VESID, Kahrmann Workshops, and Hope Last Thursday I was supposed to have a meeting with the job developer re: my resume. She called that morning several hours before the meeting was to take place having to cancel. These things happen. We re-scheduled for this past Monday. My husband has a co-worker (also an acquaintance of mine who I have known for a number of years) who helps people who have been out of the workforce for awhile with their resumes. Having seen my resume, he offered his help to me. I accepted. That visit was also slated for this past Monday.

First the job developer's meeting with me. She called for me at 1:23 rather than 1:15, citing a telephone call and forgetting that we had an appointment. [But I'm the Unforgettable One, how could she???]. These things happen. She hadn't rearranged my resume [I had sent her a better one, using a book that husband's co-worker had lent me and one other specifically written to help folks like me who have been out of work for awhile]. Last Thursday she found out that the R.C.I.L. fiscal year ends on June 30 and "all these reports" had to be filed by then. These things happen. Unfortunately, her not being able to re-format my resume deemed this particular meeting a waste of my time. She could have sent me the job leads she had given me. But no matter. I told her that I was also having an appointment later that day with husband's co-worker.
Job developer asked me if I want to meet after July 4th as in next week. I looked at her. I told her, "No." I told her she could send me the job postings via e-mail. (Last week, I set up a box specifically for her and VESID. Sigh. 70+ e-mail addys aren't enough I guess.). I told her I was used to doing my own job searches. Job searching is not where I need help. I told her that VESID was supposed to have followed up with my previous employer Running Sores several years ago but never did. I had called myself twice but did not get anywhere. She agreed to advocate for me. Cool.

I went to my semi (unofficial) appointment with husband's co-worker who is also my long-time acquaintance. He looked at the revised resume and said it scans well, that he wouldn't change a thing. Cool. I lent him my book on resumes. We got into the circumstances behind my leaving the last job-- the car accident during lunch hour, the other driver who was high on marijuana allegedly, the immediate effects of my traumatic brain injury (which included a total inability to do paperwork that someone from personnel kept calling me up about during the period of time when I was sleeping 22 hours a day albeit she didn't know how seriously hurt I was and neither did I), the necessity of hiring a lawyer to protect my rights since the "no-fault" automobile insurance company and the workers comp insurance company both thought the other should pay my medical bills, things I think I may be able to do at my old company on a part-time basis with the assistance of a job coach... Acquaintance suggested several areas of job searching that I had not thought about.

Acquaintance also suggested that the VESID supervisor (who used to be my co-worker years ago) call Running Sores rather than the job developer. Acquaintance said it would be harder to brush off the VESID supervisor, especially under the adverse circumstances of my leaving. I went home and fired off an e-mail. Quite frankly, I do not believe that the VESID supervisor will make any such phone call, not even one to give a heads up that the job developer will be calling. I do not believe he will because: (1). it's not his job, and (2). my unfortunate impression is that the higher up the chain of VESID that one goes, the less actual work gets done. I may be wrong about the second, even if not about the first. It would be nice to believe that I am wrong about the second. It doesn't hurt to ask, even if it results in getting me labeled as "having poor boundaries" or "balls of steel" or whatever the current psychobabble is for directness and bluntness.

At first I thought that polishing my resume was an exercise in futility. Much to my surprise, it wasn't. I've got more than fifty publication credits-- and some of those more than once-- plus an appearance in three anthologies. And a ton of a variety of experience in human services. Surely I should be able to find a part-time job-- maybe 10 hours a week to start-- that I can do even with my current difficulties related to brain damage. My visual processing is messed up, double vision in one eye is no fun, I can't multi-task anymore except for driving, my mild expressive aphasia continues to annoy me even though I have learned to work around it really well, 24-hour vertigo sucks balls, and my back is a wreck. I've got some skills still intact along with the stuff that has been wiped. I've got the computer art that I do, internet skills, research skills, computer troubleshooting skills, and a deep desire to physically take computers apart and rebuild them. I've still got my total attention to detail. Oh, and my memory tested out at the 99th percentile, much to my total and utter amazement.

I have renewed my attendance at Peter Kahrmann's Life Growth/traumatic brain injury support group workshops on Saturdays. The first hour is devoted to working around obstacles that prevent us from being who we wish to be. The second is devoted to talking about brain function and how the damage shows up in our lives. I am now also going to the advocacy instructional workshop before the Life Growth ones. Although I am not counting on any ability to do advocacy work, that workshop has been a refresher in some of the regs I used to know like the back of my hand. And my being there with Peter and other folks gives me hope for my future. It may not be what I was aiming for perhaps. Still, I believe now that I can dream new dreams.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: Peter Kahrmann, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, VESID, VESID sucks

  ¶ 10:25 PM 0 comments links to this post

  The B1tch is Back Yeah, I've been gone for far too long. I've been seduced by Second Life (Fuel Burner referred you, if you ever do decide to sign up). I've spent a ton of time learning how to build in 3D. Considering that I've got double vision in one eye from the brain injury as well as perception problems, being able to build something that actually holds together is a feat within itself. Oh yeah, and one of my relatives got married.

Attendance at that wedding was mandatory. Just before leaving for the very expensive hotel (almost 200 bucks for one night), I had my hair cut. Gave my first braid to the Locks of Love. In case you haven't heard about Locks of Love, basically it is an organization that collects lengths of hair to turn into wigs for kids who have lost their hair due to medical baldness. I decided to grow out my hair once in memory of Marie-- my friend Philly David's sister. She had cancer and she died. She was a Quaker. At the meeting hall, there was a little boy there she admired because he was growing his hair out for Locks of Love. He was confident enough not to care about the other kids teasing him for it. So I grew my hair out in honor of Marie.

I felt really good about it when I saw the braid of hair in the bag destined for a kid who really needs it. I've decided to do it again.

More info can be found at: http://www.locksoflove.org/


Bout a month or so ago, I had a "meeting" with the VESID counselor (my fourth in four years) and the job developer. They decided that I want to be an advocate. Getting into any sort of investigative work does not fit in with their limited ability to see beyond my brain injury. During the meeting, I was asked if I would consider full-time advocacy work if I were to make "twenty-five dollars an hour." I recognized this number as being pulled out of a hat (i.e. not based on reality) immediately. I told both of my professional "helpers" that my health and well-being has to come first. Quite frankly, the fatigue is the real killer for me. Lack of imagination is theirs.

Thanks to the friend who came with me who also has a brain injury, I was able to remain calm. That is to say, I was able to refrain from telling these two to feck off. I am the first to admit that I am somewhat obsessed with the "VESID problem."

I was supposed to send off my resume to the job developer. I haven't. I am currrently suffering from lack of belief that this agency which had put "my case" on hold for a year without informing me of that fact (?cuz I refused to get a "return to work" order from my doctor after a routine vertigo attack?) is able to help me. I waited a year for them. They can wait for me. The truth is less glamorous. It took me awhile to remember that my resume is in the computer files.

The job handler to her credit did call me once, leaving a message. Usually she calls from a blocked number and refuses to leave a message, but she counts it as an attempted contact anyways. When I called her back, she asked if I "still want to do advocacy work." Well, no actually, I thought, that is what yous want me to settle for. No matter, I couldn't talk right then anyways. She asked if I want to meet with her. I said, after I send out the resume I will call you. That is how I left it.

Now that I know where the resume is, I can quit tearing the house apart looking for it. I can print the resume out and send it off. I understand there is something there about allowing the professional helpers to help me. I have not been very co-operative. I acknowledge this fully and completely. Yet I also understand that I have to find my own way. As I am able to let go of the problems I've had with VESID, perhaps hope will then be able to return. Yeah, I do feel hopeless.

I feel hopeless because I want to write and I want to write badly. I've had lots of stuff published. Yet there is no current book in my brain. Just a chapter and a vague idea about where to go with it. And a real sense of loss. As in, "I was finally 'making it' career-wise and everything blew apart in a matter of seconds."

So I will send the job developer a resume. I will even meet with her and make nice. I will even listen to the things she suggests, even if they are not things I can do. The last suggestion involved being a home health aide at the agency that is run out of her agency. The biggest problem with that is my back. I can't lift more than ten pounds, period. One of my friends got pushed into doing that, along with being a nursing assistant substitute on call-- and her back is worse than mine. And quite frankly, there are other problems with that line of work. Like I can't do housework for more than ten minutes at a time. I've forgotten how to cook. And I am beyond disorganization. There is that inability to multi-task too that I've been stuck with. The neuropsych told me that my "ability to multi-task has shit the bed and it's not coming back." The shrink explained that I am highly distractible. Uh wow.

The thing is, I am not an advocate. I am an investigator. I've got total attention to detail (in spite of my disorganization and inability to multi-task). I know how to investigate. It's in my blood. I know how to ask questions. And I know how to write up my findings. I know this about myself. If the job market will not bear with an investigator who functions a bit oddly socially and can only work part-time, then I have to come up with some other way to use my investigative skills.

sapphoq healing tbi

Labels: t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, VESID, VESID sucks

  ¶ 5:06 PM 0 comments links to this post

  MEET THE NEW YEAR 1/2/09 same as the old year? I hope not.
This is the year that I will get unstuck.

2008 already seems far away, a distant memory. Like a receding shoreline pounded by the waves or a receding hairline.

2008 was the year that the brilliant VESID personnel demanded a return-to-work order after a routine vertigo "attack." Again, I ask, WHAT WORK? Since I don't wish to beat that particular dead horse anymore, I shall leave that one dangling.


2008 was also the year that my dad moved three times. He moved from his home with his almost ex-wife #3 to a pullman apartment to our home in the middle of nowhere and then back to his home with his almost ex-wife #3.

I learned a lot of things when my dad was living here for a couple months. Some of those
things I didn't wish to learn and some I did.

My dad succeeded where no one else had since my accident-- I learned how to maintain a
simple house-cleaning schedule. Now I wish I could have had him visit after my accident.
Earlier after my accident rather. At any rate, the house is slowly rising from the plague of
the dust bunnies.

The other things I learned are more of a private nature and thus I will not record them here.


2008 was the year that I discovered Second Life (tm to Linden Labs). Second Life is total eye candy to someone like me who loves visual effects and animations. Over there I've been learning a bit of simple scripting and some 3D building. That is the part that makes Second Life different from blogging.


My goals for 2009:
to remain abstinent as defined in the program of Narcotics Anonymous.
to complete my book and submit it.
to remain married and faithful.
to increase our financial stability as a couple and mine as me.
to continue to monitor my health proactively.
to blog on any of the blogger blogs twice a week and on the journal blogs once a week.
to address the things that I allow to keep me stuck.

I hope for everyone a well new year. And if not a well one, then at least a weller one.

sapphoq healing tbi

Labels: goals, Peter Kahrmann, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, vertigo, VESID, VESID sucks

  ¶ 11:07 AM 0 comments links to this post

  Falling 12/25/08 Some weeks ago I fell twice in one week.
My feet went out from under me one Saturday afternoon while walking and I fell flat on my back.
That was painful.

That Tuesday evening I took a hot shower in hopes of relieving the soreness in my back from falling a few days before.
I started feeling a bit odd and I noticed my field of vision getting spotty.
I managed to turn off the shower water and got out of the tub using the safety bar.
I went to grab the towel from the towel rack and at that point passed out.
When I came to, my elbow was shielding my head from the floor; I was on my right side; and my arms and legs-- particularly the left leg-- were shaking.

I managed to drag myself to the toilet bowl where I sat until I was able to walk.
Mate was in bed and had missed the whole thing.
We do keep a phone immediately outside the bathroom door for emergency purposes but all I could think about was the bright lights in the emergency room and not wanting to subject myself to all of that. So I didn't go.

The next day I was informed by the primary care doc that I have shower syncope. Basically that means I can faint in or around hot showers. Whatever.

A couple weeks later and I am still sore and having some rather painful right-sided back spasms. As long as I don't get up, shift positions, shit, or breathe I am okay. Back to the primary care doc's. I am starting physical therapy next week.

Meanwhile I have my tens unit running during awake hours. That helps the misery somewhat.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: a.b.i., falling, physical therapy, shower syncope, syncope, t.b.i., thinking, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 7:46 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Driving, Executive Functions, and Stuff Yeah, I've been gone for awhile.
(http://life.sapphoq.com)

Now I am back.

I've been to Peter Kahrmann's workshop/peer support group in Albany where I found out that the part of my brain that caused my multi-tasking to "shit the bed" as the neuropsych at Sunnyview had so eloquently expressed it is my frontal lobe. Frontal lobe damage is the reason why I cannot carry laundry from the back porch to the bedroom and converse at the same time.

I took Dad to a driving evaluation at Sunnyview today. I learned a few things while there. I learned that many of Dad's vision problems (his visual acuity which is commonly expressed by numbers like 20/20 or 20/30 or 20/40 is acceptable) from his dementia are the same vision problems

that some of us with brain injuries struggle with. For those who like meaningless stats, 80% of folks with t.b.i.s have vision problems and 20% of us have auditory problems. 99% of us have memory problems. I don't have the memory or the auditory problems. I do have the vision problems.

During the driving eval at Sunnyview, the evaluator tested for visual acuity, visual scanning, visual discrimination, color discrimination, peripheral vision, impulsivity, and reaction time.

The difference between traumatic brain injury and dementia is that we can expect some improvement in some areas over time. Dementia does not improve. Dementia progresses and worsens over time. Brain damage is brain damage though, in spite of different prognoses. Consequently, some of the things we learn from places like B.I.A.-U.S.A. like "every brain injury is different" is also expressed in Alzheimers' circles as "every dementia looks different."

spike

Labels: driving, executive function, frontal lobe, Peter Kahrmann, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 7:04 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Two Brain-Damaged People Dad has come to live with us. He has some dementia and some aphasia. So now there are two brain-damaged people in the house-- me, and Dad.

Now I know that the official words for my brain damage is "t.b.i." or "traumatic brain injury." The reality is that traumatic brain injury equals brain damage. My brain damage was acquired after the age of 21 in a motor vehicle accident. It is brain damage nonetheless. One physical therapist from Sunnyview Hospital in Schenectady tried to tell me that "brain damage" sounds like one is "damaged" somehow. Yes, my brain is damaged. Why not just call it what it is?

Dad has some restlessness and is wanting to do housework and fix up the house when he is not sleeping in front of the television set. Last week, we decided to stain/waterproof the back deck. First we had to locate the two buckets of stain and the brushes. That wasn't any problem as my friend Ed had given us those things and they were sitting by the back door. Then we had to wait for a sunny day. That happened.

It was a very sunny day. And hot, considering that we live next door to Alaska. So Dad insisted that we wear long-sleeved shirts. The stain getting on our skin would ?eat it? stain it? At any rate, on went the hot shirts. Then there are the latex gloves-- same reason. We started working out of one bucket but then that went to, "Here's another bucket spike. You use your own."

There was lots of staining, doing and redoing. I redid some of Dad's area and he redid some of mine. Two half-gallons were left when we got done. Between us, the stained deck was definitely personalized. There are some drips and dots from my work. And some heavier stained areas from Dad's work. With two brain-damaged people staining a deck, the results will be interesting. A guarantee.

