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…
Tag: Personal
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…
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…
Early Days in the Reading Homework Trenches
Another reading observation stint. This time an easier article, my neurodoc assured me. The Wall Street Journal piece he handed me was on Rosetta, the European Space Agency’s mission probe to a comet, and her findings. (Aren’t ships, even space ships all female? They do have to be smart and strong, able to ride the…
Gamma Brainwave Biofeedback and the Healing of Emotions in PTSD and Brain Injury
Brain injury can lead to emotions turning off, short circuiting, the frontal lobes not mediating the reptilian brain. PTSD can lead to emotions being blocked. Having the two makes mood and feeling emotions like being on a rudderless ship in an unpredictable gale. So where does gamma brainwave biofeedback fit in? If brain biofeedback or…