People don’t perceive traumatic brain injury (TBI) as a mental illness but neither do they see it as a physical injury. So it gets less attention than even mental illness, which is not exactly visible and the reason why Bell is sponsoring Let’s Talk day today. But TBI is often accompanied by depression or can…
Category: Brain Health
Writings on brain injuries, remedies, and interesting tidbits, from the perspective of one who suffered a closed head injury and didn’t lose consciousness. Mild brain injuries are injuries too.
Twelve Years
Every year, I say to myself this anniversary, I’ll be fine. After all, it’s been sooooo long since the day two drivers crashed into the car I was a passenger in and pushed us into the car ahead and injured my neck, shoulders, and brain. Such nice, good drivers Kimberley Best and Carla Marchetti were.…
COTA Case Manager, the Saga Continues
Update to Case Management drama: I met with my case manager from COTA (see previous post for the story so far). I told her to get to it; I didn’t even give her a chance for her usual draining chit-chat. I needed my energy to get through the session with her; thankfully my moral anger…
My COTA Health Case Manager is Driving me to Chocolate
I have a brain injury. That means, through some incomprehensible bureaucratic logic, I receive social work, occupational therapy (OT), physiotherapy, etc. through my local CCAC or Community Care Access Centre, and case management through COTA Health, which stands for something to do with occupational therapy. And they only talk to each other if CCAC makes…
Mental Work Up + Exercise Staying the Same = Energy Way, Way Down with Brain Injury
I learned a valuable lesson this NaNoWriMo. As some of you many know, I began my own self-devised hypothalamus treatment in 2010 to try and address a variety of organic problems that resulted from a traumatic brain injury in 2000. One of the nice side benefits was my exercise tolerance slowly improved. Then this past…
Brain Injury: the Government Ignores, the People Remain in the Dark
BIST (Brain Injury Society of Toronto) was founded in 2004 and has grown to 469 members, as of this week’s Annual General Meeting (AGM). I looked around at the 50? 40? 70? or so members in attendance and was rather surprised. But as the AGM progressed I thought about those growing numbers and BIST’s new…
Value of Rest and Staycations to a Person with Brain Injury
One of the most frustrating things about a brain injury is the energy loss. The words “tired,” “exhausted,” “fatigued” don’t really convey the experience and frustration of this state, for it isn’t anything like one feels after a long day at the office, a hard-drinking night at the frat, an all-night study session for one…
Blood Pressure and Brain Injury: The Test
I had 24-hour blood pressure monitoring done twice this past week, sort of. The first monitor went kaput after a couple of hours. So the next day, back on the highway I went to the clinic and was hooked up to a 2-week-old one. Brand new is better than well used, except when it comes…
Sweating Brain Injury Heat
The heat dome rose up out of the US and expanded itself north to smother Toronto in record-breaking heat for July 21st, only 0.1 degrees Celsius off the all-time record for the entire month of July. On the news, reporters warned us to drink lots, to watch for signs of heat stress, and to watch…