Blessed Rest

My last post was on engagement from the sidelines.  I want to thank everyone for all their encouraging comments.  The issue that I was trying to express, but didn't really get across very well is the difference between looking engaged and feeling engaged.  The adage "Just Do It" works wonders.  If you don't feel engaged, then act engaged and your feelings will eventually catch up.  I was doing what I could to act it even when how I felt was not engaged really at all.


That post was written when I was feeling so divided.  There is so much that I want to do yet the medical advice I received was to back off.  I backed off and the advice was back off more.  A couple days after that post I went in for my weekly chat with the neural psychologist to see where things were.  To say that it was mostly lecture from her side of the room and many tears from my side would have been an understatement.  I thought that I had done a great job scaling back on life.  After all I am a mom and a wife and it is December and there is so much going on...  She did congratulate me for going from 110% down to 90%.  Yay me!  That was seriously hard to do since the 110% was already a slowed down pace in my opinion.  She used words like martyr and super mom and told me to just stop it.  The goal was to aim for 20%.  Yup, you read that right - 20%!!!  Who can live at 20%.  I am a mom and a wife and it's Christmas time!!!


So now what...  The medical advice that I have received on this whole concussion thing has been so all over the place.  One doctor told me it was just stress from life and some depression and recommending counselling.  The counselling resulted in an acknowledgment that my brain may be hurting and that it could take up to 2 years to heal but I was encouraged to live life as full as I could to counter the depression.  I tried jumping back into life.  I tried to live like I was fine.  I was not fine.  The lady I have been seeing worked at the Glenrose in the brain trauma department.  She knows her stuff.  I went to her after the other options were not working.  Why go if you are not going to try...  And by try, that means resting my brain.  Not just sitting around reading or watching some sort of screen.  That is not resting my brain.  She meant horizontal with my eyes closed.


School ended and life was able to slow down significantly.  The last two weeks have been filled with rest.  I don't think I hit 20% (well maybe on that one day were I took 3, yes you read that right, 3 naps).  My family has circled the wagons and have really pitched in.  Christmas was wonderful.  My family came from Calgary so I would not have to travel and brought most of dinner with them.  Nearly every afternoon I have headed upstairs for a nap.  Really, I have stopped.  And the world has not stopped turning.


So how am I feeling?  I can literally feel my brain healing.  I am feeling so much better than I did two weeks ago.  It is really hard to put even into words.  Before my break I broke down and cried over the simplest things because they seemed so hard.  The are becoming simpler things again.  The fog is gone.  The anxiety and panic attacks have subsided.  The headaches are much more manageable.  I can focus for more than 5 minutes at a time.  I even wrote this blog in one sitting and that is a major accomplishment.  Am I completely better?  Not a chance but I am on my way.


What does this mean for my IHC year?  I have not quit.  My goals are very much on my mind.  I have started to add back some activity the last few days.  The warm weather has made it much easier to get out for some lovely walks with Guiness.  We are not going far and we are not breaking any speed records but I am getting out in the fresh air.  I will start adding in more each day slowly, very slowly.  I do not want this to be one step forward and two steps back.  I have accepted that my goals and achievements this year are what they are.  Really, even with not doing much since August, some of my achievements are higher than I imagined at this point last year.  My number one goal right now is get myself healthy.  That means that I am still moving at a much slower pace but I am still here.