Battle Fatigue

A healing brain is constantly working at a million miles a second in 300 different directions. All the while, our minds are still trying to process what has happened to us. In the matter of a split second our entire world changed. Those of us who suffered a severe  brain injury, lost everyone we knew and loved, lost all of the experiences we ever had and lost everything we ever knew - even to the core of ourselves. The grief is unimaginable, inexplainable and treacherous beyond words. To top it all off, it will last the rest of our lives. It does not matter what we do or where we turn, something is different or feels off and we are reminded of everything we lost. I will post more on grieving later on in the month. But today, I wanted to make a post stating that while there are a lot of fascinating things to know about the brain and injuries that can occur, I'm still living with one. 

It's a constant battle, trying to let go of the past, but hold on to ourselves. The fight between holding on and letting go is draining and all that we want is to return to the person we were before. We will never get that, and every reminder stings. Because of the ultimate exhaustion, you need to give me some grace when it comes to posting great things every day! 

Traumatic and Not Traumatic

 My dad and I visited some family friends in Vernal, Utah a number of months ago. The 17 year old daughter had ripped, holy jeans, so all of the adults were giving her a hard time about them. She explained that these particular jeans with too many rips were thick which made them really nice. We asked her what the opposite of thick was. Her reply, "not thick." 

Did the people who classifies brain injuries use this same logic? Because the two types of brain injury are traumatic and non-traumatic. A non-traumatic brain injury often is referred to as an acquired brain injury, even though "an acquired brain injury (ABI) is an injury to the brain that is not hereditary, congenital, degenerative, or induced by birth trauma. Essentially, this type of brain injury is one that has occurred after birth. The injury results in a change to the brain’s neuronal activity, which affects the physical integrity, metabolic activity, or functional ability of nerve cells in the brain. An acquired brain injury is the umbrella term for all brain injuries. There are two types of acquired brain injury: traumatic and non-traumatic.” (biausa.org) The difference between the two is essentially where the trauma comes from. What makes a brain injury traumatic is if the brain disruption comes from an external force. A nontraumatic brain injury occurs when the brain has an internal failure, i.e. stroke, aneurysm, tumor, or any lack of oxygen.

That's just some factual information. Stay tuned for tomorrow!

Welcome to Brain Injury Awareness Month

Welcome to March, Brain Injury Awareness Month. I thought I would take this month to share some knowledge and personal insights about brain injuries and living with one. This month I will be posting as much as possible, therefore the posts will be shorter and less heavy. I’m going to focus on my blog this month! We will travel through life with a brain injury from the initial reaction to radical acceptance. I will walk you through the basics and help you understand some of the brain language. Best of all, you cannot survive an injury without humor! So to start us off, I would like to ask you what you are planning to watch tonight. The game where players make enough money to risk getting brain damage, or the debate where the players already have brain damage?

Brain Injury Awareness

I felt the need to make a quick update. It has been a long time since I have posted, I know this and I am sorry. I do not excuse my behavior, but simply explain it. Living with a brain injury is HARD. It is overwhelming and stressful. Having all of the outside stressors makes it worse; including COVID, riots, hypocritical politicians, the increase of ridiculousness involving the "woke" mob, etc. I have been trying to post for far too long. I have started posts that have sounded angry so (progress!) have refrained from posting because it would detract from the purpose of the post. 

Let's cut to the quick. There are many general things about brain injuries that are very commonly unknown. It is Brain Injury Awareness Month in March. I want to spread awareness as much as I possibly can. To do that, I need your help. I am going to design a few logos to put on a shirt, mug, whatever the case may be. I would really appreciate it if you would order some from me or go to Amazon, and purchase a shirt of your own. The color of awareness is green. Additionally, if you have a story about someone with a brain injury and how they have impacted your life, that you would like me to post on this blog, I will send you a free T-shirt. Please feel free to send me questions you have about brain injuries and I will answer them to the best of my ability. 

I don't think that many people realize the magnitude of brain injuries in the United States.  For example, we see the symbols of Breast Cancer awareness in October, and justifiably so with the devastating affects that breast cancer has on individuals and families.  The CDC reports that there are 250,520 new breast cancer cases each year.  That same organization reports that about 2.87 million new brain injuries occur each year--over 10 times as many cases.  As with any medical condition, there is a broad range of severity.  Brain injuries often have limited or no outward signs, hence the statement "Not all injuries are visible."  But they often have devastating impacts on the individuals who receive them and on their friends and families.  Increased awareness of the magnitude and impacts of brain injuries is a critical step in helping people recover and manage their lives. If only people in my network had a clue of what a brain injury was when I received one!

Forgiveness Fire

 Forgiveness is not something that is easy. Forgiveness takes a lot of charity. You often feel that the offender needs to apologize in order to forgive them. But in the times that forgiveness is the most necessary, that apology will never come. There is this misconception that forgiveness benefits the other person, when I guarantee you, it will benefit yourself far, far more. 