Yesterday, Dad decided that we should put together a clothes rack with vinyl bag hooked onto it for the clothes he has that he no longer wears. This particular clothes rack/vinyl bag thing was manufactured in mainland China. And I swear whoever wrote the instructions hit the "from mandarin to english" button on babelfish. To complicate things further, Dad dumped all of the numbered poles out of their respective bags. The first attempt came out with two longer sides and two shorter sides. There was a break then during which I hoped in futility that Dad would forget about this particular tortorous clothes rack/vinyl bag thing. Didn't happen.

After some "Divorce Court" on teevee, we went back upstairs for a second go 'round. This time we managed to get the vinyl bag installed but then the poles kept pulling out of their holes. And so this clothes rack/vinyl bag thing stands loosely in a corner looking more like a modern art structure than anything remotely functional.

Because of my difficulties with multi-tasking, perhaps I would have had a shot at putting the thing together if left alone in a cave far away from human civilization. No chance of success yesterday. Dad kept up a running commentary as we were working. And between my t.b.i.-related perception problems and Dad's dementia-related perception problems, shoving poles into holes at flush 90 degree angles was not a task destined for fantastic results. Husband said he will "look at it" today.

I think there is something to be said for joining a nudist colony and forgetting about clothes and things like that.

sapphoq healing tbi

Labels: brain+damage, multitasking, t.b.i., traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 12:53 PM 0 comments links to this post

  The Rigging of Failure 8/23/08
a big shout-out to the unknown damsel

The stoopid saga of VESID sucks carries on. The job handler/job developer/employment consultant whatever has transferred to a different job herself. The VESID-sucks counselor (my third) is apparently absent from work due to personal/medical whatever. Consequently, I have once again attained the status of limbo without the use of drugs.

As damsel has pointed out in a couple of comments over at Blogaholics, VESID-sucks has as a modus operandi the rigging of failure. Specifically and anecdotally only (based on googling various and sundry terms such as "VESID sucks" and "VESID horror stories" and "VESID complaints") one problem is the mindset to shove us into a job any job without much regard to anything. The other problem is the tendency of VESID helpers to declare many of us as being somehow falling short in the intelligence department and the blatant advice to lower our goals. Of course, if picking up pins with a tweezer and putting them in a container is a measure of anything at all-- the stoopid it burns-- then lots of people should automatically settle for a two year community college degree or a secretarial course or a job in retail or at a supermarket packing groceries. Sigh.

Anecdotally only, a good friend of mine was advised by his O.V.R. testers in another state that college would be an "impossible" goal for him to reach as well. Friend is brilliant. Friend went on to achieve 4.0 in college courses. See, the rub is that if any of our employment situations, college enrollment in courses or a pursuit of study, etcetera is not in line with what VESID sucks (or O.V.R. sucks) assumes is "realistic" based on our putting pins into a container using tweezers, they don't have to support it. In other words, I can be denied job coaching if the lousy little part-time job I have demands that I do something that VESID doesn't think I should do or am capable of doing. And folks who wish to obtain bachelor degrees or more can be denied needed funding by VESID or O.V.R. because the rigors of academia are a far stretch from what their stoopid testing shows that those folks should be able to do.

Could it be funding? The organization that is supposed to provide me with job development and job coaching services is getting paid more than three thousand dollars for one year of their non-services. (Just as soon as I provide a doctor's note indicating that a temporary exacerbation of vertigo into a two-week "attack" is now resolved for the time being and I can "return to work" which I don't have, my non-services can resume. Just as soon as someone figures out that I am on their caseload that is.)

VESID stands to benefit financially by talking people down into two years of college or a secretarial course versus bachelor's level studies and more. And VESID benefits financially by setting their counselors' objectives to get the disabled customers working (at anything) as soon as frickin' possible. To hell with our aspirations. To hell with what we want. To hell with MEANINGFUL employment. No love, VESID sucks, no love.

The three thousand bucks VESID has wasted on my non-employment this past year could have been used to send damsel to her very much wanted and sought after bachelor's degree. Ah, damsel wasn't even eligible for financial aid from VESID sucks and they made her take those stupid tests anyways. Those of us who are not totally broke don't get to have our tuitions paid. Books and twelve cents a mile was the last I heard. At the price of gas these days, twelve cents a mile is a bad joke. Considering that the professional VESID helpers are getting around three times that amount for their mileage, it is an insult.

Another two friends recently found themselves as "trainees" or whatever the fancy word is at a local sheltered workshop. Apparently, those of us who are judged severely disabled do get encouraged to spend at least twenty hours a week at one of those places. It's part of the process of getting the disabled into jobs. The two friends were told that this was now their best chance at gaining supportive employment down the road. Other avenues-- community college courses or a job developer calling them up on Fridays and nagging them-- failed to produce a job of any sort for my two friends. Who exactly refers the VESID failures to sheltered workshops? I still have not found the answer to that question. Neither the VESID sucks counselors nor the job developer have admitted to initiating referral. I asked. I searched the website for clues. No clear information was given. But I digress.

It is LEGAL to pay a disabled "trainee" less than the minimum wage at such places. Way less. The assumption is (based on "timed studies" often conducted with staff volunteers) that a disabled worker cannot possibly be fast enough or good enough to make the minimum wage. The disabled worker in a sheltered workshop is subject usually to piecework, pro-rated of course. If the disabled "trainee" is lucky enough to qualify for training off-site (welding or warehouse loading or potato peeling or newspaper insert stuffing or cleaning), the disabled "trainee" still will not receive minimum wage. Under the law, the workshop is not required to pay it. In effect, the "trainee" is furnishing part of the salary of the on-site rehab counselor (separate from the VESID counselor), part of the salary of the workshop supervisor, part of the salary of the off-site trainer, part of the salaries of all of the staff people who come in contact with the trainee. And of course, part of the profit of the sheltered workshop comes from the trainee's pittance because the workshop is able to low-ball other businesses when it comes to bidding.

Meanwhile, the absence of vertigo attacks is the least of my concerns. I continue to have serious problems which concern me far more than the fact that my world drifts to the left 24/7. As usual, anything worth having is worth working for. And I shall have to force my damaged brain to think of other options to reach my goals and other people who can point out some ways to proceed. There is a word for those people who are willing to help yet aren't professional helpers-- natural supports. All of this leads me to tentatively conclude that VESID sucks must therefore be the unnatural supports.

Oh yeah and VESID sucks: fruck you.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

p.s. damsel, if you ever want to get in touch with me, my insanejournal blog (user name sapphoq) allows anonymous comments which are screened. Or, you can e-mail sapphoq. sapphoq has an e-mail account at google.

Labels: employment, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, VESID sucks

  ¶ 10:51 PM 0 comments links to this post

  VESID sucks comment Somehow I missed it. Over at the Blogaholics Anonymous Gr0up Blog, one of my rants against the organization VESID-sucks garnered a comment which can be seen here
If you wish to read the comment by damsel, you will have to scroll down to almost the end of the page.

In case the link does not work, it is at:
http://the-blogaholics-anonymous.blogspot.com/2008/05/
face-to-ass-with-past.html?showComment=1218955740000#c7960326866138253548

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: employment, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, VESID sucks

  ¶ 10:47 PM 0 comments links to this post

  On T.B.I., Trolls, and Threats

The pagan community on the internet is not united by any means. There are various factions and splinter groups. That is an average thing. A bunch of pagans together in one room can certainly fight like liberals and fundamentalists. Or, like frogs and snakes. That is probably average also. No biggie. I've been on the internet long enough to have my own opinions about cyberbullies and even to have acquired my very own cute little chicken trollette. That is no great woop either. I became interested in the study of cyberpsychology as a result of interpersonal conflicts on the web. And as I continued to force my brain to think in my own process of healing t.b.i., I grokked a few things about my own behavior and decisions:

1. I have acted like an ass at times on the interwebs. Oh well.
2. I made my apologies and amends. To the best of my ability, I endeavored to offer no excuses for my poor behavior.
3. I moved on.

I don't begrudge my detractors since I certainly have acted like an ass at times. In one instance, I was playing the part of an undercover reporter and that was the height of stupidity. I was deceptive. I was dishonest. People from various sides of that particular dispute were pissed at me for good reason.

In that particular scenario, I took responsibility for what I had done and endured the fallout. I learned from it. And I have to thank my good friend Jer for helping me think about the situation with clarity. Folks displayed various levels of acceptance as is their right. There are still snarks thrown in my general direction from time to time. To that I say, "Whatever." If I am going to champion freedom of electronic expression, I have to be willing to risk running into some expression that I don't approve of. Oh well. I don't have to engage in mental masturbation today. I know how to use the back button. I can put on my big girl panties and move on.

Unlike a few pathological relatives of my childhood who did their best to infest my being with the soul-sickness of not-good-enough, I do not intend to live out the rest of my life apologizing for my own stupidity of a year or two ago. I don't trouble myself with the notion that I am somehow not good enough for or less than any particular person or group of people. It is rather meaningless to me. I have moved on. I am writing about this today because I am making some connections within my own self about my own self.

* * *

Lest any of you misunderstand, the assumptions about me and the snarks do not fall under the category of cyber-bullying. People can fight, disagree, blow up at each other, call each other names, and all sorts of other stuff without that falling under pretend labels and pretend diagnoses. People do not always understand or approve of my choices. I don't have to explain a damn thing to anyone. I am free to associate with the people that I choose to associate with. I am free to go where I go and to do what I do as long as I don't impinge upon the rights of others. Others are free to do the same. Not everyone wishes me well and I don't give a damn about that anyway. The stuff of conflict is not automatically classified as cyberbullying.

The encyclopedia at P.C. magazine defines a cyberbully as "A person who uses the Internet to harass or intimidate someone else." Someone who calls me a troll or stupid or insane or a toxic fluffbunny or a fucktard is expressing an opinion. Their opinion may or may not have some validity. I am free to engage them in some ritualized name-calling or to respond or not respond in any legal way that I choose to.

The folks at tech target add the word "threatening" to the definition of a cyberbully. Sameer at the Cyberbullying Blog points out that the behavior is repetitive. There is a pattern. It is more than one occurrence. Someone e-mailed three requests to me to close her e-mail box on one of my domains. I have an off-line life. I hadn't checked my e-mail box there in a while so I only got the messages yesterday.

http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=cyberbully&i=40624,00.asp
Definition.

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci1023061,00.html
Definition.

http://www.cyberbullying.ca/examples.html
Examples of cyberbullying.

http://www.cyberbullying.ca/info.html
Suggestions on handling cyberbullying.

http://cyberbullying.us/blog/?cat=13
A blog noting laws being passed in the United States.

http://www.wrcbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8706000
Suggestions for parents.

http://groups.msn.com/stayingsafeonline/cyberbullies.msnw
Acknowledges that cyberbullying happens to adults too. Some simple advice.

http://deathby1000papercuts.com/2007/12/cyber-bully-quiz-are-you-a-cyber-bully-3/
Are you a cyberbully? Quiz.

http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/attent.htm
Attention seekers from Bully-Online.

http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/psycyber.html
Cyberculture-- pretty cool stuff here.

http://cyberethics.cbi.msstate.edu/mason2/
Privacy from a cyber-business perspective.

http://cyberethics.cbi.msstate.edu/
Various links about cyberethics.

http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html
Identities, trolls, etc on usenet groups.

http://www.copyscape.com/
Search for copies of your pages on the web.

http://adequacy.org/
Archives of a site where trolls gathered proudly.

http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html
Writing: an excellent troll how to.

https://groups.google.com/group/alt.troll/msg/bc2e71e19c590d8e?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_umsgid=36a7593e.22750214@ruble.net&lr=&hl=en-us
Usenet trolls.

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mtroll.html
Definition.

http://www.jfo.org.uk/info/new/troll.htm
Classification.

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/posts/list.m?topic_id=12200012985
More extensive classifications of trolls.

http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSN0343424320070705
Griefers. [They are on Second Life also].

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/
Classifications of flame warriors *the pictures are priceless.

http://blog.donnawilliams.net/2008/01/21/cyber-bully/
Poem by Donna Williams.

http://curezone.com/forums/troll.asp
Trolls on the Curezone forums [original aol article not on aol anymore.]

http://rkcsi.indiana.edu/archive/CSI/WP/WP02-03B.html
Study on trolls in a feminist forum.

http://www.emoderators.com/papers/flames.html
Flaming, 1992.

http://www.searchlores.org/trolls.htm
More on usenet trolls, attacking in waves, use of the word "sockpuppets" to mean one person
posting to a board under different names in order to agree with themselves!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/04/bot_herder_profile/
smurfs and bots

http://www.mcgruff.org/Games/cyberbully.php
shrink the cyberbully game

Labels: cyberbullying, flamewars, t.b.i., threats, traumatic+brain+injury, trolls

  ¶ 12:22 AM 0 comments links to this post

  A Shout-Out to Matt Evans of Kalamazoo At the age of eight, Matt Evans was hiking in Colorado and he fell off a cliff. He fractured a skull. His brain injury left him with slowed cognitive processing. On top of that, he had a stroke which left him with some paralysis in an arm, difficulty walking and speaking, and the need for several surgeries on both his right arm and leg. In spite of his difficulties, Matt Evans continued to play golf-- albeit one-handedly-- and it is reported that he indulges in a game of pick-up basketball here and there. He graduated with a 3.5 cum and he hopes to pursue further studies and a career in elementary education.

Matt Evans, I salute you for persevering in spite of your disability and I wish you the best in life.

sapphoq healing traumatic brain injury


http://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2008/06/kalamazoo_central_grad_overcom.html

Labels: achievement, Matt Evans, stroke, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 9:11 PM 0 comments links to this post

  I Am What I Am-- no, not Popeye the Sailor Man This weekend left me hot as hell and thinking about getting a summer shack up in the Aleutian Islands. The dog would love it up there of that I am sure. However, we are where we are and where we happened to be this weekend was humid as all get out. It was the kind of weather that rose off the sidewalks in a deep haze. One time way back when I was working in a nursing home, I had left some old lady's shoes on the radiator. Big mistake. The soles were melting by time someone else rescued them. It wasn't hot enough here to fry an egg perhaps, but it was probably hot enough to melt the rubber soles off of shoes left on some black tarry street. The kids down the block had gotten one of them pint-sized electric cars and they were cruising over their front lawn. I laughed to see their yellow lab slowly lopping after it, reaching out once every so often to bite the tires.

Yesterday I went to a speaker jam. Those that know me well know that I have been in recovery for a very long time-- in fact more than half my life. Yes I still attend meetings of several twelve step groups on a regular basis. I have been accused of all kinds of crimes related to being anti-12 step groups on the internet because I am a sometimes critic of ways and means and probably because I am a Witch/Atheist/currently a Discordian. (If you don't know what Discordianism is, please google it if you care). Or maybe because I am sometimes a jerk. Whatever. In the blogging world as in real life, that is the risk that one takes when expressing oneself: That sooner or later somebody is going to take exception to one's opinions. Oh well. The price of freedom of speech is one that I am willing to pay.

