I mentioned earlier that I had a Holter monitor test because I had drop-kicked atenolol out of my life. Well, today I got the results. I have had five Holters done total in the last twenty years and have been given copies of three of them, two of them from the cardiologist at a leading…
Tag: CHI
Music: What Does the “New” Me Like?
I have spent the best part of two days sorting out the chaotic mess of my music collection. A “new” refurbished laptop sparked this heroic endeavour. The reason it wasn’t that well organized: most of it I ripped before Y2K, when computers were slow and file names had relatively recently broken the 8-character limitation. Although…
Eleven Years Ago, Four Drivers
It’s that time of year again, except today’s anniversary has a special twist: it’s the exact same day as the day two drivers hit the car I was a passenger in and shoved us into the car of a third driver. It’s the exact same day I sustained a closed head injury. It’s like reliving…
The Hidden Secret of Brain Injury: Hypothalamus Dysfunction
“I’m going to get off the atenolol,” I told my GP, who promptly laughed at me. Well, I might, just might, have the last laugh. I was put on atenolol (a beta blocker) 7 years after I suffered from a closed head injury and began 7 years of 120+ heart rate, of yo-yoing blood pressure,…
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…
Best Two iPad Apps For Organization
As I wrote previously, I bought the Apple iPad for two reasons: to compensate for brain injury-related issues and for my work as a writer. Today’s post is about the former. A huge problem people with brain injuries face is, IMHO, the inability to organize, initiate, and to get things done from start to finish.…
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…
e-Rehab: Organizing Good Lives for Those with Brain Injury
E-Rehab. I’d never heard of it before this week, yet it makes so much sense. At last, I thought, two people in the health care community are acting on the fact that those with brain injuries need lifelong support around things like scheduling and organizing, long after they’ve left rehab and active treatment. Although I…
Attention, Attention, We’re Talking Attention and Traumatic Brain Injury
OK folks, pay attention, it’s attention lesson time. I know, I know you go through life not having to worry about such a thing, unless you have ADD or a screaming baby. But when life smacks you across the head, ringing your brain, it becomes über important to you and those around you because it’s…