I was reading a post big Sheila Riggins, womaho was fretting about "neglecting family while she pursued a master's degree in social work... I, to, have been that path. I had a comatose subdural hemato in 1991.... Several years later, I trepiditiously enrolled in a master's program in counseling psychology. (How, I got through is a long and tedious story that would probably sedate many people if told in full. I lost a lot of cognitive function that I used to get me through undegrad school.I…

  Friends, loved ones and even most casual of acquaintances do not realize that the hallmark permanent symptom of TBI is not memory deficit. That's a whole 'nuther rant that I can yammer on at such length that I can put the rocks at Stonehenge to sleep.

  So, being a merciful fellow, I'l spare you this dreadful experience!

  I'll just stick to one short item today -- something I experience from time to tme since my injury that I call Milk of Amnesia.

   There are those…

I'm happy to report that my litttle one-man TBI survivors project is getting a favorable response here in deep, very rural Southwest Virginia. Among the positive signs are accepted invitations to speak to high school football games (this includes high schools in a four-county area), presentations at health fairs and the like). ... keeep the word traveling ... your friend ned bane //OO\\ old hippie 

I've about had with folks saying: "Well, shoot, I have memory problems and I don't have an excuse."

Ah, what perceptive genius.

My particular favorite piece of insight to this problem from non-TBI folks is: "You should do what I do, write things down in a little notebook."

"Yea, Swell my friend. I have been struggling with frontal, temporal and parietal lobe lesions for 21 years. Geez, I guess I never thought of this. Why thank yo for that epiphany of…

   I refer to myself these days as "a proud brain injury survivor." It's not a histrionic statement or some limp stumble toward cleverness. Rather, it's the fact that the contuing journey from a summer in a coma is a remarkable education - yea, OK, the tuition is high but here's what I've gotten for my money so far.

   First, empathy. It's a kind of global empathy that grew from interactions with other TBI survivors. For me, and, I'm pretty sure, a whole bunch of us, the trip…

There's dirty work to be done in TBI survival. How I love to spend an evening cuffed and shackled, catching whiffs of old urine in the back of a cop car. "So, how much you had to 'drank' tonight pal." (He and I have a decidely different definition of pal, I mutter to myself.) "You couldn't take two steps in row when I told you to walk that line."  (And I bet you think petit mal is some kind of fluffy French candy.)

Ignorance is a matter od circumstance. Stupidity is a choice. From whereI…