I went to see a movie. In a theatre. With other people. I know, I know, what’s so momentous about that? People do it every day. Not me. I haven’t done it in years and years. Because my brain injury makes it a tad difficult. There’s the issue of being able to sit through the…
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.
HRV Training Post Brain Injury Achieves an 89
Holidays — getting away from my life and the people in it who attack, diss, require me to be normal, live in denial to my detriment, and drain me — are good for my heart rate. First, after I flew to England and now, after I chugged to Ottawa. For the first time on its…
Full Circle yet not the Same Reading Rehab
Sometimes it seems like nothing ever changes with my reading; when my neurodoc talks about my great progress, I go feh. You’re too hard on yourself, he says. Maybe. But when I began my reading rehab journey way back in 2000 (and failed or faltered several times on the way since), I began with taking…
Working Decision Making into Reading Rehab
I told my neurodoc I felt like my reading rehab had stagnated. Yeah, I still get headaches after reading a couple of long paragraphs out loud, using my finger to guide me. But if I take the time and remember to take three deep breaths between paragraphs, I can reduce or slow down the onset.…
Trying Out Apple’s iOS Alex for Reading Rehab
Apple has incorporated speaking into its iOS options for text. Enable Speech under General/Accessibility Settings on your iPhone or iPad, and then when you pull down with two fingers or select text and choose “Speak” from the pop-out menu, your voice of choice will speak the text on the page you’re viewing to you. You…
The Top Need for Reading Rehab after Brain Injury: A Coach
From my reading rehab so far, I’ve learnt the number one need is a reading coach. Let me explain. Brain injury sounds so simple. Like with a broken leg, you get the diagnosis, you know what it’s all about, right? Um, no. Unlike with a broken leg, it takes years to learn the totality of…
Everyone on the Same Reading Rehab Page: Finally!
This floating piece of metal is huge. It dwarfs the Redpath sugar plant, which is no tiny building but itself an edifice on the waterfront where people gather to work and play, enjoy life. As it is with that ship, so it is with reading. Reading is a huge cognitive process, a monolithic problem that’s…
A Crisis, A Call, A Camera
My health care team is not really a team: it’s three parts linked through me, the one with the injured brain, the healing brain, the brain that has suddenly sent them into crisis mode while freaking me out. I have tried for years to get the disparate parts of my team to talk together. I’ve…
Vampire Clinic Time
I’m not in the mood for writing. I finally trundled over to the vampire clinic, starving from over 14 hours of fasting (I kind of miscalculated the time To stop eating). This was a triumph. It took only six *cough* months and a few reminders from my neurodoc to get meself to the blood lab…