Hi dhope -

I was in a really bad auto accident on my way to work and that's how I sustained the mTBI I am still recovering from.

I was unable to work or drive for a little over a year and after it was determined that I could return to work I could only work for about 12 hours a week. That minimum schedule lasted for months until I was able to increase my hours at work to 20 hours a week.

Before the accident, I regularly worked 60 hours a week, I had one full time job and three part time jobs. My house and car were always clean and I looked great! I was a super smart, go-getter and I was also seriously looking into graduate programs as well. (I had been offered to enter one free, but I was exploring my options.)

In the first year after the accident I had trouble calculating even simple math (single digit addition, etc.) Now, I am doing better cognitively and my Dr. was only recently able to tell me she expects me to be "normal" again based on what my progress has been over the last 20 months - but before that it was "We'll just have to wait and see..."

I know how difficult it is to think you may not be able to accomplish what you had planned.

I know how difficult it is to not be able to function as well as you once did.

Most of here know those things all too well.

You're still pretty early on in your recovery. Make sure you pay attention to your nutrition and health. What you ingest is ultimately what is feeding your brain to work and heal. There are a lot of threads that have great advice about nutrition that helps a person to recover from a brain injury. Take a multi-vitamin, take a good B-complex, perhaps take extra B12 every day in addition to that, take your Omega 3-6-9 oil, and there are other supplements that may help you too, such as: CDP Choline, Phosphatidylserine, BCAA's, D-Ribose and Acetyl L-Carnitine.

Sometimes people just randomly get all better over night - even after a long recovery. I'm still hoping for this to happen to me - you should put that on the front of you "hope" list IMO.

Try to avoid worrying - the worrying, anxiety and depression create chemicals in the brain that aren't conducive to healing.

Try to have faith that you will get better. That's what I have done - even when I was really, really bad and I'm doing a LOT better now. It helped keep my mood up and that couldn't have been a bad thing for my recovery and just overall well-being.