At any rate, I didn't get to the speaker jam at the beginning but that was alright. I am not a morning person, that is fer sure. So I missed the first two speakers out of ten; and the last one. I was there for seven speakers of varying abilities and stories. One thing became immediately clear to me-- from the women speakers as well as from the men speakers-- and that one thing is that a vast majority of those who spoke yesterday have sex on their minds. I learned quite a bit yesterday. Sex problems don't magically disappear when one gets into recovery. I just wasn't expecting them to be so prevalent in what I heard yesterday. A secondary theme was gambling problems in recovery. I was especially appreciative of that since the last couple of months I have wanted to get high and to gamble. The odd thing about wanting to gamble for me is that gambling was never my thing. It didn't do much for me, I only remember getting one gambling "rush" and that was in a small group of folks from Running Sores who were at the race track. I'd been forced to go to that racetrack under the guise of a manager appreciation party when people were still able to force me to be social in a large group but that is a whole other tale. And not a terribly interesting one at that.

About midway through the afternoon, I noticed that someone (who still works at Running Sores) had entered the room and was sitting not far away from me. She was doing a fairly good imitation of being blind to my presence. That was a pretense that I was content to let be. I really didn't care one way or the other. Or at least I had decided not to care for the moment. A bit later as I got up to leave (before speaker number ten and the clean time countdown), the Running Sores woman had moved and I walked right past her to go outside and to my car. Again, she turned away from me. Several thoughts vied for my attention. One of them was along the lines of, "What the hell. Am I a leper? Is brain damage catching?" Some of the other ones were more sane, or at least more of a rationalizing nature. "I didn't want to talk to you either." "Whatever." And there was the ultra-adult thought which ran, "Hey it's been about four and a half years now. Isn't it time to get over this mental masturbation about Running Sores and how 'cruelly' I was treated? Get on with life already."

The thing is, healing doesn't necessarily happen upon demand. Or there would be bunches of people demanding healing, maybe even curing, and getting it. Emotional healing is not much different from the physical in that regard in my opinion. From past experience after a devastating house fire, I know I have to call each thing/person by name and say what they meant to me before I will be able to let go in a real way. So there is more work to do on that score. It's okay though because I have a way to address it and a support network to help me get through it.

I am most fortunate because my support network is not limited to people in recovery. Like the inane commercial for a credit card with frills says, "I got people." This whole life thing, being a citizen of the universe and all of that, is not a simple matter of us versus them. It is not you and me against the world or people in recovery fighting with the aliens (those without a 12 step program, whether they need to be in some form of recovery or not). Nor is it any faction of the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transsexual/transgendered/intersexed/queer communities against the straights, atheists fighting the Christians or other religious groups, disabled against everyone else. Nor even those of us with atypical neurology slugging it out with the neurotypicals.

I sometimes have to remind myself of these things rather forcefully. I have to remind myself that business is business, period. That although I believe that ninety eight percent of those working in the human services field deserve to be eaten by Baba Yaga, really life cannot be reduced to black and white. Consequently, the woman from Running Sores who was at the same speaker jam that I was at yesterday had the same right to be there that I had. And I had the same right to be there that she had.

The last time I saw her was early on after my accident at the local mall. She had gotten my old job but spared no sympathy for her old boss. Hey, I lived anyway. I could obsess over the lack of support from the folks at Running Sores or I could dwell on the support that I was getting elsewhere. Traumatic brain injury has made obsessions the easier softer way and so in truth, for several years I did ruminate excessively over the idea that I did not get a get well card from the folks at Running Sores. [A friend finally sent me a Get Well card, hoping that would help. It did]. What I got from Running Sores was a form from the safety committee which asked, "How could this accident have been prevented?" I wrote down "Shoot all of the pot smokers who drive." [The man who had hit my car was high]. The lawyer was keeping close tabs on my altered states at that time so he was able to convince me to send all forms to him. Whenever I was asked about some form or other, I learned to say, "The lawyer has it. I can't understand it." That much was true. Filling out any kind of form during the first two years post-accident took about an hour and a half and resulted in colossal headaches. And my "answers" were not coherent. The lawyer put all the forms in the round file and had some assistant or other fill them out only when forced to. That is how lawyers do things.

In truth, although my nemesis was ignoring me at the speaker jam, I really didn't have much to say to her either. What could I have said? Hello, how is work? Lame. Good to see you. It wasn't. You are looking well. Like I care. By the way, yes indeed it is a traumatic brain injury just like I had told you at the mall and I am on disability and I hate VESID sucks. She isn't required to care about any of that in even the most superficial way. Just as I am not required to care about her life either.

Traumatic brain injury is a polite word for brain damage. I am brain-damaged. My life got derailed through no fault of my own (for once) four and a half years ago. And yet. The world didn't stop because my world shattered. Since the accident, I've had to deal with lots of stuff. I am not dead. I am very much alive, still breathing. Breathing is a definite plus. I can let the shoes stay on the radiator, their soles melting down into the heat. Or I can take the shoes off of the radiator, open the window to let the stench of burning rubber out, and get on with living the best way I know how.

The metaphor with the shoes bothers me. Like many metaphors that I hear in the rooms of recovery, there is no allowance for more than two ways. Either we are going forwards or we are going backwards. We are progressing in our recovery or we are headed for a fall. We are on g-d's side or we aren't. We are part of the problem or we are part of the solution. I have problems with the whole good-evil dichotomy. For quite awhile now, I've suspected it is just a neat over-simplistic way of saying good g-d-fearing folks to the right and the rest of the infidels to the left. Those of you who know the significance of the numbers 23 and 5 will understand.

The other thing that bothers me is the blending. The whole "all religions are different ways of going up the same mountain." Or "all religions are just different ways of knowing the same g-d." Or, even worse, "all religions kind of meld together." Uh, no they don't. All of the religions of the world cannot even agree on the basics. Christians say Jesus is the Son of g-d. Muslims declare that Allah didn't have a son of any sort. Jews say the Messiah didn't come yet. The Hindus and the Muslims have been fighting each other in India for years and years. Several Muslim factions are also at war. The Koran has produced believers who take on the admonishment to "Kill the infidels" quite literally. Other believers found their ways around that. The Bible has been used to justify slavery, separation of the races, oppression of women and the disabled and those of us who are not straight. And there are believers who find their way around those verses as well. The Buddhists are actually atheistic in their own right with a twist. I think I will read some more of that Richard Dawkins book along with some of the others ones laying around here. (More book reviews coming up by next week at http://sapphoqreviews.blogspot.com). All religions and cultures and peoples are not equally good nor do they all hold equal value to the survival of the humans and other stuff. Call me politically incorrect. I consider that to be a compliment.

I think about the stuff we have lost and the stuff we are losing to political correctness. Like the pot smokers who drive, lets go shoot all of the comedians. Follow that up with the hanging of bloggers and mediacs, gassing of politicians and educators. Oh, but not just the liberals who in my mind are responsible for things like the renaming of the Sambo's restaurants. Let's rid the world of the conservatives too who don't agree with the libs. Let the dems and the pubs drown together as they debate things like a New York State Law that officially makes it illegal to sell a cow which has tuberculosis. If we get rid of everyone who doesn't agree with everyone else, there would be no one left. I have gone off on another flight of fancy. Drat this brain damage.

Drat the Brain Injury Association of the United States of America which had green rubberized bracelets made up. I don't know how or why someone decided that green is the color of brain injury. Myself, I would have opted for a gray/black combination. I would not wear the bracelet when it first came out nor will I now. The bracelet says, "Mind Matters." Screw that. Scientists cannot agree on whether the mind exists at all. Oh it may and it may or may not be part of or the same as the brain or separate from the brain. Or the mind might me a figment of the imagination. No one asked me my opinion when it was time to decide what color to use or what slogan to put on the stupid rubber bracelet. My slogan, "BRAINS matter." My brain matters. The same political correctness that causes "traumatic brain injury" to be preferable to the words "brain damage," is that the reason behind picking the non-specific "mind" over the very specific "brain?"

English does not have a verb to distinguish a temporary state of being from the essence of being. In Spanish, a language whose beauty captivates me, there are two verbs that translate into the English "to be." There is ser-- a state of being which is not intrinsic to the organism. And there is estar which describes the essence of being. Thus, when I straightforwardly say at to a group of people in recovery that I was a failure at teaching I have no way of indicating that I am not claiming that failure permeates and defines me. Along comes the rationalizations. Someone's g-d didn't want them to be a famous fill-in-the-prestigious-career-of-choice. Someone else informs a small group of folks within my earshot that her definition of failure is different than mine. I can't help but wonder if this unwillingness to admit that because some of us failed at some undertakings that means that we were failures at those undertakings is a leftover from the rah-rah cheerleader self-esteem school of thought. Objectivism certainly has its' foes these days from schoolrooms to boardrooms. I owe a debt to objectivism. Objectivism actually helped me to separate my rationalizations from reality. I learned that yes indeed we are not born equal in terms of ability. I learned through objectivism to take responsibility for my actions, to examine how I contributed to my failures. I cannot push my failure at teaching in the classroom off on some higher power or even on some lower power. It was my own internal inability to ask for help that caused my downfall. So yes I failed at teaching. I was a failure as a teacher in the classroom. Those of you who protest that have never seen me with a group of children as I struggled with the expectation that I keep some sort of order and impose some discipline. I was a failure at teaching-- ser. I am not the totality of failure-- estar.

Even when my brain damage a.k.a. traumatic brain injury has made communication difficult, I know that for example the failure of VESID sucks to adequately serve me is also partially my failure as well. The folks at Running Sores were conducting business as usual after my accident, probably in accordance with legal advice. Brain injuries are expensive. Their insurance company didn't want to get stuck with my medical bills just as my automobile insurance company didn't want to get stuck with my medical bills. Business is business. I don't have to personalize any of it. I didn't understand that back in the early days after my accident when I was sleeping for twenty hours a day. I can understand it now. I am not who I used to be. Even my taste in reading material has changed. I am not who I was going to be-- would have been today if the accident hadn't happened. I am certainly not better off. Spare me.

I am who I am. And regardless of the attitudes and actions of people and agencies around me, I know that I am going to keep striving.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: recovery, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, treatment, VESID sucks

  ¶ 10:30 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Stuff that annoys me, stuff I am happy about A list in no particular order inspired by a blogger who wrote a list of how to annoy an aspie. Unfortunately, I can't find the link to that particular post at the moment. When/if I do, I will add it.

If you have a brain injury and not all of the stuff on my list annoys you, that is okay.
Write your own wish if you want to.

If you don't have a brain injury and not all of the stuff/most of the stuff on my list annoys you, that is probably okay. Write your own. I don't have the monopoly on being annoyed and some of the stuff mentioned here is not specific to folks with disabilities.

So here goes:

1. "Oh yeah, I have that too." Unless you also have atypical neurology, NO YOU DON'T.

2. Repetitive forms.

3. Too loud, too bright, too scratchy.

4. The world requires multi-tasking for almost everything. My ability to multi-task has shit the bed and ain't coming back.

5. Cognitive art therapists who claim to have degrees from "schools" which are suspected of being diploma mills and reported as such when Googled.

6. Anyone who insists that said cognitive art therapists are loved by gazillions of fans. That whole being loved thing is the emotional stance of infants.

7. Medical doctors who do not listen.

8. Expressive aphasia sucks.

9. "You are a person WITH a traumatic brain injury." No asshole, I have a t.b.i.

10. Referring to t.b.i.-ers or survivors of t.b.i. as t.b.i.s. Uh, hello. We are not our labels. We are not alcoholism, broken legs, or brain injuries. [See number nine.]

11. VESID. VESID sucks. [VESID is called o.v.r. in other states.] And by the way any vocational rehabilitation counselors who may have stumbled across this post, disabled people do NOT spend all of their time home watching television. Even people with developmental disabilities do NOT spend all of their free time home watching television. Your sheltered workshops are a modern form of slave labor and an abomination.

12. Being talked down to by professional "helpers" who don't help.

13. Dealing with the mail order pharmacy.

14. Fatigue.

15. A body that does not bend due to neurology.

16. Inadequate pain management.

17. "The brain rewires itself." Yep, it does. The result is a dirt road where high speed freeways used to exist. And when the neurons don't connect up correctly, say hello to permanent central nervous system tremor.

18. There is a reason why I am not working. Not working does NOT obligate me to be your fetch and step. If I felt well enough to do you all those favors you seem to think I am capable of doing for you, I would be working. So bugger off.

19. Perception problems and visual disturbances getting in the way of a variety of activities.

20. Happy happy joy joy 12 step people who assure me that their g-d wanted this to happen to me as part of some masterful plan. Please take your mental masturbations elsewhere. I have enough of my own.

21. Automatic assumptions that my anger is somehow bad or dysfunction and needs healing. When I want your opinion, I will ask you. And besides, you are not my shrink.

22. Unclear directions.

23. Not enough help to do the things that I can no longer do.

24. A-motivational syndrome-- mine.

25. A social security disability system which denies disability to those of us who have worked all of our adult lives and now can't as well as to people who are on chemo for crying out loud. Along with worker's comp and "no fault" [we ain't paying cuz it ain't our fault] auto insurance companies, health maintenance organizations, and in laws.

***

Stuff I am happy about: being alive, being abstinent, my friends, my family, my dog, my cats, my frogs, the stuff inside of me that enables me to keep striving.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: a.b.i., accessibility, acquired+brain+injury, tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 2:45 AM 0 comments links to this post

  Job Handler, Employment Consultant, Job Developer-- oh my Laura Hersey's words echoed in my brain this morning as I was dealing with one tiny segment of the bureaucracy-- "You Get Proud by Practicing"
(to read it, goto:
http://www.cripcommentary.com/poetry.html#PROUD).
I was a bit fatigued and consequently not able to play the good grateful consumer role. That is what happens when I am called too early in the morning. I suck at that particular role anyways. My irritable brain makes that role damned near impossible to pull off on a good day.

VESID is helping to wreck the R.C.I.L.s. I read something like that somewheres and I am believing it. The Independent Living Centers in their truest grassroots form are supposed to be teaching us to do it for ourselves, not providing services to do it for us. Ah, my t.b.i. verbosity again. That is a thought to be developed and explored and researched on some other day. Yup, I'm angry. Today is the day that I am in. And today I am angry enough to take a break from seeking out more lindens to play with on secondlife and write this inane little driveling essay. The word essay comes from the French. This essay is my attempt to sort through things.

I asked this morning. Which one are you? Job handler, Employment Consultant, job developer. I was introduced to her by the first title, the most recent communication was signed off with the second title, VESID literature available on-line refers to the third title. In all of this mess, I wanted one straight answer. Indeed, the third title is the official one. Sigh. That led to my observation of what I remember how job developers worked in two neighboring counties when I was running group homes. Which led to her hot defense that she had called the one hospital and gotten nowhere (so she had told me before) and that she had called two other hospitals (oh really?) because I had "seemed interested in working in that setting." She went on to use her hot two dollar words like job carving. Not in this county. If it doesn't apply, let it fly.

The other straight answer-- sort of-- is "right now your case is on Hold but it cannot be on Hold Forever." I don't recall asking for forever. The words she had zeroed in on during my most recent vertigo attack was "getting worse." She had documented this. Of course, she reported this to the VESID Counselor and of course on the recommendation of a puny job developer I am now required to get a note for a two week attack of vertigo. The last three docs I visited within the last three weeks did not seem overly impressed by this. Logically vertigo is worse during an attack. Duh. I wasn't clear enough in my despair immediately after my attack apparently. I think it would not have mattered if I had been.

