Bachissimo--I firmly believe that you will run a marathon one day again. I really do.

You weren't trolling the post at all. I hold out hope that I can one day maybe race my bike again. But if I can't, that's fine, too. I kept thinking that I would one day just wake up and feel like my "old" self again--it was torture to me. Now, even if I have a bad day I'll still try to enjoy it. Looking back at the past is now counterproductive for me, personally.

Also, I must say that talking to professionals at our local brain injury center was invaluable to me. The nature of my injury was such that a 1 year recovery, or even longer, isn't out of the ordinary, especially with anxiety, depression and some PTSD thrown in the mix (the severe concussion that I had was the final event in a long series of traumatic events that happened to me, my immediate family and my close friends). I will be re-tested at 14 months. I also had another bad concussion at 15 years old, and probably some other minor ones that weren't really diagnosed, and unfortunately this really adds to the recovery time. Everything about this makes sense to me now, whereas it didn't at all before. The brain injury folks really helped me with this-(esp. the neuropsych). Time, patience, acceptance and a low stress life are all key.

Finally, I just met a woman who runs our brain injury support group. She is wonderful and bright and just finished her masters degree. Her injury? Blindsided by a car, head into windshield and then on to the pavement--multiple skull fractures, midline-shift, subdural hemotoma, cerebral edema and other injuries to her brain. It has taken her years and years and she will always be recovering, but people recover to lead happy lives from terrible brain injuries. Her story really put things in perspective for me.