My London hotel, La Suite West, was a little hard to find. Both cabs I took to it, one from Heathrow, another from a dinner out, motored past it. The hotel needs a big sign out front! I’d checked La Suite West’s website many times, had emailed them about my reservation and asked sundry…
Category: Health
Writings on health and nutrition, the health care system, doctors and therapists, heck, anything to do with health.
My First Real Vacation Post Brain Injury
As I mentioned earlier this month, I needed a break. I actually needed a vacation, a complete getting away from my life and from Canada, as you may have gathered from my post on my flight to England. Before my injury, I used to travel to England regularly to visit my relatives. But after one of…
The *Cursed* Flight: On my First Real Vacation Post Brain Injury Too!
On March 13, I entered Toronto’s Pearson Airport on the busiest day of the year, the first day of March Break. The next day, I left the country. I texted my mother: “1:22am: officially up in the air, seats go back, people already snoozing except guy in front to left reading a series of papers…
An Amazing Meeting About Reading
I met with a psychologist at the University of Toronto to talk brain, to get a different, “not-an-expert” perspective on my reading, which as regular readers of my blog would know I’ve come to think of as the best perspective. It was fascinating. I hugely enjoyed our conversation. And I don’t know about that…
Reading to Not Get a Headache After Two Paragraphs
My neurodoc is used to thinking about something quickly and telling a person to do x, y, z five seconds after you’ve given him feedback, whether you’re research staff or a patient. I’m not used to taking orders sans explanation. But sometimes I’m just too tired to care. Of course, that only lasts for so…
Slower and Reading Out Loud Leads to Less of a Headache
I managed one moment of working on my reading last week with all the emotional upheaval I was in. Emotional upheaval really stalls one’s recovery. I also went over the advice I received from non-experts and forwarded it on to my neurodoc then discussed it all with him. His first comment: do you think you’re…
What’s it Like to Recover from a Brain Injury?
What’s it like to recover from a brain injury? Well, it leads to odd moments like this: Therapist: Give yourself credit. Me: For what? Therapist: For booking the tickets. Me: *blink* Thinks: I know how to book tickets. I’ve booked tickets since I was so young, I can’t recall when. *scowls* Therapist: You booked the…
PTSD Freezes Reading Homework Out
Relearning how to read comes in fits and starts when you have PTSD in addition to brain injury. Reading is probably more vulnerable to being sidetracked than other aspects of recovery because it is so difficult cognitively and, for me, fraught with issues of loss and identity and being part of mainstream society. One of…
Non-Experts and Healing Damaged Reading After Brain Injury
I’ve recently had a few people tell me they’re not experts, as if that’s a bad thing. I bring this up because in the old days, pre-brain injury, I held experts in high esteem. I respected their education and experience and saw them as authority figures. Well, okay, I had no problem challenging them in…