Over the course of my recovery, I have had hundreds (literally) of people who have wronged me, betrayed me, abandoned me, retaliated against me for no fault of Shannon's own. Yes, the TBI has likely hurt them, but that's the nature of a traumatic brain injury, unfortunately. What makes things even worse, they were told that my personality would change post-accident if they knew me before, I cautioned them about some of the struggles of living with a TBI if they didn't, etc. But each and every time, people walk out of my life with not so much as a goodbye. If it was only a few people, it might not be as bad, right? But when it has been a consistent pattern for over a decade, it is traumatizing and causes PTSD, or PTRD. Of course, you'd say, what's the common denominator? Me, of course. But, is it really? Or is it the TBI, something that I have no control over at times....

So, over the years I have had to develop a standard towards forgiveness. In the first couple of years, it was extremely difficult because I still believed that if you forgave someone, that it meant that the way that they hurt you would become negligible to the Lord. And especially if these teenagers didn't know how badly they had hurt me, then who would? How would they ever find out? I need some sort of restitution from them. It doesn't have to be anything big, just acknowledgement, and "let's be friends again," would be enough. But if they seriously don't think they did anything wrong, and I let it go, how are they ever going to do that? And trust me, as many times as I've had to forgive the same person over and over, there are days unbeknownst to me that they pop up in my head and it hurts all over again. After months of struggling with this, about 8 years ago, I finally came to the realization that forgiveness is NOT condoning their behavior. Forgiveness has nothing to do with them. Forgiveness is simply giving all of the pain that you've been holding on to with all your might away. You are giving it to the Lord so that He can, in His perfect wisdom - and perfect understanding of YOU - offer perfect justice. It was never our place to judge. He only wants us to be happy, and we cannot do that while holding on to pain that someone else has caused us. 

Like I have mentioned numerous times, this grieving process happens to me on a very regular basis. In one of my recent posts I also mentioned that the "What a Great Change" post (I didn't link it here because I'm sick of how many reads it has) has turned into a devastating loss and full of much turmoil. This loss was worse than most others, but I was ready to get rid of it. So, I collected everything I had of his, wrote down why it was significant and why it had hurt me for far too long, and my family started a fire. Then we ceremoniously burned it all. I have been nervous about sharing it publicly because he called the cops on me for something I didn't do a week or so prior to the burning event. However, with respect to this post, I hope I can. Burn, Cody, Burn!

One of my favorite parts that is not caught on camera, (along with the shirt of his I burned and stuff) is that my sister, Tonya and my niece, Gabi ran inside and wrote down some names of people that they needed to forgive. Both of these sweet girls function at about 7 years old (Tonya has disabilities and Gabi is 7). They wrote down names of people who were mean to them. They came back outside and said something along the lines of "I hate you xxx! Goodbye!" And we had a small but wonderful discussion about how we can just let go of people who have hurt us. Heavenly Father can deal with that. 😀 It was so sweet. Then we had a major dance party with all sorts of songs starting of course with, Picture to Burn by Taylor Swift.

#GiveThanks

 The prophet's message to spread gratitude sounded simple. I have been trying to practice more gratitude ever since President Eyring's talk in 2007, "O Remember, Remember." It has obviously been more of a struggle after the accident, so I have prayed to see His hand in my life more frequently and be a little more grateful more consistently. However, despite all of the challenges that I go through, this attitude blinded me from seeing the struggles the #givethanks posts might have for other people. 

What I failed to understand was that this year has been a NEW challenge to the vast majority of the world. I failed to remember that sometimes the only thing you can think of to be grateful for is to be alive, but you're not even grateful for that. I was blinded by my self-centered thinking, asking, "how can anyone NOT be grateful?" which is unfortunately something that happens because of the brain damage. But, because of said brain damage, I have learned so many things that we all take for granted. 

I am grateful for a body that works. Yes, it does not work like it once did, but it still works. I can still eat - chewing - not needing everything to be put through a blender. I can still walk - I had to relearn and I cannot run, but I can walk. I can breathe, on my own. I can drink - plain water!! I don't need everything to be thickened (so disgusting). My digestive system does not like to work though, and I cannot lose weight no matter how much I diet or exercise. My interior muscles (the ones that you can't exactly exercise but are vitally important) are especially weak and cause all sorts of issues for me. While my sleep still absolutely sucks, I can sleep and oh how grateful I am for any amount of sleep I get. I am grateful that we found something that my skull would not continue creating holes in thus forcing me to wear a helmet for the rest of my life. I am grateful to have a jaw that finally closes, even though I still grind my teeth like crazy and have a lot of jaw problems. I am grateful to know how to solve a TBIgraine when they come - because they are painful beyond belief. More importantly, I am grateful for nerve endings that work so that I can feel pain, a warning sign. My shoulder blades and back are in constant pain, okay actually all of my muscles are in constant pain. But I am grateful that our bodies can gain a heightened pain tolerance AND grateful for my neuromuscular therapists. I am super grateful for my physical therapist who takes the time to help me strengthen areas that I need help with - especially because there are SO many and we are continually finding more!

