I had to double-check, but last week was actually a pretty good week, despite it having started off with a total of two, maybe three, hours of sleep on Sunday night because of a sick kid. We were awoken by a loud heaving noise from his bedroom and by the time my wife had gotten there, he had just barely woken up but was lying in a pool of vomit. The part of my brain that still remembers first aid says thank goodness he had been sleeping on his side, in the recovery position. I still made it to work in the morning and had a productive morning, but spent the afternoon at home sleeping while our son napped for 3 hours on the couch.
Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday were all days where I can say that I was able to accomplish so much at work and at home in spite of my usual blunders and misgivings. I solved problems, I helped others with their tasks. I was able to brainstorm and come up with smart sounding ideas. I said no because I knew certain tasks would overwhelm me.
Wednesday saw my currently regular sick day turned into a family day as many schools were closed so I spent a wonderful day with our eldest. His first LRTLRT: light rail transit ride excitement renewed my energy levels for the rest of the week. Oh, and another long nap helped as well! Good thing my wife texted me at 4pm to see how the day went, else I might have slept right through until Thursday!
And then on Saturday morning with our youngest in tow, I picked up our eldest from a birthday party at an indoor playground. If you don't know what that's like, imagine 1000 kids under the age of 10 running around, screaming, climbing, sliding, jumping around, and crying all in the same room as their parents try to keep their own personal sanity with a little Candy Crush in their right hand and wishing that they had a stiff drink in their left hand. Ok maybe 1000 kids is a bit of an exaggeration, but as someone with a TBITBI: traumatic brain injury those 100 kids sure seemed to me 10 times as rambunctious as they probably really were.
Saturday afternoon soon followed with our nephew's birthday party, which involved six kids 10 years of age and younger and twice that number of adults. Previous experience would have predicted that I would have left the kids to play and then I would have found a nice quiet corner to retreat to intermittently over the course of a few hours so that I could allow my introvert and TBI suffering mind to recharge before herding the kids home for bedtime routine. But not so! Some stranger showed up in my place and socialized for the full 3 hours, also managing staying on top of the cleanup while our youngest excitedly wolfed down half his food and dropped the other half on the floor. Probably doesn't seem like a big deal to the casual observer, but for someone 5+ years into TBI recovery, that's a ton of socializing and awareness for a few moments, let alone for 3 hours.
So what's changed over the past few weeks? Not really sure if there's a link, but I finished up treatment with Dr Joseph Lawrence and am following it up with treatment from Dr Dave Zanet. Dr Lawrence had helped me immensely over the past 3 years but we both had recognized that I had reached a plateau. One of my colleagues had just started treatment with Dr Zanet for migraines and he had mentioned to her that he also treated concussion sufferers. I'll write more about Dr Lawrence and Dr Zanet later.
I'll be the first to admit that feeling good physically doesn't necessarily correlate with good cognitive functioning. I certainly had lots of wins this week brain-wise but there were still many instances of poor focus, bad memory and mental overload. I'm not going to delude myself and expect a full return of old me. But my good week has renewed my optimism for the continued improvement of new me, perhaps with some of the best parts of old me making more than just a cameo appearance.
[Update 2019/12/10]: As with all injuries, there will be ups and downs. After my highs of last week, today was decidedly a down day by the end of the workday. I had some great social time and some mixed results at work, but by the time the kids were home, my brain was shutting down and I was physically exhausted. Tomorrow is a rest day, so hopefully I'll be fully recharged and ready to start another awesome week!
[Photo by Brett Jordan ]
