Congratulations Mia!

It feels good huh? I returned to massage school 8 months post injury. I was able to graduate a year later with ADA assistance in-classroom. I'm so impressed you can do online classes! That's just awesome.

It seemed the classes where I had previous knowledge were easier since it was already in my long term memory. Do you notice the same? Learning and memorization was a challenge with new information (muscle attachment sites...ugh), but creating flashcards helped. Cognitive brain drain happened often and I bet working online adds it's own level of difficulty with eye strain.

Be careful with the "no pain, no gain" thought - pain lets us know when to set a boundary in tbi. I know because I didn't do this at first which increased my symptoms and made it harder to learn and set me back a bit. I don't want anybody making my same mistake. Be gentle with yourself and don't hesitate to ask for any/all school resources. Attitude and perseverance are your best tools. Cheers!!!

I'm going to post some things I learned when going back to school to help other students - hopefully later today. Simple things tripped me up in tests that took awhile for the teachers to figure out - graphics like model of the brain was flipped visually on the exam and I failed labeling it because it differed from our book - my brain didn't like the direction change and totally blanked during the exam. I was so embarrassed! Things like that are so simple, but to an injured brain it can make the difference in passing or failing an exam.

Congrats again!!

~Kristy