I am grateful for a brain that still works. Yep, there is a lot of damage to it, but because of that damage, it also inspired me to start learning about the brain, and oh how excited I get every time I talk about the brain! It took me a long time to get to the place that I'm at now, but I've gradually gotten here. It took me hours in weeks to relearn how to write in a straight line. It took a long time, with far too many breaks to relearn how to do simple addition. It took me a long time to remember how to type a cognizant paragraph, but look at where I am today! I am so grateful for brains that are so resilient. I am so grateful for the knowledge that I have about the brain, even though if I can't apply it, it's too hard to retain. My thalamus for example, was severely impacted, so I have a really hard time separating incoming senses. Like yesterday, there were so many noises on the road that I couldn't hear the sirens of an ambulance until it was very close. Because I cannot filter out the noises (or sights, or tastes, or smells, or touches) that are not important. However, I am grateful that I was able to eventually recognize the ambulance and stay out of its way. I used to be quick in speaking, I was a very established debater after all! But now it takes me far too long to process information in a simple conversation. This is why I do much better in writing. 

I am eternally grateful for a spirit that still lives inside of me. It is extra difficult because I cannot communicate with my Father in Heaven the way that I used to. I do not feel the comfort that I once did. I struggle because I feel like this is one of the connections that were severed. But, I have a sure and true testimony that my Savior lives. He loves me to the end. He will stand by my side today and everyday. He understands me far better than I know myself. He gets the TBI and the difference between TBI and Shannon. When I don't know, He always does. The Holy Spirit will guide and direct you if you simply ask in faith. It is a huge struggle, especially for me because I don't often feel it, but I have to find it in the small and simple things. For in the small and simple things will great things come to pass. I don't know what exactly this path is but I am grateful to be on it because I know that it is God's path for me. And God knows exactly what will take me to the most promised land. 

Finally, this world is full of twists and turns and we can make what we want of it. We can choose to see the best or the worst. We can find something to be unhappy about, I think that my paragraphs above have articulated that. But we can also find the joy in the little things, the things that we do have. We should remember that we are not entitled to anything. The only thing that the Lord just gave the brother of Jared was how to sustain life, He made him really work for the nicer things (even just light). The only thing that God promised us is a body and agency, that's it, everything else is a gift. We should all be grateful for everything else that we have. #givethanks

Stress on Steroids

Ever since the start of the pandemic, stress levels have risen dramatically. People's normal lives being disrupted has created much unsettling. The crazy thing is like I said in the beginning, social isolation is nothing new to me. 

Even the symptoms of COVID-19 are literally nothing in comparison to everyday life with a traumatic brain injury. Anyone who suffers with a TBI knows the extremes of fatigue - for no apparent reason. We also know the feeling of muscle aches and pains. We know headaches worse than anything else (the first time I got a TBI headache I went to the emergency room lol). Anyone who knows me knows that I know weird random chills all day every day therefore can never know if I have a fever! I also have persistent stuffiness. And anyone with a traumatic brain injury knows the stomach pains and we have the taste/smell symptoms worse - everything is increased to the point that the smallest smell or taste can overwhelm our system entirely. 

So, I'm sick of people complaining about all these symptoms and talking about how terrible their lives are when they have no idea how easy they have it - this is not their everyday, there will be an end to these symptoms, and their symptoms are only a baby taste into my everyday life. 

Then, the black lives matter riots began. This created a lot more stress in the air. "Black lives matter!" "All lives matter!" "George Floyd, Breonna Taylor!" "Defund the police!" Shootings for no reason. Stealing, breaking buildings, etc. The tension heightened. 

Possibly the most critical election in human history. Super. Even more interesting, after listening to awesome people like Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens, my political side has been (re-) awakened. Being in debate all throughout high school, I love talking about politics with others. Which is difficult for multiple reasons; first because I don't have many people to talk to period, second because the current political state is so controversial that anything you say can and will likely be taken personally and third because not being able to talk to people about something I'm passionate about just further devalues my sense of self. 

Relationships have taken a grave toll. The man that made my life so much brighter in late 2016 has now made my life much darker. Many of my close friends randomly went AWOL. 

I've been learning things about my body. Things that I literally cannot change. It is so freaking frustrating! But what's even more frustrating is that it only adds more stress, especially every time I look in the mirror, I take a picture or I change clothes. 

I have so many things on my list of to-dos. One of which for the last few MONTHS has been to write this post. There is an extreme amount of stress just in the air today, let alone the kind of stress involved in my personal life. The kinds of things that stress does to the human body are terrible, absolutely terrible. It causes cell damage, brain deterioration, inflammation, anxiety levels to rise dramatically, depression to sink even lower, among other things. Now, for someone with a brain injury, as with everything else, it is amplified dramatically and even exponentially. I begin to become crippled, spinning in my own negative thoughts. My progress halts and even starts to regress. Then I beat up on myself even more, and the stress gains, and the spiral continues. I cannot even begin to describe the stress complex. But, I tried, after a few long months.