This time of year in the UK is always grey and frankly it can be quite miserable on occasions;short days, wind, rain, cold but now that I have the experience of a previous year of understanding the effect of that on my damaged brain I know that it turns the dial up a notch or appears to when it comes to the pain and fatigue I live with now. That means that when that happens is it's less scary, I am less convinced that something terrible is amiss and can reassure the gremlin voices that it will pass , which it does, but my ego and I battle daily as I so want to do everything at the pace of old and I just can't manage it especially when the weather is at its worst, I may look the same but the voltage I run on is very different these days and I just can't function as well. Those times are the hardest, accepting that today I need to take a stick when I walk the dog not because the ground is unsteady but because i am and not being cross about that but actually grateful at the chance to walk.
Not a day passes when I don't appreciate the good fortune I have had in my recovery, sure it's not all a rose garden but I can see my progress and i have regained so much and know that the story could be so very different so I have much to be thankful for even on the grey days and that helps.
Brain injuries are a truly invisible condition and just this week I learnt an astonishing fact that over a million people in the uk alone are disabled by theirs and I imagine many of those are not obvious to people around them. I don't think I would use that description to apply to me but I am definitely limited by the lasting damage from my bleed , hydrocephalus and surgeries but hopefully as the years pass I will learn to extend beyond those limits and find new routes to continue following my dreams.
This march will see me mark three years since my life changing massive brain pop but taking each day for what it is has served me well and is a practise I will continue with. I'm not sure how much I will blog this year about my further recovery not because I think I have finished the story but I have different goals for this year so maybe I'll blog about that, we will see.
Happy new year everyone. Hope it's healthy and spiced with happy moments.
