In some ways it's probably poor practice to come on and post only when there's bad news to share, as it gives everyone else a lopsided perspective of what others' recoveries actually look like. For that I apologize in advance. But surely most of you will understand the impulse to try and "make up for lost time", or how fully and desperately one wants to integrate back in to society when the opportunity arises.

I had come such a long way in the 2.5 years since my last injury, and the time since my first post. So much has changed so recently, at least it seems. There were still problems, but for the most part, I'd finally come to see that there is LIFE to be lived WITH brain injury. In the past 6 months I'd been having fun again. I'd been learning. I'd been going easy on myself and allowing some of the wounds from the years of stress and trauma to heal. Making new connections, and revisiting old ones (inside and out). Slowly, but I feel, successfully, I have been becoming a new person. Maybe not always the person I want to be, or as fully immersed in 'regular life' as I would like (nor as symptom free), but the transition had been happening in a big way. I even got in with a vocational rehabilitation program and re-enrolled in school this spring, and overall, felt confident that I would have a pathway out of this position socially.

Today, I fear, that all changes. On the train ride back from class, I was sitting with my eyes closed and headphones in with light classical music playing, just trying to decompress from all the stimulation throughout the day. I was excited to go home and rest. Some IDIOT on the train who was standing without holding a guide rail lost their footing when the train lurched and sent their entire body weight, elbow protruding, into the left temporal area of my head. My head went whipping back and to the side. Another passenger who had witnessed it was looking me in the eye like they thought I should have gotten up and punched the man.

Well I got up and got out of that goddamn train car - FAST. Then, hours after, came some damn unsettling feelings and sensations. I'm finding it difficult to separate my fears and bad expectations from the reality of what may or may not be the result of the impact, and at least some part of me thinks it will all be OK. But after all's said and done, who really knows how much force is enough to send someone back to the worst of it all? I don't feel optimistic, but all I can do is sit and wait. This is the first time in 1.5 years that I actually broke down and left my doctor a voicemail, sobbing, letting them know something may be wrong. I just….
I don't know. I'm scared to go back to the beginning. Losing everything once was hard enough.
Wish me luck. And to anyone else suffering today, hang in there.