| Yes, alcohol can help cause a significant number of Acquired Brain Injuries, but it's the person who uses it, not the store. The store, brand new this year, is fully accessible, a far cry from the previous location. |
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 | The door opens, widely, through which I'm able to drive my scooter straight in. |
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I was chatting with my son, Connor, and learned something pretty awesome. He joined the Air Force, but told me about his interview, and what he shared blew me away.
He said that, in his interview, he was asked about his biggest challenge. He’s faced several, but what he said that he’d replied with stopped me.
He said “When I joined the military they asked for a difficult challenge I had to overcome, and I said when you got in a accident the father I knew before the accident was gone from his (your) memory to the point where for sometime you needed to relearn about your past through others.”
I’ve faced challenges, of that there’s no doubt, but I’d never thought of it impacting others, not even my family.
Smileys exist for a reason, and I’d like to use one, because I’m smiling, just thinking about it.
Brain injuries only exist in only two ways: Penetrating, or closed. Basically, and it’s self-explanatory, either something goes through your skin and skull, or your brain is shaken, and hits your skull.
While penetrating is exciting-sounding, such as getting shot, having a harpoon go in, or something equally exotic, they’re few and far between. The closed injuries are more complicated, and far more prevalent. There’s a type of injury that’s a gazillion times more prevalent than the others, so I’ll simply mention them: epidural hematomas, subdural hematomas, and cerebral aneurysm.
Concussions are so common, and misunderstood, such that President Trump said ‘Uh oh, got a little ding on the head?’when asked about concussions in football.
Yeah, that’s real tough talk. For years, researchers have worked to show the serious consequences of those “dings” Trump dismisses (with his signature bullying sarcasm). “Concussion. Oh, oh!” — the science has found that the cumulative effects of all those dings can be deadly. In March, the NFL acknowledged a link between playing football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease. CTE symptoms include depression, memory loss and aggressive behaviour: several NFL players who committed suicide,
C’mon Trump, get serious. You’re in charge of the USA, and dismissing such a serious thing as a concussion as “a ding on the head” is an error, of galactic proportions.
Yes, being disabled can be a challenge. While it started as something awful, so bad that I actually hated myself for a little while, but I don’t know what it was, but I changed my view. I was looking at the “old me”, and the fact that the “new me” wasn’t it, I felt a failure. The week before the crash, I did a triathlon. The month before, I biked to Kingston in The Rideau Lakes. I was a member of Soldiers of Fitness, a military-style boot camp for fitness, and because of it, I was able to. I completed 5 additional triathlons, and ran 4 or 5 half-marathons. I looked at what I became, comparing it to the former me, and hated it. Then, Never Stop was born.
I’ve slipped, more than once, in thinking bad things about myself, to the point where I downright hated myself. However, a friend said that when I get that way, that I’m effectively a hypocrite, by not practicing what I preach. But, the feelings of wanting (no, needing) succeed helped me to see the light. I didn’t know it at the time that I thought it, but in hindsight, that’s the power of my inside-drive. I still fight the inside-voice, often, that tells me that I’m either mostly useless, or something like that. It’s hard to fight, because it not only says it, but I feel it.
However, being visibly-disabled is definitely superior to invisible. A friend of mine, who suffered an injury, is able to qualify for a parking pass. He might forget where he’d parked his car, but he’d never use one alone, under any circumstances, because his injury is completely invisible. When I’m shopping, at any time, I’m offered help. If something is high up, and I’m looking at it, within a matter of seconds someone offers.
I’ve given myself a goal, and that’s to write in here every month, twice. I’m going to try to publish on the 1st and the 15th of the month, because I’ll have been working on it (likely a lot, before), and all that’s needed is to click “go”.
However, until I get going, I honestly don’t know what people would want to read. Then again, I’ve heard that it’s not what people would want read that I should write, but what I want to say. Then, if people choose to read, it’s great, and if they don’t, it’s their loss.
However, I’m still faced with the challenge, because I’ve always been someone who had too much to say, but when faced with the need to think of something to type, I simply can’t!
But, I’ll write something, about brain injury in some way, to see if that gets the brain-juices flowing.
I’m posting this image, saying to fuel your passion, and with what you’ll read here, you’ll soon understand that this is mine. However, while what I’ll think of is what I think people would want hear, I’m not sure! Every post has a way for you to submit a response, and I’m asking you to!
Eric Lindros was the top of the top player in the NHL, of that there’s no doubt, but his retirement that was forced upon him by concussions has changed his view on hockey a bit.
On August 17, in London Ontario, Lindros said it’s time for the NHL to seriously think about removing body contact from the game. Not selectively, but entirely.
When he began his professional career, he was awesome skill-wise, because no other player was anywhere close to him, even remotely. He was the best of the best, and wasn’t afraid to be the best at beating the hell out of someone. He’s still playing, after his forced-retirement in 2007, but how they play is that they don’t run into each other. It’s all skill with the puck, and he’s still second-to-none.
I think that while what he’s suggesting may sound drastic, and scare some people with the significance of it, but when you think about it, it makes sense. Take out what makes the game dangerous for players, both while they’re playing and after they’ve retired, and accentuate the skill-elements.
I’ve got a question for you. If you’re in a busy shopping mall, full of people, and you see someone who’s disabled drop something that they likely won’t be able to get unassisted, do you offer to help? I’ve been watching the world a bit, and noticed a few things. If I’m either alone, or there are only a few people around, and something happens that I’d need help fixing, I’m immediately offered help. However, if I’m somewhere where there are a lot of people, like a shopping mall at Christmas time, and I drop something, nobody stops. It’s weird, because I’d thought that the way it would be would be the opposite. But, “group think” is the way that it is. In psychology terms, group think is: “Groupthink occurs when a group with a particular agenda makes irrational or problematic decisions because its members value harmony and coherence over accurate analysis and critical evaluation. ”
Basically, nobody wants to do something different than the group.
Please, if you see something like that, and nobody’s stopping, be different. Fight the urge to keep going, stop, and help.
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She’s been to the top of the world, done a whole lot of things that are mind-boggling, but when a skier slammed into her in Gatineau Park while cross-country skiing, her world changed. Her injury was pretty much the epitome of invisibility, because unless you know, you’d never know what she’d suffered. |
| She didn’t know what to do, and wasn’t given proper guidance, so she went on a boat on the Drake Passage, home to some of the largest waves in the world. The waves were immense, people were thrown everywhere, and because she hadn’t received proper guidance, her invisible injury was made worse. |  |
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Last summer she was still vomiting frequently. She’s an “invisible sufferer”, because unless you know, you’d have absolutely no idea of what she suffers, and if she makes a mistake because of it, she might be blamed for inattentiveness. |
Click to read the story! |
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I had the coolest of cool jobs, I did triathlons, and was in a boot camp fitness that met at 5:30 AM. It was pretty awesome, despite that it was early.
When we were hit, my life changed. I’d thought for the worst, because of what happened. I couldn’t swim. I couldn’t ride a bike. I couldn’t run. I could go on, but you get the point. What happened since then is more awesome than awesome, to the mind-boggling level. It’s like that cartoon, because the man whose about to lose his head can’t for the life of him see anything according to the king. But, it’s somewhat like me, because you never know what will come of change, and with the right perspective, it’ll be awesome. My Not-For-Profit is something that’s going to be more awesome than awesome, and ultimately, it’ll blow people’s minds. I’ve got plans, big ones, that will take time, but when they’re running, people won’t believe it.
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