Benign Positional Vertigo. I found myself explaining this unasked. I informed the job handler that the vertigo is in my records, that surely someone from VESID should not have been surprised by the attack which is standard operating procedure and akin to having the flu. My position remains the same. If VESID has concern about my vertigo interfering with my employability, then perhaps VESID should pay for a work-up. The idea of having to get a doctor's note for having "the flu" is a requirement manufactured out of the brain of someone who is not familiar with medical terminology. It is a ridiculous requirement. I spike declare it to be so. In my unprofessional unasked for opinion, this idea of having to get a doctor's note is stupid. Next time I have a vertigo attack or any other transient business-as-usual medical thing, they can find out by reading this blog. Because I sure as fuck am not going to tell them. Damn them all. I have an appointment with the E.N.T. doc who follows my sleep apnea in June or July. The E.N.T. doc can write the note. The job developer can write that down in her report for the VESID counselor. Screw it.

I have years of experience in human services. I have some really nifty computer skills. VESID's emphasis from the beginning has been to get me into a job as soon as possible. Hang my application for the 55b/c state program. The shrink who follows my t.b.i. as well as my t.b.i. exacerbated major depression said to wait for that to come through. Somehow my wish to have a job coach lined up specifically for a 55b/c position got lost in the VESID mandates. Fuck it all. Let my own individuality and self-determination hang on the clothesline that is the ghetto where the dreams of the disabled are murdered. I refuse to live in that ghetto.

Listening to Peter Kahrmann (on the B.I.A-N.Y.S. board) talk about the brain injury itself making things difficult and how we are not our brain injuries coalesced into my determination not to live in the ghetto. The job developer didn't tell me in so many words to apply for entry-level positions because nothing in human services was coming through for me. She didn't tell me to settle. She didn't say I had to just take any job for the sake of the VESID mission statement. I internalized that idea from somewhere. Quite frankly, traumatic brain injury is an insurance liability. So here I go all dressed up with my need for ankle braces and possibly a cane, hat, glasses, inability to multi-task, a bit of expressive aphasia, don't lift more than ten pounds, don't reach overhead, vertigo, fatigue, out of work for over four years due to a car accident which was not my fault, and who knows w.t.f. the last place is saying about me-- pen at the ready. Hire me. I can't even get a gig delivering newspapers. And I want out of the disability wasteland that I have been consigned to. Yeah right. Yes, that is correct. Up and out. Watch me.

This isn't working for me. As Nathaniel Branden declares, "Doing more of what doesn't work doesn't work." VESID jerked me around for several years before I even got to see a job handler. VESID jerking me around has been VESID's standard operating procedure. Me jerking VESID around gets me labeled hostile, uncooperative, and difficult. I am hostile. To that I will admit. I suspect that most people faced with the loss of a career would not want to be cooperative while being jerked around, even if some lack the gumption to fight it. Difficult? I am not difficult. My brain injury is difficult. Frontal lobe damage makes self-regulation of emotions difficult when fatigued, Peter Kahrmann explained. Coffee soothes the savaged ravaged irritated lobe beasties, my brain screams at me. Coffee now DAMMIT. Oh shut up. In a few minutes.

The thing is, I don't want a job that will leave me starving in more ways than one. I want my career back. Or a new career. I have a traumatic brain injury, yes. I know I am impaired. I can even identify when my impairment sticks out in everyday life. I cannot pass for someone with typical neurology and I am not willing to. I have to do something. I have to do something else. What I've been doing isn't working. The "help" that I have gotten from VESID so far has been less than useless.

Maybe I need to start over and look at this whole thing again. I am sure that VESID works for traditional people [who are willing to be compliant and work for slave wages in sheltered workshops while their futures are canceled out.] Perhaps I do need to take a few courses [or get a Masters degree or more] to update my human services stuff or get some training for computers. It was then explained to me that I get to do one or the other, job hunting via her or some kind of schooling with the VESID counselor. Not both. It has to be one or the other. The job developer assures me she will report these concerns to the VESID counselor as well. Fine. She will write the VESID counselor an e-mail. Go for it. Do I have an e-mail address so she can send me a copy of said e-mail? Let's see. I could have given her fruckVESID at resistant dash witches dot com. Instead I gave her the short answer. No, I don't have an e-mail addy. Send me a copy in the snail mail. Will I be home today so the VESID counselor can call me? She stopped herself there. I heard the maybe. I will be in and out, I said. I am not sitting home in the disability ghetto watching television to wait on a call from the VESID counselor that may or may not arrive today. Damn these people.

Even if I was capable of being meek and mild, why the fuck should I want to be?

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: employment, frontal lobe, Peter Carmen, t.b.i., traumatic+brain+injury, treatment, vertigo, VESID, vocational rehabilitation

  ¶ 10:44 AM 0 comments links to this post

  T.B.I. on SecondLife and on-going VESID stupidity I took a break from blogging for a bit in order to explore SecondLife(trademark owned by Linden Labs)-- a virtual world created by Linden Labs. If anyone is interested, well then you can go check it out at:
http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=492430f4263844fdb2cb9ef952ebf4a1

or at the potentially less threatening:
http://www.secondlife.com/?u=492430f4263844fdb2cb9ef952ebf4a1

and for those of you who aren't interested, obviously you don't gotta. End of unpaid commercial.


Anyways, my avatar (a little figure in clothing used to represent me in Second Life, thus from here on in will be referred to as "my avie" or simply "I" -- past English teachers be dammed) got to pick a gender and some clothing, went through utter confusion of orientation, and then was deposited along with other newbies at a Welcome Center. From there, my avie went off exploring. SecondLife is total eye candy in 3D.

After flying around for a bit and collecting a bunch of free clothes, I found that I was lonely for human communication. I went to some 12-step meetings (we're everywhere!) and found a few folks there to talk to. I began studying the events notices, joined a few groups, bought a bit of land. I began my first brain-damaged experimentation with 3D building and started going to events and classes regularly.

My avie got a job as a stripper in a club, something for which I make no apologies. The Lindens (money in SecondLife) are good. Real life mate doesn't care what I do in SecondLife. Dancing is varied and automated. The mobility and vertigo problems which plague me in real life are absent there. Plus, like most other avies, my avie is younger in appearance, skinnier, hotter, and has better hair than I do!

Besides exotic dancing and other events, I also found that the Asperger's community is alive and well on S.L. That made me happy and I now have some friends to hang with who do not expect great social feats from me. Many of them have some of the same passions that I do and that is excellent!

And yes, there is a t.b.i. group on SecondLife. We meet usually on Saturday mornings S.L. time at a comfortable and extravagant 3D clubhouse on a beach. The house is situated on an island. There is the ocean right there, a pleasant deck, several dogs, the meeting room itself, and offices upstairs. The man who facilitates the t.b.i. group lives in the States. He is very welcoming. I immediately found myself at home there.

When I told him about the most recent VESID stupidity, he was appalled and asked me if I have a case manager, case worker, or service coordinator. I am not eligible for Medicaid and thus not eligible for the T.B.I. waiver in my state (a situation which pisses me off-- the financial hit we have taken from my car accident and subsequent loss of career has been astronomical) and so I could not navigate the system well enough to get a Service Coordinator. I had tried but nothing much happened there. The facilitator-- also a T.B.I. survivor-- offered to meet with his case manager in order to seek out information for me and will be checking back with me soon. He also suggested that I call the Office of the Aging and the United Way in my county. I hadn't thought of that. More on the hunt for service coordination as it evolves.

The last time I had spoken with the job handler (a young woman who means well I suppose but who is young enough to have a MySpace account under her own legal name) she expressed grave "concern" over the latest two week bout of vertigo. This should not have been news to her or to anyone else related to VESID. It has been documented in my records that I have benign positional vertigo. The benign means it isn't a tumor or anything causing it. The positional means it is outside of myself, that is to say that the room/the world slides to the left. Vertigo means dizziness of a sort. Thus, I am not dizzy. The world is dizzy. I am used to it. I consider my 24 hour vertigo to me similar to allergies. And the occasional attack--where the world dips and spins madly-- to be akin to a common cold.

The attacks are annoying. The singular medication which the doctor demands I take during the worst of the attacks is annoying. The med leaves me able to navigate my home looking like someone who is slightly tipsy rather than totally plastered. There is not much that I can accomplish during an attack. Feeling miserable, I spend a bit more time sleeping than I usually do. Although I cannot do what I used to do, I certainly am not "home watching television." (That is what most voc-rehab counselors assume that folks with disabilities not slaving in sheltered workshops are doing with their days.) During the attacks, I am too miserable to even consider much teevee or much of anything else. So sleeping fills the bill. And serves to keep me from descending into total fatigue afterwards.

Consequently, when the job handler expressed her cloying concern over my latest two week attack I was not feeling a need for sympathy. I was feeling pissed off. And I knew that her concern was a smokescreen for another message. I may be brain damaged but I am NOT stupid. The job handler went on to inform me that until I got a doctor's note saying I am healthy enough to be nagged by her on a regular basis over where I had put in job applications and gotten interviews that the VESID counselor was putting my case on hold. I asked her, "Is the VESID counselor paying for my doctor's visit to obtain such a note?" Her answer was obviously no. "Well then, the VESID counselor will have to wait until I go to the doctor anyways for such a note. Do what you have to do." Shit. The primary care doc does not require me to see him before, during, or after these attacks. And as I've said already, vertigo to me is like allergies and colds.

I thought that would be the end of it until I delivered the note. But no. The job handler called my answering machine twice more. I didn't return the calls because: 1. a close friend who is also an addict was in the hospital and I was busy in a daily fight for her to get adequate pain relief, 2. I figured if my "case" was on hold then that meant that I didn't have to deal with the job handler, and 3. I just plain didn't feel like it. Angry? Oh hell yes. I was angry and I still am. I am not grateful for the crumbs. I can't get Walmart's to hire me, never mind any agency that offers jobs in my previous career. Hell. I can't even get the local newspaper to agree to give me a route. And I intensely dislike cloying concern and people nagging me for information about exactly where I've applied for work. To top it off, I am at the point where I am not sure that I am able to get back to work of any description. What part of, "I don't fucking feel well enough to do anything for four hours a day, never mind eight hours" is not clear English?

I am not a quitter by nature. I am tired of VESID, tired of incessant demands, tired of nagging whiny voices, tired tired tired. The shrink who understands t.b.i. has maintained from the start of all of this foolishness that the original plan is NOT to work even part-time until a 55b/c job comes through with the state. He tells me repeatedly that the 55b/c program expects me to be a fuck-up (not in so many words, he says it nicer) because I will be hired with the knowledge that I am disabled. With the 55b/c program, I will provided with a job I can do and a salary that I can live on. And the added benefit because I will be hired as a fuck-up, I would really have to be outrageous in order to get fired. The problem I am having in my interviews is that it is obvious that I have some serious impairments and no company wants to deal with a new employee who has vision problems, auditory processing problems, non-existent capacity for multi-tasking, can't navigate stairs well (the vertigo), and is at risk for falling in spite of the braces and cane. And let's not forget the fatigue.

So there is SecondLife. I have a sort of goal there to amass enough Lindens to go into virtual business for myself. And there is VESID and the professional and para-professional paid "helpers" associated with VESID. And there is my life and there are my crumpled dreams.

Labels: employment, O.V.R., ovr, professionals, Second Life, SecondLIfe, t.b.i., thinking, traumatic+brain+injury, vertigo, VESID, vision, vocational rehabilitation

  ¶ 1:22 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Making Work Work "Even in the future, nothing works!" -Dark Helmet in the movie Spaceballs

A job interview today. For a job for which before my car accident I was considered to be overqualified for. I interviewed well, she told me. She enjoyed talking to me. It lasted an hour. She said she was leaving for vacation and did not wish to leave me hanging. She would discuss with personnel and tell them to go ahead and have me interview with other people.

Damn this brain injury. Damn these feet, the vision, the inability to multi-task, the bad back.

Her concern-- the position is a third shift and take-downs would surely be involved. Could I do them now? The job is very physical. That was her concern. And it is a legitimate one.

The only thing I could say in response was yes that is a valid concern however (insert words that mean I am one determined mutherfrucker no matter what and that I can learn anything I need to learn) and perhaps I would need some extra practice with the other two staffers that I would be working with...their styles...all of that. What I didn't tell her is that I've always hated doing SKIP-R. I hated doing two-person escorts at my last job the few times I had to. And I didn't tell her about the vertigo even after being asked specifically about all of the t.b.i. crap
and complications and residual effects.

The fairly useless job handler claims she will go in tomorrow to get me those follow-alongs (in the other three departments) that the moronic VESID folks funded me for. "VESID won't support any jobs that are not within your limitations," the job handler tells me. She is young enough to have a MySpace page as her main blog, complete with an exaggerated description of her profession. And stupid enough for her user name to be the same as her legal name.

(Yes I have a MySpace page too, however it is primarily to keep up with heathen
news that a friend publishes there.)

Has she even read the list of limitations from various doctors? One of them says 15 hours a week. I'm guessing that the morons from VESID skipped over that one too. Too inconvenient. It would require a filing of a form to get an exception for the usual requirement of "must be able to work at least 20 hours a week." No overhead reaching. No lifting over 10 pounds. Avoid night driving. No carrying loose things downstairs. There's a bunch of them, along with bunches of diagnoses from various doctors of things all related to my brain injury, or made worse by my brain injury. I specifically pointed out the limitations to her several times. The civil service job she told me about today was for being a corrections officer for crying out loud. I wanted to bang my head against the wall after that revelation. I already have diagnosable brain damage (yes folks, traumatic brain injury is a polite word for brain damage) so I resisted the impulse.

Bits of depression threaten to rain down on me. Time to keep going. Routine helps. E-mail, blogging, and cognitive work tonight. Drug court tomorrow with a friend's daughter and keep putting in those applications. I won't stop with that until a job offer comes through. Walk with the dog. Practice walking on uneven ground with the dog. Housework would be a good thing. Water the plants before death ensues. Do the next clean thing. You drink, you drug, you die. A line from a rehab movie I saw once during my torturous time tutoring adolescents. I prefer adolescents in groups of one. Huge problem. There were 26 of them. But I stuck it out for my obligatory 3 years before beating feet out of there. The money wasn't worth it.

And fuck VESID. It would be nice to have their support (i.e. job coach) on a job however if that becomes "not able to happen by golly because whatever job violates some limitation or other" I'm going to go to work anyways. Even if it means working at the local Walmart as a tire-changer and an oil-changer. Even if it means using a fricking cart to bring the tire to the car.

The local Walmart is so desperate for help that I have an interview to do that on Monday. "Did you apply to be a mechanic by mistake?" the woman asked me on the phone after she found out that I never done either. "No," I told her, "I applied for all of the positions. I am willing to learn whatever you or someone wishes to teach me." Then I heard, "Oh well that is really hard work and blah blah blah I will call you back when there is a service writer position open and blah blah blah." She called me back an hour and a half later. That interview was supposed to be tomorrow but she changed it to Monday. That's okay. I haven't run out of places to apply to.

Because I am going to work this year. Even if it means missing the week in Maine with my husband this summer and the week visiting my friend Philly Dave this summer. I am going to work this year. I am going to work this year no matter what. If nothing in the future works, then I am going to make it work or beat it beyond recognition in my endeavor.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: employment, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, VESID

  ¶ 10:15 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Total Aggravation
I got accepted into a 55b/c program which basically means that I may be able to get a (real) State job with accommodations. The shrink (who is well acquainted with more than drugging people to death and is actually keeping track of what is happening with my traumatic brain injury (from a car accident); and who is familiar with the program) tells me this is my best bet for getting employment after being out of work for four years due to my car accident. I don't just want any old job where the chances are high that the salary will be not enough for me to live on and that I will get fired. I can't multi-task at all anymore. I wasn't really good at it but now any ability I had to multi-task is totally dead. I want a job coach to assist me during the first couple of months or so at the State job which I haven't gotten yet. This has been my plan since I first heard about this 55b/c program.

