Sometimes

This is one of this month's digital art pics that I made from two of my photos.  I named it "The Grid" after thinking about information storage and broken synapses. 

Sometimes when I am full of brain fog, I am able to stop what I am doing and take the dog out for a walk in a peaceful place. 

Sometimes when I don't know what to do, I take a line from one of my favorite singers and ask myself, "What would Jimmy Buffett do?"  If I am having a problem that requires clear thought and decision-making, I ask myself, "What would a logical person do?"  And if I don't know what a logical person would do, I call up a logical person and ask them.

Sometimes I force myself to slow down, especially when my wheels are spinning and I am restless.
Sometimes I force myself to speed up, especially when I feel mokus and not wanting to move.

Sometimes blogging helps, sometimes social networking helps, sometimes nothing helps.  When nothing helps, I can sit or stand and hurt for awhile.

Sometimes things happen that are too big for me to forgive.  Not being a churched person, I don't have to offer forgiveness unless it is asked for.  And sometimes I forgive "the part of" the person "that didn't know any better."  Apathy or indifference is preferable to resentments these days.  Forgiveness is not something that can be rushed.  The rush to forgive can lead one into fresh revictimization.

Sometimes I make promises and I don't deliver.  Sometimes people and organizations make promises and they don't deliver either.  I've learned to make less promises.

Sometimes helping people get stuck in traps.  They believe in fictions instead of investigating for themselves.  Or they don't really think that we can improve much at all or have a real life.  That has to be their problem.  My responsibility is to lessen the impact of their false, limiting beliefs on anything that has to do with my life and my wishes and my dreams.

Sometimes people don't want to deal with brain damage or the changes that are wrought in us because of our brain damage.  People get scared off by what they don't understand.  Friends flee.  Potential employers hide behind excuses.  Past employers don't want us back.  I don't waste energy being good enough for anyone else these days.  I have to be good enough for me.

Sometimes people label anger as being "negative" or "bad."  I have not found this to be true.  The truth is quite different.  Muddied anger and rage and resentments can all be liabilities which we allow to dictate our thoughts and behaviors.  There is a clear anger that is a call to action.  What I have found is this: Anger is my truest friend.
 
sapphoq healing tbi

Fatigue and Fog



     I lost a bunch of weight and have kept it off for a year now.  With the weight loss, my sleep apnea receded.  Unfortunately the fog and fatigue from my fibromyalgia (which I didn't have before the accident that gave me my traumatic brain injury) remains.  So although I am no longer sleep-walking through life, I just don't have the energy that I used to.  On top of that, I have various aches or trigger points which seem to be diagnostic of the fibro.

     Unlike some unknown to me percentage of folks with fibro who treat it with prescribed drugs, I take no drugs for my fibro.  I deal with mine through a combination of exercise and extra rest.  There are days when I force myself to get up out of bed.  There are days when I suddenly have to take a nap.  And there are a few days where nothing much at all gets done.

     The brain fog I combat by the little cognitive games I find on the net-- use your search engine and type in "brain games" if you want to try them-- which are designed for kids but do force me to think in a logical manner.  I also do research for a few of my blogs as well as sudoku.  From time to time when I get stuck on a problem, I ask myself what a logical person would do.  If I cannot come up with any thoughts on that one, I call up a logical person and ask them for ideas.

     One of the things that I have learned throughout my brain injury is that there are times when I have to say "enough."  When there are events in life which yield more stress, then I have to cut back someway somehow somewhere so I don't get all twittified.  An example is that my list of daily todos has gotten shorter over necessity.  Another example is that when I feel burned out, I know that is not the time to volunteer to help other folks.  The energy just isn't there.  When I take on too much, I pay for it.  I hung up my superman cape some years ago.  After my brain injury, I kicked it to the curb.

     If I don't take care of myself, then I cannot be of service to others.  If I say yes to every little request that comes along, then I get fatigued and brain dead.  If I never say no, then my yeses won't mean anything.

     I suppose some folks learn all of this without having had a brain injury.  I was a go-getter who kept going long beyond any reasonable person would have gone.  Keeping my health as my first priority means I can no longer live the way that I used to.

sapphoq healing tbi

I Got Rhythm

    Both my mother and my father were excellent dancers.  They won dance contests together.  My mom was a wonderful tap dancer.  And Dad was an Arthur Murray Dance Instructor for a few years in his younger days.  I was naturally drawn to dancing as a child.  I wasn't good at running or kickball or basketball but I could dance.  


     My preferred dancing shoes are my sneakers.  I will dance to any kind of music.  Even now after my brain injury, I am quick to pick up new dances and put my own spin on them.


     After my brain injury, my balance [not in the technical sense of "inner ear damage," but rather more in the lay-person's sense of being able to walk around without falling into walls and things] was really pretty bad.  I fell sideways often.  The constant presence of external vertigo-- I am not dizzy, the world around me spins to the left-- did not help much at all.  I fell in my home.  I fell in the neighborhood.  I fell in the park.  I fell a lot.


     A wonderful anesthesiologist in private practice hooked me up with pool therapy.  The pool was indoors and there was a whole lot of folks like me in it.  The water had a combination of chlorine and salt in it.  There were pool therapists, pool therapist assistants, floats, music, laughter, tropical plants.  The water was kept warm as was the temperature in the pool room itself.  When I got into that pool, the pain melted away.  I was able to do the exercises given to me.  I found myself improving.  I used to spend up to two hours in the pool.  It was a relief during a time when not much was comfortable in my life.


I found a float against the wall that was v-shaped.  I asked what was done with it and soon I began to incorporate it into my exercises.  I would sit on the float and deliberately induce the vertigo to speed up.  I did this by spinning myself back and forth randomly in place on the float.  I learned to stick to my seat, not fall off.  After pool therapy was done, the neurologist remarked that my balance [in the lay-person's sense of the word I am sure] was much improved.  I knew this to be true because I was less bruised from falling.  I began to dance again.  At first with the cane, but it was definitely dancing.


     The other thing that happened immediately after my injury is that I began to insist that my husband not turn off the classical music when he was ready to sleep.  He wanted to.  I didn't want him to.  When he tried to turn it off, I cried.  After a few nights, he gave up and the music stayed on all night for the next two years.  


     Those of you who follow my sapphoq reviews blog may be aware that I love the author Oliver Sachs.  His book Musicophilia talks about the connection between music and the brain. [ http://www.oliversacks.com/books/musicophilia/ ].  The University of Western Ontario plans to carry out more research on the connection between music and movement.
[ http://communications.uwo.ca/western_news/stories/2012/January/finding_ties_between_music_the_brain_and_how_we_move.html ].


     In some of the t.b.i. support groups and functions that I've attended I've heard much talk of a religious or spiritual nature and how that sort of thing has helped other t.b.i. survivors.  Being an atheist and happily unchurched, I cannot add my voice to the chorus.  But what I can attest to is that music has been a very active and necessary part of my own recovery.


sapphoq healing t.b.i. 


     






http://communications.uwo.ca/western_news/stories/2012/January/finding_ties_between_music_the_brain_and_how_we_move.html