PedalSpinner..

How did you get the diagnoses of a nerve injury? Were there special tests or scans done?

Thank you.

Thanks, Mark!
I forwarded that on to Greg, have talked to him some about it, and am looking through it my self. I really appreciate your rounding it up for me.

I had a hard day today. I am back at work, but part time, and am struggling. I want so badly to believe that I am okey dokey and everything is fine. Sometimes I feel (almost) ok, and then things get worse. Today I had to go test a student at a middle school but he wasn't on the main campus. He was in this building that they call "a school within a school", but where was it. "Oh, over near that restaurant - in between that and the post office". I went home last night hoping I could find it on the school map. Nope. So I went in this morning, hoping they could get him over to my office. Nope. I had to find this building and test him over there. "You just go past the stop sign and turn left." Which stop sign? Huh? Finally, the secretary took me outside, we talked down the length of the building, and she showed me where you could see it if you looked carefully between two other buildings.

So I went over there and tested this kid, the first of two tests. That mostly went ok. I usually do the tests back to back and it takes 3 to 3-1/2 hours. Today we just did one of the two tests and it took two hours. When I was through my head hurt all the way from the top of my head, down my neck and back to the shoulder blade and then out to that same side. Now it is 9 hours after that was all done and I have tingling all throughout my neck and a bad headache.

I've been trying to figure out how to do this paperwork and couldn't figure out why or how I didn't know how to do it. Then I remembered that in the setting where I was working, I actually wasn't doing this paperwork for the last 6-1/2 years - the Special Education teacher was doing it. How would I ever remember it? I can't figure out what I should be on top of and what would not be expected of me in any condition I was in. I really really want to look like nothing is wrong with me, but it seems like the more desperately I want that, the more I realize it's just not true. Then I think I am maybe just faking it, even to myself, and then I remember that I have had a headache every day for over three months, after not having a headache for 6-1/2 years.

I am trying to wish myself to an immediate resolution of my PCS and I'm thinking this is not exactly working...

One of the toughest parts of PCS is learning the new ways to do things that we need to do. The old ways we did things, often without even a second thought, are gone, at least for the time being. Making lists and charts for ourselves can be a big help. We can get the work done if we slow down from our previous speed and intensity and use notes, check lists and charts.

It may sound like going back to school because the issues are so elementary and it is. We need to reteach our brains how to do the tasks. We need to stop trying to remember everything and juggle things in our head. That will overload us every time.

It is also important to get control over our environment. No or minimal background sounds and sights. Distractions that used to be tolerated can become headaches and mental crashes/freezes.

Remember that icing your head and neck can help with the tension and headaches. Ibuprofen, acetaminophen or aspirin can be a big help. I buy aspirin and ibuprofen in the Costco quantities.

Hope you have a better day tomorrow.

Thanks, Mark! I have a complicated day tomorrow, and your post made me figure out what I should do... I bought a planner and wrote in it what I am dong tomorrow. So I just looked at it and got the two bags of stuff I need - pool bag and professional kit. They are all packed up already and the bag is in the car and the kit is in front of the door. Better than worrying that I'll forget - use my datebook, get everything ready and put a note on the fridge to pack a snack.

I don't know why it's so hard to remember to use a planner/date book. Well, I guess it's that I had gotten used to using the calendar on my phone, but now I tend to make a lot of mistakes such as entering things on the wrong day...

Adenium,

I missed 10 months of work in 2014.

Last summer 2015 was a year plus after my accident. I was a total rookie at work. I have been doing my self employed job for years and I simply could not make decisions, any changes to schedule which happens everyday in my work where absolutely frightening to me. I had to ask my son and son in law many times if I was doing something correct. My daughter had to drive me around in the afternoons because by then my head hurt badly and any thinking was foggy beyond the one immediate task in front of me.


This summer, 2016, two years post, while still dealing with limits in some areas of life I was much more the capable veteran at work. I felt and mostly thought clear again and was able to deal with the daily changes and disruptions to schedules in a smooth manner. I rarely needed my daughter to drive for me.

As Mark said you will find ways to work around what ails you...be patient, clever and forbid yourself thinking you are failing because you aren't currently the same. You will be surprised at how resilient you can become.

Bud

Thanks Bud! It is hard accepting that there are things that I cannot do, cannot process, cannot remember, cannot keep straight. I am working now at a new job and it is part time and I am struggling with getting it right. I feel like I should be able to handle this situation that is chock-full of details, many of which are new and many of which I have not dealt with for ever six years.

In addition to the brain injury, I am also grieving the loss of my father - I am seven months out from that devastating loss. We were very close and I cared for him as he went downhill form Parkinson's Disease. In the beginning I was totally floundering and could not really cope with anything. Four months out from that, I was beginning to get my feet under myself again, and then this woman tried to pass me on the inside of a right hand turn, accelerating as she slammed into and spun my vehicle.

I don't want to admit that I am vulnerable and have limitations. It is against the coping mechanism I learned to get through life with, but this "coping mechanism" is counterproductive to my recovery. The more I fret and try to pretend all is well and I am limitless, the worse I feel. Acknowledging this actually makes me feel better. I am trying very hard not to panic about my future...

I keep thinking maybe I'm right on the verge of being all better, and then I realize that is not true. I went to my first day of Ceramics class at community college today. I had a few struggles in class, and during a break I asked a woman in the class who has known me for a few years, but is not really a friend-like outside of class, if she noticed anything about me that seemed different since the accident. She hadn't seen me since before the accident. She was a little reticent, but I told her I really wanted to know what it seemed like from the outside. After my coaxing she said that I was having more trouble tracking things, seemed to have a low frustration tolerance, and was more irritable and likely to argue with someone about something I might have just rolled my eyes about previously. I asked another woman in the class what she had noticed. She was even more reticent, but with some coaxing she told me that she had noticed the same things.

I'm glad they told me what they noticed - and I am not being oversensitive to changes I think have occurred when comparing how I am coping with the world now compared to before. But this is not good...

Headaches getting better
 

My headaches are getting better. For the first time in over four months, I had four days in a row with no headaches. I am also sleeping better and this is a relief. I actually sleep soundly through the night most of the night. Still get headaches from stress/excessive worry and also noise. Yesterday was a very stressful day and then I went to orchestra rehearsal last night for the first time in three weeks and it gave me a horrible headache - all that brass! But tonight it's a lot better. The chiropractor and massage therapist both think I've come around a corner and am doing much better. This is good...