(VESID is OVR in other places but in New York State it is called VESID).

I told the VESID "counselor" (third in less than three years) this. Apparently, the paperwork, my suppos-ed Individualized Employment Plan-- which took a couple years in the making because I had refused to go to their favored agency connected with the sheltered workshop for job coaching services-- requires a specific job goal. Fine. A couple of months ago, I rattled off several job choices so that way just maybe I could finally get to the agency of my choice to arrange for job coaching.

I finally got to meet with the job handler who then would assist me in helping me find a job. Again, I repeated myself by telling her that I want to get a job with the State via the 55b/c program. (She has never heard of said program). Again, the suppos-ed Individualized Employment Plan requires a specific job to fill in the blank. "Working for the State" is not adequate. The job handler changes the job goal from "animal care technician" to a state job title. This requires the VESID "counselor" to rewrite the I.E.P. but I don't care about that.

During the meeting with the job handler, I learn that VESID approved my request for job trials. A job trial means I would get to follow someone on a job for a couple of hours to see if I could possibly stand doing a job like that one. I am approved for 15 hours. 5 for the job handler to set up a few. 10 for me to actually shadow people on several jobs. I tell the job handler very clearly that I had asked for this and that I want this. This was in December. Okay.

Now it is January. The job handler assumes the role of a nag. She calls me with a lead for a full-time job in the newspaper-- one that would require extensive multi-tasking but no matter. Note full-time. (My plan has been to start part-time to see if my fatigue level will allow me to work up to full-time. I can do this at the State with accommodations under the 55b/c program. (My aunt is the one who is actually helping me regain some stamina because the professionals do not understand how freaking tired I am from the brain injury. I am glad that my aunt is working with me on this because no one else is). I am a bit aggravated but that's okay. I decide to go to the Job Service place which is part of unemployment because they will re-vamp my resume for free. The job handler is nagging me to go there to look for work.

Now it is several days and a weekend later. I am leaving for my appointment with the shrink. I get a letter in the mail from the job handler. It is an advert for a "job fair" listing several full-time positions with an agency and a note advising me to attend said job fair if I am interested in any of these jobs. (The jobs happen to be in direct care with people living in group homes and I cannot lift due to my spinal injuries {car accident}. All of these things are documented in my records which both VESID and the job handler have. But no matter. The job fair ended shortly before the postman came with the letter.

This is January. There is no longer any talk of job trials. There is no acknowledgment by the job handler that I am endeavoring to get a State job at which time a job coach might be useful. I go see the shrink after the mail comes. I determine that I am going to call the 55b/c program people to find out if there is anything I can do to help them get me a State job. The shrink says they are just supposed to find me one and I don't really have to do anything except wait. An acquaintance who had gotten accepted for 55b/c last year in fact was offered a job some time later without having to do anything. Still, I think that sending them a new fancy resume and talking to them on the phone might be a good idea.

VESID's whole focus is to get me working ASAP and it doesn't matter about what is best for me. And VESID in the region where I live is the worst one in this state.

I would tell VESID and the job handler to bugger off except that if I quit VESID, the delayed review of my disability would then take place. I can't afford to lose disability right now unless I am working and able to maintain the full-time thing. My mate is totally obsessed with money and thinks I should have magically gone back to who I was before my car accident several years ago so there is that. My good friend keeps pushing me to get jobs at various places where I know I just can't do it. (For example-- a bilingual staff at a telephone hotline for tax help. Problem. I can write Spanish better than I can read it and read it far better than I can speak it. My voice is too soft to be effective on the phone, I can't multi-task, and people who speak Spanish tell me they cannot understand me and I am butchering their language). My primary care doctor thinks I should have gone back to work full-time two weeks after my car accident and the last two times I saw him, I got a bit angry when he asked me, "So, where are you working now?"

I have determined my course of action and I am taking steps toward my goal. I even have a plan B in case the 55b/c program can't come up with a state job for me in the three years allotted for this before I would have to apply again.

I feel like the people around me (except for my aunt and the shrink) are all nagging me to hurry up, go to work full-time and forget about what I want to do. Additionally, the people around me (except for my aunt and the shrink) are acting as if I am nuts and they are the sane ones. My fatigue is real. I am not a faker or a poser. The last several years have been really really taxing to say the least. I now have sleep apnea (I love my c-pap machine and before that, I felt like I was sleepwalking through life) and supposedly I now have "hypertensive heart disease, undifferentiated, without hypertension" (a gift from the pc doc and I may have to go on a cholesterol-lowering drug if the diet hasn't done enough. I've had untreated high cholesterol for seven years now because my good cholesterol is really really high. After awhile, the good cholesterol can stop being as effective and then a script has to be given). I have the fibro-related aches and pains which I treat with exercise. The brain fatigue which I treat with extra sleep. The cognitive difficulties which I keep doing the computer exercises for. And a bunch of people who are nagging me who I keep trying to ignore. Because trying to explain to them my Plan A and Plan B hasn't worked.

If there is anything that I am not perceiving here, please tell me.
Thanks,
spike

Labels: employment, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, VESID

  ¶ 2:30 AM 0 comments links to this post

  Drunken Principal Principles 1/12/07 An Indiana school principal, Scott Syverson, was stopped on December 22, 2007 by an officer. Dr. Syverson was drunk. The police officer was told to use his discretion, so he elected to have the principal driven home rather than arresting him. A prosecutor later fixed that by filing charges. The principal is currently on administrative leave until sometime in February when the school board will meet.

Of note particularly is this letter written by Lorrie Bjornstad about what could have happened:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080112/OPINION01/801120386/-1/LOCAL17
but didn't. Well, it did happen to her daughter. Although Principal Scott Syverson was not the cause of her daughter's traumatic brain injury, he could have been. The driver who did was also intoxicated and also drove that way after a party celebrating the beginning of Christmas/Winter vacation.

(The school board member who had hosted the party that Dr. Syverson attended has said that he did not appear to be impaired upon leaving her home-- self-serving interest? perhaps. The official trouble was that he and two other buddies had gone on to a pub and stayed there for two more hours. Regardless of where he was when his blood alcohol level rose above what is allowed by the State of Indiana, the point remains. Dude was drunk. Dude could have gifted Lorrie Bjorstad's daughter with her t.b.i.)

Dr. Scott Syverson should suffer the consequences of his actions legally; and professionally depending upon the policies of the school board. Additionally, he should be required to get treatment before resuming any duties at any school in the state in any capacity. There should be no extra punishment or no lesser punishment than that afforded to anyone else caught driving drunk.

Having the "disease" of alcoholism or any other addiction-- sorry disease concept fans. I am an old diehard who maintains that it is a condition-- should not be used to excuse bad behavior, period. I fully support Drug Court because there are specific stringent requirements which must be met there and participants have a real chance of turning their lives around. I hope that the principal winds up in a drug court program after serving some jail time and I hope that his being a prominent public figure in his town will not interfere with any consequences of his actions.

Active addiction sucks. Having to live with a traumatic brain injury also sucks.

It's "nice" I suppose that some students are circulating a petition in support of their principal. My sympathies are not with the principal. My sympathies lie with every victim of every driver who has gotten behind the wheel of any transport vehicle while drunk or high or both. Some of us live. Some of us die. Some of us live and our lives and brains are forever changed.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: addiction, alcoholism, consequences, drunk, high, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, treatment

  ¶ 11:48 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Brain Injuries and P.T.S.D. 12/25/07 Several articles have cropped up declaring that brain injuries "cure" Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In reading through them, I found that what they meant to say is that brain injuries demonstrated in either of two specific areas of the brains of research subjects lessen the incidence of P.T.S.D. The two areas are the amygdala and the vmPFC or the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The research results reported are actually fairly impressive. Folks with insults to the amygdala had zero incidence of P.T.S.D. And only 18% of folks with insults to the vmPFC developed P.T.S.D.

No one is planning to go out and deliberately inflict brain injuries upon those with P.T.S.D. The idea of surgery to insert clips to dull activity in one or both areas is rather uninviting. Use of magnetic stuff is more palatable but also more suspect as junk science.

Nothing reported over on Medscape yet so it is too early for me to get excited.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/23/AR2007122300601.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071224124639.htm

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Brain_injury_may_be_a_cure_for_PTSD/
articleshow/2647593.cms

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/dec/24/medicalresearch.neuroscience

Labels: a.b.i., acquired brain injury, p.t.s.d., t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, treatment

  ¶ 12:22 AM 0 comments links to this post

  Circle Work with Insects
I have been thinking about stealing spiritual practices from other cultures, particularly [in the Untied States] the indigenous tribes of the Americas. There are new agers, white lighters, wiccans, and some folks who don't know what else to do with their money who are all souped up on shamanism, medicine circles, and other practices which they believe to be the real thing. And because there is an average of a sucker born every minute, there are lots of grown up suckers willing to part with their hard-earned cash to go on vision quests. And there is a market for those glossy slick-backed "Medicine Cards" with the nice drawings of Bear and Shells and stuff on them.

Awhile back, I posted to an e-group which I no longer belong to asking about how come no one ever claims the cockroach as their special animal. Everyone wants wolves, lions, tigers, bears, eagles, buffaloes, deer, frog. But absolutely no one wants to have any sort of spiritual relationship with a cockroach. The cockroach is the most successful evolutionary experiment, able to adapt under a myriad of conditions, and quite the traveler too. The spiritually bent should be fasting and begging for Cockroach to be their power insect or totem animal. But alas, not.

Now and again, there are folks who assign mythical beasties to the four cardinal directions or elements in a working circle. Dragons and unicorns abound, right along with the more traditional undines and salamanders. Phoenix and sirens, gargoyles and mermaids yet nary a real insect is noted.

For those who are so inclined, I present the Circle of Insects!


earth: deer tick, cockroach, wood bee, head louse, termite, house fly, ground killer wasp

air: flea, white-faced hornet, pubic crab, fruit fly, horse fly, jumping spider, hover fly

fire: firefly, honey bee, wasp, sweat bee, fire ant, red ant, scorpion

water: skate, diving beetle, mosquito, springtail, noctuid moth, leech, stone fly
sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: cognition, pagan, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 12:28 AM 2 comments links to this post

  Job Ideas for spike q. poet *Disclaimer: not necessarily approved of by the local unimaginative VESID/O.V.R. office*


1. Grow hissing cockroaches, crickets, and earthworms-- may distress lover.

2. Photograph frogs.

3. Breed frogs-- too technical. Apparently frogs in captivity can't figure out how to do it without
human intervention.

4. Rescue unwanted or hurt amphibians-- lover thinks fifteen frogs are enough.

5. Raise llamas--- may really distress lover.

6. Trail guide and llama trekking-- requires llamas.

7. Breed snakes-- lover will move out.

8. Receptionist at very quiet office with no telephone lines.

9. Starving artist-writer.

10. Inspirational speaker.

11. Career coaching.

12. Have year round yard sales.

13. Sell things on the web-- requires things that people will want to buy.

14. Drive a truck-- spinal problems will rebel.

15. Teacher's aide-- hate kids in groups of more than one.

16. Landlord-- been there, done that, ain't doing that to myself again.

17. Event planner-- poor organizational skills.

18. Be a clown or stand-up comic.

19. Start a new religion-- bad karma.

20. Grow flowers in a greenhouse-- requires greenhouse.

21. Professional poker player.

22. Raise corn, hay, and other stuff-- requires farm.

23. Own a human services agency-- would rather manually shovel cow shit.

24. Restaurant hostess at a very slow restaurant.

25. Cook at a small diner-- people will die.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: employment, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 2:01 AM 0 comments links to this post

  Four Years Last week I passed my four year anniversary since my car accident and my traumatic brain injury. I thought somehow I would be working by now. Although I am closer to working now than I've been. Yeah, I am writing a novel and that is cool. To me though, that doesn't really "count" until the contract has been signed and an advance check is in my sweaty hands. I have one potential job substituting for a dishwasher should they get sick and another possibility to work for a friend who is manager at a restaurant. I don't think I will mind washing dishes once in awhile. Working at the friend's restaurant-- well, I gotta start over again somewhere. I haven't even been able to get an interview to deliver newspapers. So I will take what I can get and remember it is just for now, just until I can find something else.

I still have my vision problems, the mild expressive aphasia, and the occasional vertigo. As far as medical experts say, traumatic brain injury is permanent. We improve over time at some stuff, especially if we keep working at it but the basic brain injury itself is there and will be there. Folks say that "the brain can regenerate isn't that amazing?" sort of thing until I am sick of hearing it. Again, I will tell yas that yes, some neurons can regenerate however they do not always reconnect to the correct halves [causing cognitive slowdowns] or at all to anything [causing a central nervous system tremor which yes I do have].

I will never be who I was. I won't lie for the sake of the comfort of others and claim that who I am is a new improved model because it isn't. I don't believe that "all things happen for a reason" or that "I'm right where some god wants me to be" or that "there are no true coincidences." What I think is that life is sacred-- neither fair nor unfair-- and that it is the finite part of our selves that requires and maybe even demands meaning, thus we create it. I don't particularly feel bound by any compulsion to have reasons and lessons for learning. I think that life is far beyond our petty little explanations. Most other folks I know find comfort in believing that there is some sort of grand plan. That stuff doesn't help me though so I dumped it.

Some things have improved. My hearing-- which was supersonic before my accident and right on the borderline of needing a hearing aid or two afterwards-- has re-established itself into the supersonic category as per the last audiology test this summer. The addition of a c-pap machine after two sleep studies and a diagnosis of sleep apnea has really helped me to have a life [although it takes me much longer than average to get into REM sleep, at least I am dreaming again at night]. I keep working on my aphasia and now most folks don't notice it. I got involved with an incredimail creators' group [thanks Jeremy Crow] and that has been of immense help to me in restoring motivation.

If the accident didn't happen, we would have been better off financially and I would not have had my career viciously kicked out from under me. If suffering builds character and strength, I certainly could have done with a bit less of both of those things. In a perfect world, folks who smoke pot would be picked up by the magic yellow submarine bus and driven anywheres they had to go. [The driver who ran my car into a house was high on marijuana]. In a perfect world, we wouldn't need lawyers to protect us from our places of employment after we get hurt, little kids wouldn't be abused or die of starvation and diseases and all stuff like that. But it is not a perfect world. So I just have to do the best I can [most days] with what I got. As Nathaniel Branden would say, "It is what it is."

By this time next year, I hope that my novel will be written and submitted. I also hope to be working at least part-time at a job that I can tolerate. Still be married and in love with my husband and he with me. Saving money for my next cross-country trip. [I want to go every year or every two years for the rest of my life]. And still enjoying my animals, the woods, and life.

spike

I am writing a novel, as I've said before and thus am behind once again in visiting all of your blogs and commenting. Sorry for that. I will get to visiting all of yas to leave comments over the next few weeks or so.

