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SUBSCRIBE (RSS feed )- Sharing Some “Airy-fairy/Arty-farty” Spiritual Thoughts/Writings (2012)
- “We all have battles to be won and ‘Everests’ to climb”
- Rewired to learn
- “What we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.”
- “Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, BEGIN it…”
- Brain Injury and Radio
- “It is not as important to succeed, as to persevere”
- “I believe every one of us is born with a purpose”
- Possibility Thinking
- “Compare it (your head) to a jelly in a bowl. The bowl is the skull – a strong, protective container – and the jelly (the brain) is nestled within. …”
Tag Archives: medical resources
‘RUNNING ON EMPTY’: Living with Head Injury: What It Feels Like to Have A Head Injury?
THE EFFECTS OF HEAD INJURY
There are many misconceptions and a great lack of understanding about this condition, so here is some general information that I hope may be able to help others.
Extreme fatigue. This is my area of greatest difficulty and has shaped my entire adult life (from age 15). I wake up every morning feeling very tired and washed-out. Heavy -headed…and have felt like this all my life. So I do my most demanding “work” involving thinking early in the morning and structure my day around this. I am typing this at 5.45 am. (my “best time of the day”)
Apparently neurosurgeons say that the effects of fatigue can prevent many highly-intelligent head-injured people from functioning fully in the formal work force. Doctors don’t even understand… so how can employers be expected to? Many people assume head injured people to be simply lazy, whereas they are just conserving energy (well how else could they avoid making judgments, when people with head injuries look so normal). That’s why it’s often referred to as “the hidden handicap”.
I get very easily muddled- so break little tasks down. Often wonder what to do with two pieces of paper in my hand. Even putting one piece of paper away, then doing the next. Continue reading
Running on Empty: Living with Long-Term Brain (Head) Injury
Head injury has become a common problem throughout the world. Many of the more severe injuries are related to road traffic and horse riding accidents. As an example, in Great Britain about 15 patients every hour are admitted to hospital for observation, because of head injury and every 2 hours one of these will die. Head injury is implicated in 1 of all deaths and 50% OF ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENT DEATHS. Head injury is particularly prevalent in the age group between 10 and 25. CONCUSSION has occurred, whenever patients cannot remember the actual blow that made them unconscious.
*
WILLIAM FAIRBANKS Interview with Kathryn Ryan on National Radio (4th Feb 2010)
LONG-TERM BRAIN INJURY
“There is excellent medical care immediately post-trauma. However, there is little follow-up after the initial trauma. Every day I have to come to terms with my brain injury, to learn. I don’t handle interruptions. It’s like being in a movie. Each person with a brain injury is different…and is affected in different ways. I do one thing at a time – break into little tasks. I really live in the present. No-one ever explained to me how to cope, how to deal with everyday living. I had to learn strategies for myself.
Difficulties in ‘making connections’:
I can only handle “one-on-one” situations. I can’t hold two thoughts in my mind at the same time. A ringing phone will interrupt my thought and sequence. I easily lose the ‘flow’ of the task I was engaged in. Then I have difficulty wondering what to do next! I have to clear clutter to simplify my life. Get easily ‘thrown’ Head injured people are often self absorbed. (Probably helps them cope with life through focussing??)
NB Everyone with a head injury is affected differently.
No-one can understand my problems, because I appear to be a lucid, intelligent man. I’m fine here now doing ONE thing. Continue reading
What Does it Feel Like to be Brain Damaged?
It is generally accepted that people working with individuals who have any type of handicap, should have a certain amount of empathy with their clients and should strive to understand how their clients feel and think. People working with those who are brain damaged have a particularly hard time doing so. One can have some understanding of what it means to be blind by simply closing one?s eyes; yet how can a normal person understand what it feels like to be brain damaged?
I am in the unusual position of being a trained clinical psychologist who suffered brain damage and who has slowly recovered most of my facilities. In other words, I have been on the outside looking in, and also, on the inside looking out at the world of the brain damaged person. At this point in my recovery, I have a foot in both worlds, for I can remember what it felt like to be completely normal intellectually, and also what it felt like when loss of function was at its worst.
