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By Friday last week, I was exhausted. I don't just mean physically tired. My brain was tired - or more accurately, it was just plain done . According to an article in  www.brainline.org  , neurofatigue is  fatigue  is caused by a decrease in physiological reserve, which includes a person's physical and mental reserves. When your brain is “tapped out,” you feel  tired . ... But generally, people with  TBI  have described  fatigue  as a sense of mental or physical  tiredness ,  exhaustion , lack of energy, and/or low vitality. This describes my experience last week perfectly - think of it as extreme burnout. This is a very real symptom, one that frustrates me to no end because it is one that I still struggle with, even six years later. I am challenged with it in two ways: first, slowing down isn't really something I do naturally - I have to be intentional about it; and second, I am generally pretty determined, so I have to be carefu...

This year is different. My celebration on this important day is not going to be about me. It isn't even going to be about Emily, my children, or my parents. Instead, this day is going to be about my cousin as she begins her new life as a married person. When Rachel sent her "save the date," I was excited to see that her wedding day was the same date as the 6th anniversary of my accident. That probably seems weird, but I am so grateful to have something equally as wonderful to celebrate. To me, both signify life - my cousin is beginning her new life as a married person, and I am celebrating the anniversary of the day that I didn't die. Wow! how lucky we both are. I will still celebrate with Emily, as we cannot have a year go by and not celebrate the thing that will always make us a part of each other's lives - a part of each other's families. It is important to both of us to mark this event in a positive way. Life has continued to go on. My focus remains ...

I recently attended HobbleJog’s first annual Taste of Italy event to raise funds to provide resources for survivors of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and other neurological traumas. I was there in several different capacities: Board Member, Events Committee Member, and survivor. It was a lovely event, and I am glad that I was a part of it.  Survivor is an interesting term. It invokes strength, determination, and perseverance. When you think about it in those terms only, though, it seems like a solitary process - a fighting against all odds and doing it on your own kinda thing. That couldn’t be further from the truth. What we tend to forget is that none of us can survive anything, let alone thrive, without a team behind us.   And really, we’re all surviving something, aren’t we? It might be illness, injury, the day, or even the minute.  Despite my enormous drive to get better and to go back to my "normal" life, I know that I wouldn't have without ama...

My immensely talented cousin, Rachel Rickert, has recently been in Boise, Idaho, completing an artist residency. When I took a look at her site the other day, this painting jumped out at me as being really powerful. It is called "Expulsion from Paradise." Immediately, I related to it. How many times do I stand in the shower, not really wanting to get out? Getting out means facing whatever the day will bring, and honestly, facing the day isn't always what I want to do. Sometimes, I'd rather just stay in the shower and hide. After my accident, once I got home, I remember that feeling - the trepidation of facing my day, of not wanting to get out of the shower. Mostly, I felt this way because I had absolutely no certainty of what my day would hold. There were still so many things I couldn't do. Would today be a good day where I got stronger, or would today just be overwhelming and exhausting? Now, instead of trying to figure out how to recover, leaving the s...

As most of you know, I’m a fairly positive person. When bad things happen, I don’t typically assign them more weight than what they are or think they are a sign of things to come. Instead, I pretty much believe that everything is going to work out eventually, and I’ll grow and learn along the way. Things that are difficult to achieve are generally worth it, so I don’t fear a challenge.   There are people in my life that see me, and my outlook, as an anchor for themselves. I continue to be steady, no matter how big the crisis. My calm allows others to stop and think before they react to the situation at hand. Certainly this isn’t always the case, but I do handle crises and catastrophes quite well.   It comes as a shock to the system, then, that this anchor sometimes has a weak spot or two. Despite my positivity, I have a propensity for depression. Those I hold steady can feel a bit adrift when I am not responding with assurance and calm - or worse, when I respond w...

Yesterday I had my CT Scan and five year check-up with my neurointerventional radiologist. Good news - all is completely stable and exactly the same as it was two years ago at my previous check-up. Next appointment in another two years. As I was riding to the appointment yesterday (my mom drove in this yucky weather), I was thinking about my guardian angels. Let me back up, I think I've mentioned this before in a previous blog, but when I was in Shock Trauma, the soon-to-be-MIL of the woman in the room next to mine, came in to see me one day. She gave me a guardian angel coin. I keep that coin in my car (seems obvious). I bought more to - I like to give guardian angel coins to the people who have been a guardian angel to me, or that may need a guardian angel. It's just a little symbol that says how much I appreciate them for their kindness, or that I'm here if they need me; sometimes both. So, back to yesterday - I'm thinking about my guardian angels and how fortu...

My daughter recently bought a wheelchair for her American Girl dolls. As soon as we got home, she ran upstairs and immediately started playing with it. About 30 minutes later, she called me up to her room to see what she'd been doing. Alli was so excited - not just because she wrapped the doll's leg with a "cast," but because she also put her doll into a Hobble Jog shirt that she took off her Hobble Jog Bear. She said "look Mommy, my doll is going to have to Hobble Jog for a bit until she gets back on her feet. It's going to take a lot of work, but she's going to be fine." The  Hobble Jog Foundation  is close to my heart. I am a member of the board and both of my kids have met Susan Hahn, the founder - each spending time listening to her talk about what it means. It gave me such a sense of pride seeing the connection that Alli made between her doll, struggling, and Hobble Jog. The Hobble Jog Foundation supports teens and young adults recoveri...