And anyone who has a dog, if you haven't watched The Dog Whisperer, you ought to give it a whirl. He has most excellent ideas about dog psychology and communication. My current dog who is really angelic has become even more perfect since I started doing some of the things he suggests.

Labels: t.b.i., tbi, thinking, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 12:09 AM 0 comments links to this post

  A QUESTIONNAIRE The wonderful folks at Medscape bring an article detailing a questionnaire which NCNeuropsychiatry P.A. has made available on-line to medical personnel which their patients and/or family members can take. It has 207 questions which are correlated to groups of symptoms and specific conditions indicated by them.

The questionnaire is notable for traumatic brain injury patients because it includes a short test for problems related to concussion. Results below for a fictitious patient who presents with moderate disability from a traumatic brain injury have been directed pasted from the test site:

*****************************************************************************

[end of cut and paste from site]

********************************************************************

It is noted that report of symptoms does not indicate that the patient has or doesn't have any of the conditions associated with them. Some patients may over-report symptoms and some others may under-report. The test results of the fictitious patient above may indicate perception of mild problems with attention, mood stability, fatigue, and sleep. The symptom clusters aggregate into a possible clinical picture of the presence of post-concussion difficulties as well as mild autism and Asperger's. An experienced qualified clinician can utilize the testing results in fact gathering and diagnostic interviewing. Because the patient can re-take the test throughout treatment as well as at termination, there is a direct way to measure any progress in reduction of symptomology.

NC Neuropsychiatry P.A. offers evaluation, treatment, and medication management for those people who have symptoms of a variety of disorders including but not limited to serious psychiatric conditions, learning disabilities, cognitive impairments, A.D.D. ad A.D.H.D., and broad autism spectrum disorders as well as traumatic brain injuries. Clinicians are researchers as well as qualified specialists and the practice also offers clinical trials.

The website itself is easy to read and easy to navigate. From the well-written section on traumatic brain injury, I found that traumatic brain injury is one subset of acquired brain injuries. The practice also offers for purchase a series of tests which measure things like working memory, ability to shift tasks, and flexibility in cognitive tasks. The tests may also be accessed from a computer [the clinician can download a complete battery] and norms are included. The series of tests together is referred to as the CNS Vital Signs Assessment Battery. The things that the tests propose to measure have implications for traumatic brain injury patients and for those with mild cognitive impairments, A.D.H.D., and stroke.

The subject of words, definitions, and labels has recently come up in two e-lists I belong to which deal with brain injuries. One of the ideas that was expressed was that researchers are only in it to "make a name" for themselves thus they have a vested interest in the nomenclature associated with brain injury.

From my own perspective, it is vitally important to recognize the medical terminology associated with brain injuries. Common civilian words that are used to describe brain injuries and the effects of are not adequate when reading peer-review research studies. The N.C. Neuropsychiatry P.A. website illustrates the commitment of the researchers associated with that practice. Doctor Johnson has a long list of publication credits and Doctor Gaultieri's is even longer.

Researchers do not work in ivory towers. With the increasing religiosity inherent in the U.S.A. government decisions of who gets what funding as well as competition for research dollars, researchers by and large do have to possess a commitment to the subject of their research as well as to displaying verifiable results.

I encourage anyone reading this who is a medical consumer with a specific chronic condition or disorder to familiarize yourselve with medical terms and research protocols. Medicine continues to advance at a rapid pace. We can become our own best advocates if we are willing and able to gather information in order to communicate intelligently with the professional helpers on our medical teams.

Financial Disclosure: sapphoq has never been a patient at N.C. Neuropsychiatry P.A. located somewhere or other in North Carolina. Neither they nor Medscape paid sapphoq for the nice things she said about them. Thank-you.

sapphoq healing traumatic brain injury


traumatic brain injury

symptom scale


N.C. Neuropsychiatry P.A.


cognitive testing

Labels: A.D.D./A.D.H.D., acquired brain injury, acquired+brain+injury, Medscape, N.C. Neuropsychiatry P.A., N.P.Q., nomeclature, peer-review, questionnaire, research, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 8:04 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Places
That excitement of finding new places or re-finding old ones.
Pieces of me scattered in places I had never been.
I set off in April alone to find those pieces and indeed
they have been found. I knew. Never any doubt or question.

In my brain, I have snapshots of the many places I've been.
Places I have loved and places of tragedy or apathy.
Sacred places and places that have lost their holiness to me.
I have lived and loved and died many times over.

I have always been able to navigate through fairly well even those cities which I've visited after lapses of decades.
I remember how to get around neighborhoods and I can still see houses, apartments, stores, trees.
There are very few maps in my world; and very little need to ask strangers for directions.
An acute sense of direction combined with almost no sense of distance and a marked indifference to time.
Time leaks onto the fabric of the pages of my life,
muddying the words therein. I can still sing the words and I do.
I can read upsidedown with no problem.
I can write with two hands in various combinations of left, right, forward, backwards, rightsideup, upsidedown.
These things I have always taken for granted.
A long list of "Can't everyone?"

Just like the phone numbers from childhood and the addresses I can still recall.
First memory-- learning how to walk. And the revelation of a secret tryst inherent.
I was on the second floor of a house being encouraged by an old Italian man with missing fingers
to walk around the coffee table with no hands to steady me.
That old Italian man turned out to be the father of my step-father.
That is how old the affair of my mother and step-father was.
She was still married to my dad at the time.
From that memory, I understood how the two of them had met.
My mother had happened to hire an old Italian woman as a babysitter.

Odd. Almost everyone with a traumatic brain injury winds up with deficits in memory.
I am not one of those. I tested in the 99th percentile in both working and long-term.
My t.b.i.-er friends all tell me that they can't remember. I can't forget.

I did forget for a time who I was before my brain injury.
I could not describe my self pre-bonk.
And then random memories of my life began to return at random times.
Not anything I'd been counting on or even expected to happen.
More memories to add to an already bulging mental scrapbook.

Oh, I did forget how to cook.
The burnt pot of wilted herbs in a smoky kitchen told me so.
Cooking, like so many other things now, not automatic pilot.

I cannot take much for granted.
No. Having walked with death, I've been catapulted into life.
Vision like a permanent acid trip took some getting used to.
The world was too fast. I got used to my own pace, my own music.
I've "adjusted." Those who say otherwise know not of what they speak.
Yes, today I can describe my character traits before the accident.
Today, that doesn't feel important.

My mother told me when I was moving out, "You can never go home again."
I thought that meant she would not take me back in. I was too traumatized to care.
She had lost me through her abuse years before I was able to leave her house.

I understood a different meaning to not going home again many years later.
That people and places change, that my memories of those people and places
were expected to dull to inaccuracy, that returning does not render magical healing of heartbreak.
She was wrong.
So fundamentally wrong
in ways that I cannot explain and don't want to.

I have gone home again.
To places where I had never been before.

spike

Labels: t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, travel

  ¶ 12:01 PM 0 comments links to this post

  spike manifesto I am spike. I don't "look" disabled. Casual observers do not recognize my double vision in one eye or my physical pain or my expressive aphasia which I have learned to work around. Only doctors note the hyper-reflexia and the ocular-motor dysfunction, sleep apnea and sometimes the fatigue that plagues me. I take naps almost daily. When I don't, I fall more on uneven ground. I don't like falling. So I've learned to manage my energy and to take naps. I can be a citizen of the universe on those days when I am not screaming with fatigue. On days when I exist in a swirl of fatigue, I need solitude and rest. I am comfortable with my own company. This is my brain, my life. Not yours.


I am spike. I cannot bend. My body doesn't allow it. When I am able to work on the garden or rip up carpeting, I have to do it my own way-- sitting. Do not criticize my lack of speed unless you are willing to offer your help. I am not emotionally invested in doing anything because you say I should or at your whim. This is the way of it. I am also not interested in hearing any wangst about "how difficult it is to live with [someone who has] a t.b.i." I don't complain loudly about how hard it is to live with a neuro-typical. Take your wangst to a support group for families and friends. I claim my right not to listen to it and not to get caught up in it. I have no time for bullshit.

I am spike. I am not interested in your pity or your displays of affection. I do not want to be swallowed in your vampiric bear hugs or have the life sucked out of me by your neediness. I have no energy to spare. I don't care for your crises or your drama. If you cannot relate to me friend to friend, I will reject your overtures. Anger is my truest friend. If you are afraid of my anger, chances are that any interconnection between us will be limited. If you are looking to get me "healed" of my anger or want to convert me to your religion or your way of being, save your breath. If you want to be my friend, you must remember that I am living on borrowed time. Those of us who have a nodding acquaintance with Death are forever changed. I offer no apologies for my attitude. I am not a t.b.i. I am spike. I can be a great friend. Or I can leave you in the dust as I and my dog go wandering off into the sunset happily.

Labels: disability manifesto, manifesto, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 6:17 PM 0 comments links to this post

  The United State Army has released a teaching program which will aid soldiers and their families in recognizing the symptoms of both mTBI and post-traumatic stress disorder. 1.2 million soldiers in groups of 40 to a class will be put through the mandatory training. Both the Pentagon and the American Psychological Association claim that army mental health services are lacking in funding and staff. Teaching resources are available for download at the army site to soldiers and to Family Readiness Group Leaders, but not to [any other] civilians.

I am glad to see the Army [at last?] taking a pro-active approach to both head injury and p.t.s.d.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: mTBI, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, treatment

  ¶ 6:02 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Letters to My Self *suicide, trigger*

Dear Heartlove,

Labels: a.b.i., acquired brain injury, acquired+brain+injury, employment, suicidal thoughts, t.b.i., traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 2:23 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Excuses, excuses, excuses Anthony O'Toole told the court that an old head injury [not several pints of alcohol] caused him to have seizure activity which necessitated the calling of an ambulance and himself being intubated in order to maintain airflow. The stupid judge bought that story. The cop who arrested him for public intoxication apparently knew better.

To those of us who have a traumatic brain injury or any other disability or belong to any minority group-- the way to acquire equal protection under the law is through taking equal responsibility [i.e. the same responsibility that everyone else takes] for our bad behavior. We have choices and we can choose to lie about what we do or to face the consequences just like everybody else. Until we learn to quit using our otherness as an excuse, we have virtually no recourse in the dialogue for equal rights, period. Get a clue. Anything worth having is worth working for. If we want equal rights, then let's start taking equal responsibility.

Dude was drunk in public. Dude claims his seizures were from a head injury. That is possible. However, folks with traumatic brain injuries [even those without an addiction problem] should not drink or use street drugs at all. For a doctor not to know enough to access someone with a brain injury is negligence in my book. For a doctor not to know enough to advise that we should not drink or use street drugs at all is criminal.

Here's the link.

sapphoq healing tbi

Labels: a.b.i., acquired brain injury, acquired+brain+injury, excuses, responsibility, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 10:20 PM 0 comments links to this post

  A.B.C. Memories Meme A. "Does anyone here have an aardvark?..."
B. Batman bangs one summer, cut by my mother. I thought they rocked.
C. Celantano's, a store on Roosevelt Avenue.
D. I used to help Miss Davis in the school library. She had her left leg amputated cuz of cancer.
I was saddened by her death years later.
E. "Everything is beautiful in its' own way..."

F. I swam "like a fish" and I still do.
G. My friend Peggy H. took me to see the play "Grease" in New York City.
H. Life magazine did a spread on the play "Boys in the Band." It was my first exposure to
information on homosexual men and I was fascinated.
I. "i before e except after c."
J. Jesus-tripping. My friend Nancy T. and I drinking Moygan David wine and eating matzas
in a Bloomfield park.

K. I liked bat kites.
L. "L is for the way you look at me..."
M. The first time I saw a mouse in the kitchen, I stood on a chair.
N. The word 'nigger' was socially acceptable in the house I grew up with. I learned better in
seventh grade with the advent of two black classmates and I got to be close friends with
one of them. Thank-you Ann P!
O. I smoked oregano for a whole summer, thinking it was pot.

P. An aunt and uncle had a poodle named Pepe. He liked to do tricks.
Q. I was a founding member of the short-lived Queer Nation in Albany New York.
R. Rehabilitation assumes that I was habilitated in the first place. I wasn't.
S. "Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day." It was Ronzoni in our household though.
T. Another uncle was into model trains. He had a set-up in his basement with a miniature
village and everything.

U. From first through twelfth grade, I went to schools that required uniforms.
V. Nancy T. joined the Air Force and was stationed at Valdosta, Georgia.
W. My mother used to tell me, "The world doesn't revolve around you." Still, a modicum of
attention or interest from her directed my way would have been nice.
X. "X marks the spot." I was quite taken by the book "Treasure Island" and by all things pirate
when I was in grade school.
Y. I used to hate the color yellow.

Z. I remember watching zebras running in Africa on Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom."

spike: sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: disconnected memories, meme, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 2:16 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Cleaning 5/21/07

Today I removed the garbage from my car.

Just a bag's worth, besides the returnable soda cans and the triple A tourbooks from my recent cross-country extravaganza.




There was an old newspaper clipping and several sheets of photocopy from another survivor of traumatic brain injury regarding the protocol he wanted to have put in place in New York State. While I admired his effort, I figured it has already been done. According to the protocol the docs are always right about what they decide to do. The cost-effectiveness of the un-treatment I had gotten from the emergency room could have had dire consequences for me.

I was alert after the accident, having extricated myself from the car. I knew that "Monday was Halloween so it must be November." I knew the year. I knew that a guy had smashed into my car but not that my car had been runned into a house. I knew that the ambulance took forty minutes to get to my accident. The two ambulances were engaged in the accident down the street. The guy had caused a head-on collision after my accident and everyone down that way had broken bones and were being flown to a nearby trauma center. I knew that my list of meds was in my wallet in my pocket. I knew I had one hell of a headache, which the nurse claimed was from the oxygen. And I was having trouble following directions as x-rays were being taken of everything but my head. I had hit my head repeatedly on the ceiling of my car. Also back-and-forth between airbag and headrest.

I wanted to sue the hospital but the lawyer was strangely uninterested in that.

Screw the protocol.

The aftercare instructions neglected to inform me that I might have a concussion, never mind an official mild traumatic brain injury [abbreviated as m.T.B.I.]. I was more than mildly pissed as I began to realize that life had been altered on some deep cellular level.




Getting back to the junk in my car: There were also bunches of candy wrapper. Mute testimony to part of my problem with not losing weight. Mostly chocolate bars.

Some receipts for vet bills for the oldest kitty, who two months later is still ailing. This is in spite of getting most of the polyps surgically removed from her left ear and several return trips. She is nine. I don't know how much longer she will last. She is not slated to die. But I can feel her slipping away from us. The operation was 400 bucks and then we got told that she also has stuff wrong with her spine. The visit after, the other vet said, "No, this is all from her ear problem and now she has an ear infection." I threw the receipts out. They were sticky from spilled soda.

A green cloth and some steering fluid got to stay up front. I should have put them in the emergency plastic bin in the trunk. Old cars and "be prepared for anything, anywhere, anytime" sort of thinking tend to go together like sandwiches and pickles. I was no boy scout but I have learned to keep extra stuff on hand. None of the extra stuff helped me this weekend. What helped this weekend was close proximity to my house.

