Thursday, March 11, 2010

Blessed to only have it this bad.

This is the neck brace I had when I broke my neck and sustained a brain injury in 1981. The drastic personality change I went through was the reason we got divorced, that and the meddling of lots of people.

9:00 - This is an exceptionally rough morning. Having a major slowdown/petite seizure. Still pushing through best I can. Put for sale sign on the truck and parked it by the road. Look at other things I need to do and just get confused. Will pick a task and do it. There are plants we bought to plant. Some of them dried up so I watered them. It’s windy and cold this morning. The winds blew lots of sand into the protective barriers we built. Hope it won’t hurt the trees. Nothing is easy out here.


1:20 - I’m still slow. Haven’t had it this bad in a long time. Called Cherie to check on something and she could hear it in my voice. Wish I could wave a wand and make it go away. But it doesn’t work like that. So I’ll pray and see. It’s so frustrating. Even thinking of what to write is hard. It’s as if I am drunk but even drunks can think fast. Alan called and asked if I would like him to come out and help. Told him no. Don’t like people seeing me like this. Besides if I have a hard time deciding what to do how can I decide what I need him to do. He’d probably help me figure it out. This sucks. But to look on a bright side, there was a time that everyday was like this, all day long, only way worse. So I am blessed to only have it this bad occasionally.

Suppose this is the way to celebrate Brain Injury Month, Whoopee!!! YeeHaa!!! Am I having fun yet?
Carman kitty just jumped into my lap. Rascal and Trixie are staying close. Gracie cat is on the head of the chair. Animals can tell when things are wrong. I know a professor in Toledo, a fellow TBI survivor, who has a dog trained to detect his seizures.

2 comments:

Connie Pinkham said...

You need to know that God is using you in ways you will never know and understand. My business associate had a ruptured brain aneurysm 3 years ago. I can not tell you the many ways this has been difficult...

But I imagine you know..

Thank you for giving me another perspective, God has used you to help me understand a little better.

Bob Westbrook said...

Connie, thank you. It encourages me. I spend a lot of time trying to raise awareness of brain injury. Lots of people say "Oh we understand" but their actions say otherwise. Only when you have a close associate who endures one can you really start to grasp it. They call it the "hidden illness" because we look just fine on the outside. Connie, I have lots of resources available to help caretakers. One is a link on the right to LA Publishing. Lots of stuff there.
By the way, Your facebook site, Reflections and Changes blesses me.