"Go home and have a normal life"
That is what my physician told me when I was discharged after my brain injury in 1997. What did he mean by that? I couldn't read I couldn't talk properly; I couldn't even dial a telephone number. I had an 8 year old son who needed his mother. Since that day in 1997 I have been trying to find out what a normal life is. Having a brain injury is a journey about finding a new normal.
If you have a brain injury or are caring for someone with a brain injury perhaps you will find some answers on this website. Since my brain injury in 1997 my frustration about not having my questions answered has lead me to this point. This website is designed so people with brain injuries and people who care them can find answers so that recovery can progress.
New Brain Living tackles the hard issues of living with a brain injury on a day to day basis. How brain injury affects our lives, our careers, and the lives of the people around us.
Right after the brain injury most brain injured people are very glad to be alive and for some people there is no physical evidence that the brain injury exists. However, brain injured people soon learn that “having a brain injury” and “living with a brain injury” are two different things.
There are many questions that people who have brain injuries and the people who care for them continually ask and sometimes there is no answers however during my own personal recovery I have learned that “science has now caught up with brain injuries” and each person who has a brain injury have to design their own recovery and learn to live with their new brain.
- Will I be able to read again?
- Why won't any physician answer my questions?
- Why are people asking me so many questions?
- How come going to the grocery store is so hard?
- What is this place where it seems that the brain has had enough?
- Would I ever work again?
- Who is this person in the mirror?
- What is this pain I have?
- How come I don't know my family?
- What are these emotional outbursts?
- Where the brain has had enough?
- How come when I get tired I don't talk right?
- How did the computer help?
- Why can I do tasks one day and not the next?
New Brain Living does have answers and offers day to day experiences of living with a brain injury. It could be important to know from the beginning that there will be steps forward and there will be steps back as each person learns to “live with their new brain” and eventually “new brain living” will be established.
New Brain Living can be a website where people with brain injuries and the people who care for them can finds answers “from the brain injured point of view”
