and it was hindering my enjoyment of it.  Once I'd finished Ironman, I was keen to get it sorted out.

In the second half of last year, I restarted my recovery process: I saw physios, tried new things like yoga classes, stretching and muscle exercises and talked to lots of relevant people.  After about six months of trying stuff, I made a breakthough: I realised it wasn't my right quad muscles I needed to worry about, it was my right gluteus maximus (as well as another muscle close by, the gluteus medius).  For some reason, exercising those two made a big difference to my issue with my quad.  Although they haven't solved it completely, just yet, I think they'll allow me to run well enough to train for and complete off-road running events (as per my photo).  (Off-road running seems easier on my quad muscle issue.)

Since I built myself up for Ironman (twice!), you may be thinking I'm someone who likes big goals.  You'd be right!  In New Zealand, one big goal involving off-road running is the 60k (37.5mi) Kepler Challenge, following the Kepler Track in the South Island.  Guess what I'm aiming to be next November?  ;-)

Herein lies my idea.  There are things like running that I really want to enjoy.  It is up to me to do all I can to recover for them.  No matter how long it's been since my brain injury, my recovery will only ever end when I decide to stop working out how to recover more.  It'll only be over when I say it's over!

Cheers,

Mike

From theorising in my brain to theorising in my thesis!

I mentioned in an update in my last post that I had completed my Masters thesis.  I decided readers might well want to know more about how I found it so I've pulled together this post.

Me with the result of 21 months' work: a 300-page bound book.

The main word for how I found it: big!  My thesis started out as a simple question: what made New Zealanders use their debit card payment system, EFTPOS, so much more than Australians or the citizens of other countries used theirs?  Before my brain injury got in the way of things, I'd often pondered doing postgraduate study in economics.  Suddenly, I had an interesting research question to study.  Once this simple idea had germinated, however, it seemed nothing could stop it.  I found an economics professor in my hometown or Wellington willing to supervise my completing a Master of Arts By Thesis.  My thesis eventually became an 80,000+ word study of the economics of the development of retail payment systems in seven Western countries.

Although I started with the plan of finishing the thesis in only one year, it took me 21 months to put it to bed.  I was however very happy with the finished product.  (If you're really interested, the full thing can be downloaded from my university's research archive here, although I summarised it substantially in the context of New Zealand in this guest post for the NZ political blog, Kiwiblog.)  What was the greatest issue for getting my injured brain through thesis writing?  Well, it seems there were two: theorising about my idea in my brain and getting that theorising written down in my thesis.

In terms of theorising in my brain, some major things guided me forward.  When I think back over them now, they're remarkably consistent with ideas I've written about for TBI recovery.  I found it very useful simply to keep talking to the right people about my thesis and where I felt it was heading.  I also thought it important that I enjoyed myself, writing my thesis, and simply keep the faith that I would figure it out.  Did my brain injury slow me down as I thought my way through my work?  I think that's more than likely, but I was enjoying myself so don't feel like that mattered at all.  I just hung in there believing I would find the right way of thinking through my thesis.

As I had figured out parts of my work in my head, the next trick was writing them up in my thesis.  Once again, several things helped me considerably.  The two ideas listed above once more came in handy.  The art of writing well is not a simple one, however.  I think it helped me substantially to have practiced my writing on various blogs around, including on this one.  This is yet another thing that I think has parallels in brain injury recovery, which I outlined in this post, Get Into It!

Even before my brain injury, I think my thesis would have been a major bit of work.  How did I feel about trying to do it with a brain that didn't operate as well as it once did?  I just shrug my shoulders and think, oh well, at least I was still around to do it.  My brain injury could have been so much worse!

If you are a recoveree considering doing something big, I wholeheartedly encourage you to get stuck in and have a crack at it!  See your brain injury not as some insurmoutable obstacle, but as merely something to be managed.  Go for it!

Cheers,
Mike

Embarrassing stuff following a TBI: Google it!

(Please forgive the delay, but it's been a long while since I last posted.  I've been thinking about this post for some time, but haven't focused sufficiently to pull it together until now.  I regret that I've rather been distracted by a frustrating job search following my successful completion of my Masters thesis earlier this year.)

The brain seamlessly controls many, many things.  When we damage it, weird things can start to happen.  And we might not be comfortable talking about some of them.  They may in fact be down right embarrassing!  All is not lost, though.  There is one source of information that won't ask any questions about why you're researching stuff: Google!

Two embarrassing things have arisen during my recovery.  One of them I'm happy to talk about, but the other rates barely a mention.  That's because I remain too embarrassed to discuss it in such a public way.  (I'll leave you to guess from the first how I dealt/am dealing with the second!)  The first is that I (still!) have problems recognising people's faces and the second, that I have occasionally had problems with bladder control.

I am by nature a social person: being around friends and family matters hugely to me.  I find it very natural to be friendly with everyone, it feels energising to me.  I have absolutely no wish to be seen as unfriendly towards people.  Yet, an important part of being friendly is recognising people when you see them again.  If I've only met someone once or twice, though, this is the part I battle with: no matter how involved the conversation was, if I've only met someone the once, it's reasonably likely that I'll completely fail to remember who they are when I see them again.  (This issue is much more than just forgetting people's names, which I wrote a bit about here!)

For some, this might not be a major issue, but for me it definitely is.  Yet, how can I explain it to someone?  Even if I was comfortable with doing so, there would be only a very small number of specialists familiar with it in a small country like New Zealand.  I imagine many neurologists or brain injury specialists would look at it and say, show me a real problem.  To me, though, this is a real problem!

Google's not going to be worried about the seriousness of my problem.  If I input the keywords, brain problem recognising people, if faithfully reveals that I in fact have a condition called prosopagnosia.  Further searching reveals sites such as this one that say there is no formal treatment for the condition.  Sounds to me like an invitation for me to be determined to recover and think hard about how I might work around it.  When I meet someone, can I try remembering their hair colour and the facial features so I can remember them if I meet them again out of context?  With careful thought and a bit of research, surely it's up to me to work out how to recover!

Cheers,

Mike

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