Brain injury throws the question of “Who am I?” into chaos. According to Madeleine L’Engle in her memoir A Circle of Quiet, the self is becoming. Not static but ever changing. Brain injury both reverses and accelerates this process and asks of us a question of being.
Tag: Video
Eighteen Years, Eleven Months, Three Weeks
flic.kr/p/2bcpboE When I first met a person who’d lived with brain injury for twenty years, it seemed so far into the future for me. I could barely comprehend living with brain injury that long. I expected to be fully recovered by that point, myself. Roll eyes here. I was working hard on improving my health,…
Everyone on the Same Reading Rehab Page: Finally!
This floating piece of metal is huge. It dwarfs the Redpath sugar plant, which is no tiny building but itself an edifice on the waterfront where people gather to work and play, enjoy life. As it is with that ship, so it is with reading. Reading is a huge cognitive process, a monolithic problem that’s…
Endless Saturday, the Day Between Good Friday and Easter Sunday
It’s Endless Saturday. I used to call it Waiting Saturday. Like that day when Jesus’s disciples, particularly the women, waited for the Sabbath to be over so that they could visit his grave; like that day, the day after tragedy struck, and no one knew what to do other than wait, my life was one…
What’s Flying Across “the Pond” like?
What’s flying across “the pond” like against the prevailing winds? Well, sit back in your narrowest chair, stretch your feet out till your knees are half bent, and let me tell you. Or watch! To begin, I used an e-Boarding Pass on my iPhone; and took one small suitcase whose zip is Herculean in strength,…
Pills are Not the Only Modality of Treating the Brain
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the medical system treats the “mental illness” aspect of brain injury, that is, moods, thinking styles, that sort of thing. I’ve never been put on drugs for depression or concentration problems, but I know others who have, and my neurodoc has talked to me several times about…
#LoveYourBrain, The Crash Reel Campaign
A few weeks ago, BrainLine tweeted: “Join the #LoveYourBrain campaign.” I asked them what that was about, and @TheCrashReel replied that it’s a campaign to educate others about brain injury, concussion, and safety. There are a few of these kinds of awareness campaigns going on in Canada, the US, and other countries, but I was…
Chalk Words for Jack Layton: Too Soon
Brain Injury Awareness Mashup Video
I went to the BIST Brain Injury Awareness Celebration at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto last Thursday, 17 June 2010, and it was a ton of fun, full of photographic opportunities, amazing artists to meet, clowns to laugh at and be interviewed by, a mesmerising aerial artist, and speakers who moved us. I felt inspired…