Increasing mental work while not decreasing physical exercise commensurately was a really bad idea after brain injury. This lesson no one taught me. NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month—is a month of writing every single day in November to create a 50,000-word novel. This writing community and event includes anyone, no matter your ability; it releases your…
Category: Personal
‘I’m So Over It!’: Brain Injury Provides Insight Into COVID Fatigue
We feel stuck in COVID fatigue. That’s what they’re calling the feeling of being in the middle of a marathon with no end. That’s how brain injury feels, too. But with a difference. I’m stuck. We’re stuck. In COVID fatigue. The feeling of weariness, of being in the middle of a marathon that was supposed…
Fatigue: Does It Ever Go Away?
Does increasing functionality after brain injury mean no more fatigue? Fatigue is such an inadequate word to describe the unutterable weariness that comes on to a person with fibromyalgia or brain injury just because one got up in the morning. When someone who has a chronic illness or injury, particularly brain injury, fibromyalgia, or chronic…
What Makes Reading Enjoyable?
I believed in reading strategies because I believed in my therapist—until I finally had to admit they were an illusion. I sat opposite my therapist, focusing effortfully on her lesson. She was teaching me how to read post-concussion using strategies: highlighters to highlight words I needed to remember; pens to write notes in the margins…
Cognitive Empathy For Reading Loss After Brain Injury
Cognitive empathy lets you imagine a client’s experience, puts yourself in their shoes, and act accordingly. How you can use it to help restore reading post concussion. Dr. Brian Goldman, a Toronto ER doctor and host of White Coat Black Art on CBC Radio, was on CBC Radio’s Ontario Today at noon, Friday, May 4,…
Reading Loss: The Genesis of Grief, The Seed of PTSD
You don’t know the grief of brain injury until you hear a gentle, compassionate voice drop the devastating news that you can’t read while you’re holding your usual paperback. You never know how brain injury will play out over time. What you think at first is mild becomes worse and worse. Biochemical changes wreak hidden…
Ontario Election in Twitter Threads
Unreal. @globalnewsto day before election, wastes air time on poll results. Hey, Ontarians we know the election results already, no need to inform you on the issues. 🙄🤬 Have to use Twitter to get informed. #onpoli #ONelxn #OHIP To counter my complaint, @globalnewsto ran a decent piece on what disability advocates are looking for from…
What’s In A Name? Me!
#BrainInjury obliterated the old me. I felt like my name wasn’t my name. I eventually felt like my name was my first and last only. But when I designed my self-help book’s cover in April, I found myself using my full name on it. And that felt right. Today, here too on my profile. Originally…
Do We Consider Relationships When We Vote?
“I thought and remembered a great deal about my relationships while I was in heaven, but not at all about my work or other earthly issues.” 7 Lessons from Heaven. Mary Neal, MD Voting is an earthly issue; politics and democracy consume our thoughts and conversations these days. What if we reframed our politics in…