Brain Injury

Good Monday Evening, October 1, 2018 @ 19:20:33 MT. I have adjusted my time here in my chamber to earlier because I have changed in many ways since beginning these dives just a month and a half ago. I enjoyed taking them and being tired following it so I would go right to bed and sleep. Now, the dives invigorate me. It’s good to know that there are tangible effects of these daily dives. So beginning today I will take them in the late afternoon-early evening. Yahoo!

I have had a pretty full day so relaxing here in the chamber is peaceful to me. Its like visiting an old friend. Familiar, comfortable and very safe. Last night and again today I am using a mask for the oxygen. It is a bit confining but I think that it is more beneficial than the cannulae. I will have to ask Dr Hughes about it when I see him. My ears did not react the inflation. I yawned before I put my mask on and all is good! I am so glad that I also have figured out how to make the internal temperature welcoming for me here in the chamber. We have a bucket that we put 6-10 small lunch ice packs in and then load with the air hoses to cool the air that flows inside the chamber. The personal fan is blowing at my neck on my left shoulder so that feels good too. The large body ice pack is wrapped in a towel and I am sitting against it so I get the cool feeling and it also addresses any kinks in my back at the same time.

BTW, my foot is healing so well. I have an appointment with my surgeon for suture removal on Wednesday. Another Yahoo!

Brain Injury. I am here in my Summit-To-Sea 60″ Vertical mHBOT Chamber for treatment and reversal of many of the symptoms I experience because of the fall I had at work 2.5 years ago. I want to discuss the cognitive aspects of brain injury that I am at the moment considering.

A Brain Injury is concussive and it is also traumatic. I have experienced many cognitive issues that have brought me to this point in my life where I am unable to work, unable to be in crowds, unable to take long walks or hikes, unable to speak clearly or understand what you are saying at times. There are many more cognitive issues that frustrate me and make me cry. They cause me to isolate out of fear. They cause me to be reactive and also unresponsive because I no longer understand what you are trying to say.

I once was able to do so many tasks that are an impossibility or too technical for me to attempt today. Simple information is not fluidly processed. I have almost mastered remembering a series of items or steps related to baking. I have become OCD to even brush my teeth or recently take the supplement regime Dr Hughes has me on. I have to sequence by having every ingredient in a row on the counter in the order they are printed on a recipe and I have to review the order repeatedly before beginning to mix those ingredients. If I do not put the ingredient away exactly where I found it before I go to the next ingredient on the list I get frustrated and feel hopeless. And please do not interrupt me while I am in the middle of doing anything. I forget. I look at you with a dumb curiosity and give up. I throw in the towel. Planning and organizing takes me much longer than before. I prepare baggies of my supplements and D’s supplements for the week. It the bottles were not labeled and not in the order I remember I fall apart and dump everything out that I had already completed to begin all over again. Its exhausting. Thought are not continuous or remembered so if you say something while I am doing something else, I will not answer you at all or ten minutes later look at you and ask you to repeat yourself. By then, the other person has no idea. Know that I am not deliberately inattentive or don’t care. I do. You matter a whole bunch. I just can’t concentrate well enough any more.

My primary physician returned me to work six weeks following my Brain Injury. I was not ready to be there. It’s a grocery store. The noise of each of the cash registers and the lights and all of the merchandise so confused me. I could not stand up without falling over unless I was leaning on a counter. I could no longer see well either so what I saw did not make sense in my mixed up brain. I worked the customer service counter only when I returned to work. O my goodness. Customers did not want me to take 10 minutes to purchase a lotto ticket or get a refund on an item they were returning. If I answered the phone I did not remember what the person said after two spoken words. I fell apart. I lasted less than a few weeks. I worked initially 20 hours per week and then was dropped to 2 hours a day.  I nearly crawled into my primary physicians office where I cried and collapsed in exhaustion. I could not do even a marginal job. It was impossible. And I was so defeated and felt little worth. Try keeping an open mind or a flexible mind when it comes to simple things. I couldn’t and I still have a hard time with the rigidity I live with.

Those are just a few of the cognitive issues that make up my world since the Brain Injury.

Its tough folks. It’s the hardest mountain I have every climbed. Its the farthest ocean I have ever attempted to cross. I also can not do it alone. Not one day alone. I need D. I need our grown children. I need my Mom (I love you so much, Mom). I need my friends. I need this blog. I need the friends I have in all of the groups I belong to since my Brain Injury.

Thank you for taking the time to be with me today.

Hugs,

Suz