Two blankets for the dog covering up the back seat. Bunches of stuffed animals for her-- mostly frogs-- and one bone. One of the frogs plays music. The dog has learned to activate that feature by mouthing or pawing the frog's tummy. Not necessarily something I welcome when driving but the dog likes to do it. A stuffed duck, a basket, a broken windshield scraper. The broom part for pushing snow away is gone but it is still useful. [I use a broom in the trunk for the snow and an old pickax for freeing the car from ice ruts]. An emergency cane and some old white sneakers "just in case." A vibrating back pillow stuffed under the driver's seat in case things begin hurting.

In the console are various pads for scribbling notes and things, a few maps, a pen. More maps in the glove box. Rocks in the ashtray, rocks on the floor. Rocks in the side panel. I like rocks. One of my obsessions. I have rocks all over the house. An extra pair of sun glasses for my rare but real photophobia. Irfan's syndrome I've heard it called, although the special eye doc has never called it that. Photophobia is a pain. That "sunlight dances in my eyes" of my journal references my strong intense painful experience with bright lights and glare these days.

The dog hair stays. The tracked in dirt stays. The fingerprints and muzzle prints stay. I am not cleaning the car out in order to sell it. Just pitching the garbage like so many broken things.

I like rooting through castoffs and unexpected finds in abandoned old partial foundations in the woods. Once I found a top to a blue tin coffee pot, a remnant. I use it to hold incense. It brings me pleasure. This treasure hunting, perusing antique shops and flea markets and thrift stores for "the find" that is going to change my life or at least my finances. Curbside raids during city-wide clean-up days have gifted me with a bureau, some cool old pictures in old frames. Other peoples' memories thrown out for me to find and cherish.

I am a reluctant pruner of my own memories and outgrown clothing. After my accident, I was immediately aware that I no longer understood the world and its' inner workings. I forgot random parts of my life. Those parts are slowing coming back as I continue to heal. Reluctant to lose them again, I write them down over at http://life.sapphoq.com for electronic prosperity. I had a sweater once that I hated. It was ugly. Pumpkin orange tweed, with green scotties. I packed it when I moved cross-country and then packed it again when I moved back. 3000 miles and I never wore it.




The neuropsych testing which all t.b.i. survivors should have revealed that my memory is even better than those without a brain injury. 99th percentile, the laid-back guy told me. I could remember 9 numbers [almost 10] and repeat them forwards and backwards. In real life that meant I could remember phone numbers. I didn't remember who called on any morning. I knew what I had for breakfast because most days I eat the same thing-- a nutrition bar that is supposed to give me energy. I'm still waiting for that one.

As I began to remember more and more of what I forgot, I began to respect the power of my memory. I am one of the two percent that cannot forget. Two percent of folks with a traumatic brain injury survive with intact short-term memory. My memory, in spite of those things that were inaccessible to me for a time, was in the category of brilliance. Block design too. I finished all of them, though for the last two I got a bit distracted by the p.a. outside the door announcing phone calls and all of that.

Before the accident, I didn't realize how powerful my memory for events and phone numbers was [and is still]. If I had been asked, I would have told you that my memory was a mess. It wasn't. I had too much to do is all. It took an accident for me to realize how intelligent I am. My brain is broken, yes. But not to be discarded. To be cherished. I have names for various medical ailments and body parts. My period is Matilda. My recurrent ulcer responds to Medusa. Medusa for the snake-like vise she grips my gut with. My "piles" [how's that for an old-fashioned word?] are Frick and Frack. My post-injury brain is Briella. Briella, like a beach in New Jersey in the summertime. Twisted a bit. Briella is brilliant sideways.

I have written some of these things before in other places. I will probably write them again. I have to keep writing it. And writing it. And writing it. Get it down. Track my healing with words. In my writing I force my words to sing. When I set out across country, I hoped to find some scattered pieces of my self in places I had never been. I did. Like me in my very first memory of learning how to walk, my haphazard soul retrieval picked up momentum across the miles. I am back now, more myself than I have been in years.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 9:26 PM 0 comments links to this post

  INSTITUTIONALIZATION VS. REHABILITATION 5/17/07
In the state that is dieing to pay for almost everyone's health problems, it was interesting to note that some folks with brain injuries are crying "foul." The dirty little secret of nursing homes everywhere is that in the bid for dwindling funds, they have become repositories for folks with brain injuries [both acquired and traumatic], folks found to be mentally ill, folks unable to go home immediately after hospitalization but not sick enough to take up hospital beds and so forth. Anyone who has had direct experience with a loved one in a coma being shipped off to a nursing home [uh, thanks managed care and health mediphorical discintegrarganizations] is familiar with exactly what kind of "rehabilitation" such places offer. It is about time that folks with brain injuries stuck in nursing homes raise their voices in protest. Apparently, Massachusetts provides some services for some folks with t.b.i. but has ignored those folks with strokes and other acquired brain injuries by shutting them away in nursing homes.

Community living with natural supports is much preferred for any civil [civil= human being who is not a law-breaker, able to live in society without being a threat to that society] over institutionalization. Group homes are far down on the list of preferences, yet congregate living is still better than existence in a nursing home. The ideal is for folks with any disability to be able to choose where they will live and then given the means to utilize the [hopefully natural] supports needed to be successful. No doubt, most folks want to be in their own home surrounded by their loved ones. Some may wish to live in an apartment with or without a roommate or two. [N.B. Keeping one of us in a nursing home is far more expensive than allowing us to have a true say in our lives].

To those of you who talk about "special needs," we do not have "special needs." We have the same needs that you do. We have the same needs for self-determination, love, friendships, communications, mobility, sexual expression, productivity, societal roles, a space to call our own, and community participation that you have. Get a clue people. By calling our needs "special," you divorce yourselves from our humanity. Are you afraid that you will wind up like us? We are not contagious. [Wait. Maybe I am. Two of my friends came down with traumatic brain injury after I did]. I remember a woman boarding a bus in Phoenix. I was attempting to get my fare out to put it in the little fare grabbing machine which was new to me. She appeared to be afraid of my walking stick. Or maybe it was what the walking stick represented. Or maybe that somehow I was going to leap off of the bus and steal her bicycle on the rack outside in front of the bus. I dunno. Fear this. Fear a bunch of us united together in our anger and strength determined not to be locked away in nursing homes.

In this society, those of us who become disabled quickly find out what it is like to be a second-class citizen. Some surrender to despair, some ignore the situation, and the rest of us get angry and politically active through organizations like A.D.A.P.T. My sincere hope is that Massachusetts will choose to spend healthcare dollars on her disabled citizens stuck in nursing homes rather than continue to spend them on those pesky illegal aliens who are snapping up construction jobs [and cluttering up emergency rooms] all over the country.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: a.b.i., A.D.A.P.T., acquired brain injury, community living, institutionalization, nursing homes, rehabilitation, special needs, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 9:22 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Please read this.

I am totally pissed off. I have been part of an email support group for three years. It is for folks who have survived traumatic brain injury. Now my posts to the group [not that there are very many lately] have been put on "moderated" status because of the e-mail address I use for the group ending in "resistant-witches.com." Resistant-witches.com is my ten dollar push button domain that I bought a few months ago in order to stand with a couple of friends who were being bullied on-line. [Consequently, I also became a target, but oh well].

The owner of the group had originally written to me about others in the t.b.i. group who were writing to her because of their concern/paranoia that I am a witch, and/or the e-mail addy itself. I didn't save that short letter because I never expected it to escalate into this foolishness.
Excerpts of our correspondence follow:

Hi ________ ,

...It was another part of your e-mail that concerned me...you mentioned something about "how many people have written [to you] regarding the witch thing."

Are you meaning the domain name where I get my e-mails now? [which was set up to help people who have been targeted by on-line bullies]. Or my personal beliefs? [which I am not asking for anyone's approval of]
Or something else?
I am not understanding why either should be a matter of concern.

I have been willing to set aside my differences in order to remain on the t.b.i. list by practicing
celebration of diversity to include those who are christian of varying political persuasions or
who are heterosexual or who have different views of medications and natural healing etc.

Please clarify this thing about witches so that way I may contribute to an orderly t.b.i. survivor list.
I have no need to hijack threats or to convert people [forbidden in my religion, actually]
and at the same time when an adult asks me on the list what is the "iq" part of "glbtiq"
I would like the freedom to answer the same without going into any sort of gross detail.

And I certainly am not willing to hide my spirituality just as I am not willing for anyone else to hide theirs.

At the same time, I understand what an undertaking running a list is-- especially of folks who do not necessarily have to be similar
to each other except for the circumstance that we happen to share the experience of living with a brain injury.

sincerely,
spike q.


***

Hi Spike,

...After a B.I. so many are "paranoid" when something doesn't "look" or "sound" right
and they get antsy and unsubscribe...go through the subscribing thing all over again....

...Now the "witches" thing is what I've had a few people refer to and they are
wondering why anyone who would be a "witch" would be on this list, and it makes
them paranoid. So, I was hoping that you'd keep one of your old email addresses
that doesn't have anything about "witches" in any part of it....we're trying to keep
some sort of "family" and "normalcy" on the list...

...For those like me who aren't aware of why you got this email addy, the
"resistant-witches" sounds more like a "cult" than anything else and I really
don't want to give anyone on the list any reason to "doubt" or "wonder" about the
T.B.I. group. It just "looks" like something they should worry about, you know?

...You may give some thought as to "why" people are bugging you...

...___________...

***

Thanks for explaining stuff to this brain, _______...

...There are a few folks on the list from time to time with alternative spirituality practices
and it is for those folks that I will not go back into the closet of assumption.
I am what I am. And yes, I am a witch, and not even of the wiccan variety.
Part of dealing with a traumatic brain injury involves learning or re-learning how to live
in the world among folks who do not believe or think the way we do now.

...There are non-christians who come down with this t.b.i. thing
and maybe "ask spike" might also serve [in some cases, for the less jittery]
just as well as explaining that resistant-witches is an e-mail provider
or even that not everyone on the list is a christian-- depending upon who
you are responding to...

...[I will continue to]...leave my personal spiritual practices
off-list unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise
[and there never has been to date]....

...Peace to ya,
spike q.

***

Hi Spike!
I did some thinking about how to answer you...and then
decided to do a search for "resistant witches" because you
"said" it was an I.S.P. server....[dots hers] it was not. What I found was your web site
http://www.resistant-witches.com and found the "definition" of what you
practice...I also noticed that there was nothing about
"email bullies" , but only about witches and that you were tired of being quiet
(so to speak).

I also noticed that this web page was very "negative" and showed lots of
"anger." This is NOT what we are trying to pass on to the T.B.I. list either...
your...Yahoo profile page which is also very "expressive."...gays and all sorts of other religions
and polotics are being forced upon me, offensive clothing and such...
...but when a sex offender molests a child and is allowed to live close to
my neighborhood I don't like it...collecting welfare...I still have to fight for
my own rights. Fairness has nothing to do with it. As long as I live in
this country, I must abide by their rules...

...If you'll read the rules of the list once more, you'll see that "politics,
religion and sex" are NOT allowed...By letting you publically use this email name on this list you
are pushing your religious beliefs onto the list, whether you are talking about
it in an email or not. This is NOT allowed...

If my email address ended in JesusIsLord.com, I would be in violation of the
same rules. You don't have to "talk" about your beliefs because you've already
made a "statement" that you are a witch and that statement is shown in your
email address...

...I think if you thought
about the possibilities, you would understand why this can be trouble for a list
like this one and if you cared about being on the list or those on it, you would
say "ok, no problem."..."Why" give them a chance to bring up this subject on the list?

...Your posts will be moderated
at this time until you get your email address changed...following the rules....

_________

***

apparently i expressed myself wrongly.
resistant-witches is a domain which has e-mail addys attached to it.

i am to be judged because of an email addy.
i will not justify my beliefs or practices to you or to anyone.
nor will i justify the homepage that you found that is indeed
in response to internet bullies--
not "email bullies."
i have other avenues of support.
i am not defenseless.

furthermore, you know nothing of the situation at hand that
i have been dealing with.

choosing to exclude people whose email addys happen to end
in resistant-witches.com
or even in jesusislord.com is your perogative.

i am also tired of assumptions.
spike q.

I unsubbed from the group. Fuck it.

Labels: pagan, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, witch

  ¶ 1:56 AM 0 comments links to this post

  IMPULSIVITY AND DECISION-MAKING 5/6/07 On my trip to various cities out west, I was directly confronted with my increased impulsivity courtesy of my traumatic brain injury. My first day in Chicago, I cursed out a store employee at the airport [under my breath] because he claimed not to have change "even if" I "bought something" which I was willing to do. I needed a single for the subway so I could get to the train station. I removed myself and reminded myself that he was doing his job and that was that. Mentally, I congratulated myself for exercising some restraint. I did get my change but not from him. I cursed out someone else somewheres else-- again under my breath-- but I remember neither the time nor the circumstance.

In Phoenix I had to admit that my impulsivity could lead to dangerous consequences. When I took one bus that turned before I needed it to and didn't allow the driver to complete an explanation [which she gave to another passenger a few stops later] that another bus was coming which would take me to my destination, I was left on a corner wondering if I should "walk" the remaining distance. Fortunately, I remembered something about calling and asking someone with sense about these things. So I called my friend with my [borrowed] cellphone and I learned that I should not walk through Papago Park on a hot day. So I waited for the bus. The first few days in the Sonoran Desert which was Phoenix Arizona, I noted that people carried water or Gatorade with them. It took me several days [and a very long walk to and from the zoo-- from and to a bus stop-- with no taxis in sight] for me to connect with the idea that I need to drink more fluids AND to also carry water or Gatorade with me.

In trying to keep up with the demands involved in re-learning how to utilize public transit, I put myself at risk for dehydration. I was "lucky" not to endure medical consequences for my poor decision-making combined with my impulsivity. By time I got to Sedona, I was carrying water with me almost everywhere I went. Sedona's weather was a tad cooler but hydration still a necessity. I also elected to take jeep tours rather than walk great distances to unfamiliar hiking trails.

This impulsivity is polar opposite to my pre-injury personality which involved cursing people out [not always under my breath] but did not involve risk-taking, especially with health concerns. I survived the Sonoran and learned a few things about my vulnerabilities and liabilities in the process. When the airplane taking me home was landing, I felt triumphant for managing to [mostly] take care of myself and [mostly] making good enough decisions over the past three weeks alone.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: decisions, executive function, impulsivity, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 9:59 PM 0 comments links to this post

  SHOULD FOLKS WITH T.B.I. OWN GUNS? 4/22/07 Many of us with traumatic brain injuries wind up with an exacerbation of mental symptoms or with new ones, depending. For most of us, the deal is clinical depression-- Major Depression. For a few, it's schizophrenia. Furthermore, those of us who weren't addicted [to alcohol and/or to other drugs] before the t.b.i. run an increased risk of addiction afterwards. And those of us who have maintained some sort of recovery run an increased risk of relapse.

No, I don't own a gun and don't have access to any guns.
No, I don't think that gun ownership is a worthwhile goal for those of us with traumatic brain injuries to go after.

If there ever becomes a list of names of people who are forbidden to own guns, I will voluntarily ask that my name be put on it.

sapphoq healing tbi

Labels: guns, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 2:31 AM 0 comments links to this post

  SHOULD FOLKS WITH T.B.I. OWN GUNS? 4/22/07 Many of us with traumatic brain injuries wind up with an exacerbation of mental symptoms or with new ones, depending. For most of us, the deal is clinical depression-- Major Depression. For a few, it's schizophrenia. Furthermore, those of us who weren't addicted [to alcohol and/or to other drugs] before the t.b.i. run an increased risk of addiction afterwards. And those of us who have maintained some sort of recovery run an increased risk of relapse.

