“Improvement is not meant to be relentless.” Yes it is. “It’s OK to have a setback.” Wise and common sense words from my GP (family doc), but oh do I ever wish improvement was relentless, a never-ending path upwards to perfect health. January is a tough month, not only emotion wise with its reminder of…
Category: Health
Writings on health and nutrition, the health care system, doctors and therapists, heck, anything to do with health.
Problems in Perceiving Leads to Death and Destruction on our Streets
Perception. “1 a the faculty of perceiving.” Canadian Oxford Dictionary Perceive “1 apprehend, esp. through the sight; observe. 2 apprehend with the mind; understand. 3 regard mentally in a specified manner.” Canadian Oxford Dictionary Perception has been in the news this week, although many mayn’t have seen it that way. In Arizona, a man shot…
A Friend’s “Accident” Brings it All Back
I got the news yesterday, oh boy. My friend got banged up in her car. Stopped at a red light. Teen boy, a typical teen boy I bet, the kind who knows everything and is immortal, texting and driving. Right into her. Shoved her car into the one in front. Car totalled. Her neck and…
The Hypothalamus and Brain Injury
The first part of this series is how I came to look at the hypothalamus. This post is more about general principles of how the hypothalamus works for those of us who aren’t physiologists, rather than a scientific treatise. However, I’ve included links for those who want to know the mind-bending details. I’d also like…
Reading: The Eyes and Brains of It
Reading. Once you learn how to do it, the only thing you need worry about is what to read and when to find the time. Until a traumatic brain injury f* it up. As I have discovered over the past few years, reading is a complicated process, mediated by several parts of the brain. It…
The Limiting Myth of Brain Injury Recovery
In the early days of my closed head injury (traumatic or acquired brain injury), I heard many times the mantra that you only heal or heal the most in the first two years — whatever healing happens in those years is it for the rest of your life. In the June 2010 issue of the…
Tax Relief in Canada for Those With Disabilities
You’re an adult, you’re tripping along, living life, working hard, and then the universe sends you splat, and suddenly you’re seeing doctors, suffering, in pain, not working, and watching your bank account slide into the red. While you may be receiving good help for what ails you, you’re probably not getting good help for what…
The Continuing Medical Insanity of Brain Injury
You know, it’s a good thing I grew up in a medical family, learnt how to do research and search through libraries from a young age on, studied hormones from age 11 until, I think, 22 (through sex ed, biology, sciences), and took a one-year physiology course at the University of Toronto, else I may…
Cross Country Shames Canada, Reveals Discriminating Attitudes Remain
When I was studying psychology, back in the last century, in the less-enlightened-than-now era, we talked about not labelling patients and not calling patients patients but clients. The idea was that because of assumptions over the ages, we didn’t want to further marginalize people through diagnostic labels, didn’t want to give people a reason to…