Brain Injured not Brain Dead

Brain Injury - Deal With It.

I have to admit that sometimes the issues I am left with from my brain injury five and a half years ago can still be hard to accept. More often than not the pros out way the cons but when it is the other way around I can be a little impatient. At the moment I am still struggling with increased fatigue and have not played tennis or gone to the gym for some months. I have cut back on the amount of teenage taxi driving I will do and have decreased my working hours by one-third but the onset of the summer heat and humidity have always been a challenge to my energy levels (not unlike most other people I suppose). Patience! Again! I have started exercising gently at home again to try and build up my stamina, which is how I became fit when I began this regime last year.

Don't get me wrong, I do not feel sorry for myself, far from it. I know I am very lucky but my impatience and frustration can surface at times like this.

Allow me to have a whinge:

When people do not appreciate what I have to deal with every day and expect me to "get over it" I tend to ignore it. Annoying but you have to accept ignorance. The number of supportive people in my life out way the ignorants by far.

BUT...I cannot stand people who accept my limitations but try to add to it by treating me like a village idiot. I avoid them like the plague. A work colleague, who luckily I see little of, always makes a big deal of my leaving time (lunch time) and makes a fuss, a kind of celebration if you will. I prefer to say goodbye like any other worker leaving for the day. I try hard to avoid seeing him at home time.

The worst by far is the woman in a local kitchen shop who knows well my history. Every time I go in there there are questions on whether I am doing OK, can I manage, all with that high pitched girly voice and sorrowful eyes. Please! She blew me out of the water one day when I was shopping for a garlic crusher. I have trouble squeezing the two arms of your standard garlic crusher together like many people not muscle bound and so I wanted a good one with some power to it. When I explained my predicament the first thing she says to me is "Oh you poor thing". Again with the sorrowful eyes and high pitched voice. My lack of prowess with a garlic crusher has nothing to do with my brain woman!

I actually really like the products in this kitchen shop and will continue to shop there but will no longer seek advice from that particular shop assistant and will avoid eye contact as best I can.

My friends and family still tease me and still borrow my short term memory issues when it suits them. My Soul Sister calls it brain injury by osmosis. I love it. If we didn't face life's challenges with a smile on our face life would be very dull and at times quite hard. I am not always a Little Miss Sunshine as could be confirmed by my Lovely Husband and teenagers but I try. My sometimes Lovely Husband agrees, I am very trying! (Son of a motherless goat!)