No, I don't own a gun and don't have access to any guns.
No, I don't think that gun ownership is a worthwhile goal for those of us with traumatic brain injuries to go after.

If there ever becomes a list of names of people who are forbidden to own guns, I will voluntarily ask that my name be put on it.

Labels: guns, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 2:31 AM 0 comments links to this post

  ENDO 4/14/07
Two endocrinologists from Italy have noted a correlation between traumatic brain injury and the onset of hypopituitarism based on their literature review. Because of costs, they recommend referral to an endocrinologist on a case-by-case basis.

Post-concussion Syndrome was mentioned and the similarity between symptoms noted. Correlation does not prove causality however. The superficial sharing of symptoms on a list proves nothing.

I was not pleased by the authors' suggestion that folks in vegetative comas be thrown out and folks with mTBI be thrown out.

Why not throw everyone out except for those unfortunates with P.C.S. whose complaints are very often viewed with skepticism by the medical community on the whole and many practitioners of medicine individually?

Or why not do the research to further identify patients with traumatic brain injury who should be referred to an endocrinologist who is familiar with t.b.i.?

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: mTBI, P.C.S., post-concussive syndrome, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 2:32 PM 0 comments links to this post

  BRAIN FOG 4/2/07 While surfing around Medscape, I found a reference to this website about Post-Polio Sequelae:
http://postpolioinfo.com/PostPolio/
The open letter to physicians is worth reading.

Along the left-hand side are tabs, one of which will take you to the library.
The library hosts links to a variety of articles, some of which deal with similarities found between the fatigue that a Post-Polio Sequelae patient experiences and the fatigue associated with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Also mentioned in the articles is the brain fog which I have become very well-acquainted with in my own struggle with fibro courtesy of traumatic brain injury.

Although the articles are not specifically written about T.B.I., they are worth reading. Folks who have sleeping problems or fibro not associated with t.b.i. will also find a visit to the site worthwhile.

sapphoq healing tbi

Labels: fatigue, fibro, P.P.S., post-polio, post-polio sequelae, post-polio syndrome, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 12:36 AM 0 comments links to this post

  BRAIN INJURY PLUS ADDICTIONS 3/30/07 There's yet another criminal in the news-- this time in England-- using the brain injury defense for what he done. At least this time, William McHenry is admitting to stealing pocketbooks from library patrons AND getting help for a drinking problem. McHenry has been sober since February [hats off to him for that!] and lists his alcohol addiction as the motivation for stealing. It costs money to drink and that is that.

The development [or sometimes exacerbation] of addiction is common sequelae to a traumatic brain injury. McHenry got his from his house ceiling falling upon his head back in 2005. I wish him the best of luck as he is taking responsibility for what he done and is getting treatment for his alcoholic addiction.

People with traumatic brain injuries should not drink or use illicit drugs at all. Seems that the injury itself lends to addictive behaviors. I think as research is done in addictions treatment, it may very well dawn on someone that here is a population of underserved potential customers. Yes, folks with t.b.i. need education in things like addiction and doctors need education in things like t.b.i. and pain management.

Unfortunately, the classic classroom approach to addictions treatment is doomed for failure with t.b.i.-ers. So those who wish to run such programs will have to quit the cookie cutter approach if they want some stats showing that treatment can work.

Addictions treatment right now is rather hideous on the whole. The often touted un-success rate is an indictment against such treatment rather than an indication of any 'truth' to the current party line excuse "relapse is part of recovery." The idea that especially vulnerable populations-- such as t.b.i.-ers and those folks who have been labeled as mentally ill plus addicts-- are getting especially disaster-prone results out of addictions treatment should be serving as a wake-up call. Real people are dieing. We are not a bunch of statistics. With the money poured into the addictions treatment industry, it's about time that the industry be held accountable for some real results.

At any rate, I certainly wish William McHenry the very best in his endeavors to turn his life around.

sapphoq healing tbi

Labels: crime, England, t.b.i., traumatic+brain+injury, William McHenry

  ¶ 10:34 AM 0 comments links to this post

  PLANNING 3/26/07 I am going away cross-country. When planning an itinerary, I discovered that thinking ahead in a linear fashion [the way I used to] was no longer second nature. [Drat the damage to my executive functions.] Instead, my t.b.i.-related random chaotic style of doing things has infiltrated far beyond the boundaries of household organization. Yeah, that is what travel agents are for.

Unfortunately, the travel agent was doing a good job of imitating a nervous wreck during my three hour session with her. She was in a mad rush to get me out of there. At the end, she threw the itinerary on the desk and said, "This is it. If you sign this, there can be no changes." It appears that I have already posted about this singularly difficult encounter with the forces of order. Onward ho.

Upon getting everything home, I was informed that no, I did not have to be back for a commitment at the end of April. That commitment is at the end of May. I also realized that one of the connections that the harried travel agent had provided me with was of the "no way Hosea" variety-- as in, no way could I move fast enough for that. I took the weekend off to recuperate and to think about my options.

This morning I got on the phone to fix and amend and alter what I had to.
The upshot after spending a morning's worth of aggravation and phone calls is that I will be leaving a day earlier than I thought and coming back four days later. And renting a car for a day in order to make it to one spot which wasn't doable without spending most of a night in a train station waiting for a transfer.

Now I have several choices. I can continue to grieve the change in my thinking processes-- a total waste of time. I've done enough of that. Something in my inner core was permanently altered by my whacked out neurological landscape. I've known this since I got out of the car after the accident. I can accept it without having to wear the shackle of must stamp the seal of approval on it today. I can bitch and moan. That option is also rather unattractive. A constant diet of cognitive stew is boring. There are a few other options I'm sure that I am missing here. What I am putting my self-determination to is the idea of being happy that I am able to go on an extensive vacation. Because not everyone can.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.




sapphoq
executive function
frontal lobe damage

Labels: executive function, t.b.i., tbi, thinking, traumatic+brain+injury, travel

  ¶ 1:00 PM 0 comments links to this post

  T.B.I AND DEAD PEOPLE 3/23/07 I like mornings alright. It's something inside of me really. Something that resents change. Those between times where I shake myself from infested sleep, where the boundaries are blurred. Tapping into power. It is not something inside of me. It is I who doesn't care for the murky undefined borderlands of between.

The dog is instantly awake. She is my startling opposite. Frizzly energy to my melancholy. She explodes with happiness. My dog celebrates mornings for both of us. We are a community intertwined in Destiny herself, my dog and I. Without her, my fear would have rendered me sterile. Taken me down and drowned me in the onslaught of my atypical neurology.

It is my fear that chokes me. I will not be remembered. I will not have made enough of a difference. That is my fear. My dog knows this. She pushes me on and out into the sunlight. Blinking with pain and photophobia, I shield my eyes, always glad to return to the safety of home and dim lighting.

Home is where I hang my hat, hang the dog leash, stash my protein breakfast bars of power and frozen colored ices. Those bars of power are the breakfasts of champions.

Mrs. Eugenia Simpson gyrates onto the stage, clickety-clack, screaming for notice. It is a curse, this 99th percentile memory which survived through my broken brain. It is a curse, this second sight, third eye, and fourth dimension. "Eugenia," I address her, "I don't care what you think about my breakfast. I didn't know you thought about me after all of these years. You are dead you know. D-E-A-D dead." She throws my eighth grade health book at me. It opens to the how to eat correctly and what to eat when triangle. I laugh. She keeps dancing.

Some wise fool once defined nirvana as a day without dead people and traumatic brain injury. The ghosts keep floating through me as more memories filter in, like sunlight stinging my eyes. Rebuilding neurons and synapses yield dead ends of central nervous system tremor. Permanent. Another mark of progress. I have been marked beyond skin and sinew.

Community is the who around me, the us, dead people and all. I have neglected so much in my artificial quest for wholeness. I have forgotten the Other. The Other whose land we have stolen. I am also the Other. The interior landscapes of my brain has also been stolen, twisted beyond recognition, and left in a dumpster.

I am a second generation American. Briella is my second generation brain. Brilliant but sideways. Doing the two-step to Eugenia's celebratory dance. My dog nudges me. She dances and sings to me, "It's okay to let go of the gilded lily. It is not yours to pay. Come play with me in the wilderness." Somehow I think that didn't translate so well. I sigh and pick up the dog leash. We step out into the wilderness together.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.

Labels: dead people, ghosts, motivation, shadows, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, travel

  ¶ 11:31 AM 0 comments links to this post

  SIGN, SIGN, EVERYWHERE'S A SIGN 3/14/07
When I first came down with my traumatic brain injury, I became very self-focused out of necessity. Nothing was automatic anymore. I had to think constantly about what I was doing-- everyday things that we take for granted required excessive thinking. And so I navigated my way through a world that had suddenly transformed itself into an alien landscape. The familiar became strange. I didn't recognize my own self.
My taste in music changed. Later, when I was able to tolerate reading, I found that I no longer enjoyed the same kinds of books. New interests took over. I found that I could not assemble the old pieces of my old life. I had to reconstruct myself. And no one could do that for me.

It came to me that I had to force myself to think, even when not thinking would have been easier. I had to force myself to think about my future and what I wanted. I had to force myself to think about how to advocate for what I needed medically. In re-learning the patterns of living, I turned to the internet. I stumbled into a t.b.i. chatroom. In that chatroom, we spent many serious hours attempting to name the seven dwarves. I learned how to read t.b.i-typese. [None of us could spell worth a damn.] And with my new internet buddies, I learned how to laugh again.

The folks in the chatroom told me that I would have to be in charge of my own rehabilitation. I was getting vision therapy and physical therapy but no cognitive rehabilitation. Following the advice I was given in chat, I sought out various brain games on the internet. I became obsessed with Snood. And at a store, I found a large-screen hand-held Tetris. I also crocheted cotton washcloths and went to the gym as soon as I was able to. When I did get kicked out of cognitive art rehabilitation therapy months later, I continued the things I had been doing already. I discovered blogging and computer art. Now I am slowly learning how to animate. I have to think that through since I am unable to follow the directions as of yet.

Once or twice throughout my life, I have been accused of "thinking too much" as if that were a bad thing. Forcing myself to think has served me well in my own healing journey. Some days I sit and think about thinking. Like the sign says: Thinking really does tickle the brain cells.

sapphoq healing tbi

Labels: cognition, t.b.i., tbi, thinking, traumatic+brain+injury, treatment

  ¶ 1:42 AM 0 comments links to this post

  KILLING THE KILLERS AND TREATING OUR VETS 3/5/07 Rocky Mountain News reports that a prisoner with a traumatic brain injury [and P.T.S.D. who also hears voices] along with his cousin allegedly killed a third inmate back in 1999. William Sablan-- the prisoner with the t.b.i.-- was taped pulling out guts [from the sliced abdomen] of dead man Joey Estrella and showing them to a guard who was awaiting entry into the prison cell. William Sablan, who had arrived at the prison three days earlier and not given a psych exam at that time, also drank from a bottle which he said contained Estrella's blood and boasted loudly that he had killed Estrella. His clothing was covered with the blood of the murder victim.

Sablan's cousin Rudy Sablan was the third cellmate. He is also accused of the murder of Estrella. Both men face the death penalty if convicted. Estrella was choked with a headphone cord around his neck allegedly by Rudy Sablan. This was followed by the slitting of his throat with a prison-issued razor allegedly by William Sablan. It is the loss of blood from the throat wound that caused Estrella's death. Neuropsych Reuben Gur testified that William Sablan's brain injury limited his ability to plan the murder and to control his behavior.

Another inmate, Arthur Peck, testified that William Sablan and Joey Estrella were drinking and fighting in the cell on the evening of the murder. He also maintained that he saw Rudy Sablan choking Estrella with the headphone cord.

William Sablan's other criminal activities included burglary, assault, and the takeover of a fed pen. He has confessed to the crime, adding that it wasn't any big deal. The defense team is maintaining that "he couldn't help it."

Oh pluuu---ease. Dude did it. Dude said he did it. Dude had enough of a functioning brain to play a significant part in the planned takeover of a fed pen in Saipan. And now what? We are supposed to feel sorry for him. If dude is "unable" to control his behavior, dude is still a huge risk for doing it again. Furthermore, dude was drinking. Folks with t.b.i. are not supposed to drink even a little bit, whether in the penal system or not. radical sapphoq says: guy needs to fry.

Meanwhile, some real heroes are going without adequate treatment for traumatic brain injuries received in the blasted war over in Iran and all the rest of those places. The Veteran's Admin can boast all it wants to about assigning case managers to soldiers. Soldiers are being kicked out of the hospital early, being given inadequate directions to find caseworkers or out-patient clinics, being threatened with cutoff of treatment because their families didn't want them to be sleeping all the time so private treatment was sought and obtained, or being told they were "always slow" and are faking brain injuries for show.

I'd say our priorities are mixed up. Taxpayers are footing the astronomical bill for William Sablan's defense lawyer. Yet our soldiers are going without. Our soldiers deserve the absolute best state-of-the-art treatment for every single medical ailment they have in clean and beautiful surroundings for the rest of their lives, not just for two years after combat as currently allowed. Apparently Walter Reed Hospital has a mold problem. I'd say that is the very least of what is wrong with the system of health care for our returning vets. Let's hope that the new head of the hospital can get the hospital's act together a bit better.

radical sapphoq


http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5388591,00.html

http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=10&a=285682

http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/news/11139919/detail.html

http://presszoom.com/story_124920.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/washington/05cnd-medical.html?hp

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5352887,00.html

http://origin.denverpost.com/lacrosse/ci_5213142

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5348167,00.html

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_5164805

http://www.kktv.com/home/headlines/5770311.html

http://www.shortnews.com/shownews.cfm?id=60193

Labels: Estrella, murder, Sablan, t.b.i., traumatic+brain+injury, treatment, V.A., Walter+Reed, war

  ¶ 5:55 PM 0 comments links to this post

  HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS FOR TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY 3/3/07 Caroline Cassels for Medscape Medical News reports on results of a study* which demonstrated that hospital admission rates for traumatic brain injuries [t.b.i.] increased from 2002 to 2003. The rates of hospitalization were 79/100,000 and 87.9/100,000 respectively. Motor vehicle accidents remained at the top with 32.1/100,000. Falls were a close second at 29.8/100,000. At third place, assaults were at 7.1/100,000. Rates of hospitalizations were highest for older men over the age of 75 and lowest for children.

64.9% of the patients were discharged home with no care or with unskilled assistance, 3.7% home with home health care, 9% to residential health-care facilities, and 7.7% to rehabs. 6.8% of in-patient hospital admissions died before discharge.

It is noted that the study's limitations were due to:
"Preadmission deaths that might have been TBI-related.
Persons treated and discharged from emergency departments
. Persons who sought care in outpatient clinics and physicians' offices.
Persons who did not seek medical care after injury." [end of direct quote]

*Authored by V.G. Coronado, MD, K.E. Thomas, and S.R. Kegler, PhD

sapphoq healing t.b.i.


http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/553025

MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2007;56:167-170.

Labels: hospitalization+rates, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury

  ¶ 5:59 PM 0 comments links to this post