Perhaps this informal and very subjective narrative may be of some help in assisting normal people to empathize a little better with the brain damaged individual. For, unfortunately, most brain damaged people are unable to explain precisely how they feel; those who have been brain damaged since birth, of course, have never had the experience of functioning normally and thus have no standard of comparison of their present state with that of others. Continue reading
Posted in brain injury survivors, effects of head injury, Head (brain injury), inspirational quotes, living with head injury, medical information
Tagged brain enhancement, brain injury, Frederick R Linge, head injury, living with head (brain) injury, medical information, medical resources, neuro-psychology
6 Comments
Living with Long-Term Brain (Head) Injury
Article Title: Living with Long-Term Brain (Head) Injury Submitted by: Craig Lock Category (key words): Head injury, brain injury, William Fairbank, effects of brain/head injury, neuro-psychology, brain, cognitive difficulties, medical information, medical resources (enough there now, craig) Web sites: http://www.williamfairbank.com … Continue reading
Living with Head Injury: (from ‘My Story’)
Living with Head Injury: (from ‘My Story’) [Paperback] LIVING WITH HEAD (BRAIN) INJURY (from ‘MY STORY’) * A look into head injury, sometimes known as the “hidden handicap” and the effects on the person (casualty). In this “work” I’ll share … Continue reading
Posted in autobiography, books on brain/head injury, brain, brain injury, closed head injury, effects of head injury, Medical resources (information), My Story, TBI, writers and brain injury, writing and head injury
Tagged books by craig lock, books on head/brain injury, brain, brain injury, medical information, medical resources, neuro-psychology, TBI
72 Comments
Living with Long-Term Brain (Head) Injury
Article Title: Living with Long-Term Brain (Head) Injury Submitted by: Craig Lock Category (key words): head injury, brain injury, William Fairbank, effects of brain/head injury, neuro-psychology, brain, cognitive difficulties, medical information, medical resources (enough there now, craig) Web sites: http://www.williamfairbank.com … Continue reading
Posted in brain, brain injury, cognitive difficulties, cognitive difficulties/problems, cognitive effects, cognitive effects of brain injury, cognitive effects of TBI, cognitve effects, effects of head (brain) injury, effects of head injury, Head (brain injury), head injury, head injury effects, living with brain injury, living with head injury, medical information, neurology, TBI, William Fairbanks
Tagged brain, brain injury, cognitive difficulties, effects of brain/head injury, head injury, medical information, medical resources, neuro-psychology, William Fairbank
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Living with Long-Term Brain (Head) Injury
Article Title: Living with Long-Term Brain (Head) Injury Submitted by: Craig Lock Category (key words): head injury, brain injury, William Fairbank, effects of brain/head injury, neuro-psychology, brain, cognitive difficulties, medical information, medical resources (enough there now, craig) Web sites: http://www.williamfairbank.comhttp://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005GGMAW4 … Continue reading
LIVING WITH HEAD INJURY: What It Feels Like to Have A Head Injury?
Article Title: LIVING WITH HEAD INJURY: What It Feels Like to Have A Head Injury? Submitted by: Craig Lock Category (key words): head injury, brain injury, effects of head injury, neuro-psychology, brain, medical information, medical resources, Submitter’s web sites: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005GGMAW4 … Continue reading
Living with Long-Term Brain (Head) Injury
Here is some “info”, that I summarised from a radio interview with a UK film-maker by the name of William Fairbank (http://www.williamfairbank.com) talking about the “hidden handicap, the silent epidemic”. (“It could have been me speaking” . . . but not nearly as eloquently* as William!)
*big word, eh!
Head injury has become a common problem throughout the world. Many of the more severe injuries are related to road traffic and horse riding accidents. As an example, in Great Britain about 15 patients every hour are admitted to hospital for observation, because of head injury and every 2 hours one of these will die. Head injury is implicated in 1 of all deaths and 50% OF ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENT DEATHS. Head injury is particularly prevalent in the age group between 10 and 25. CONCUSSION has occurred, whenever patients cannot remember the actual blow that made them unconscious.
*
WILLIAM FAIRBANKS Interview with Kathryn Ryan on National Radio (4th Feb 2010)
LONG-TERM BRAIN INJURY
“There is excellent medical care immediately post-trauma. However, there is little follow-up after the initial trauma. Every day I have to come to terms with my brain injury, to learn. I don’t handle interruptions. It’s like being in a movie. Each person with a brain injury is different…and is affected in different ways. I do one thing at a time – break into little tasks. I really live in the present. No-one ever explained to me how to cope, how to deal with everyday living. I had to learn strategies for myself.
Difficulties in ‘making connections’:
I can only handle “one-on-one” situations. I can’t hold two thoughts in my mind at the same time. A ringing phone will interrupt my thought and sequence. I easily lose the ‘flow’ of the task I was engaged in. Then I have difficulty wondering what to do next! I have to clear clutter to simplify my life. Get easily ‘thrown’ Head injured people are often self absorbed. (Probably helps them cope with life through focussing??)
NB Everyone with a head injury is affected differently.
No-one can understand my problems, because I appear to be a lucid, intelligent man. I’m fine here now doing ONE thing.
I want to contact artists: musicians, sculptors, poets, writers who have had a brain injury. So many people who have suffered a head injury write and draw; they channel it into some form of art.
Doctors don’t understand brain injury and especially the effects, the cognitive difficulties people have; because the effects are so subtle (yet can have a huge effect on their lives). Head injury acts as a filter, a “block”. It’s such a fine-line brain-injured people have compared with normal-thinking people.
I can’t visualise and have big problems with my short-term memory. It can be so FRUSTRATING (GRRRR) and often leads to mood swings and severe emotional problems.
Finally…
“Still don’t let what you can’t do, interfere with what you CAN do.” Continue reading
The “Hidden Handicap – the Silent Epidemic”
Subnitter’s Note
The following piece is from information that I’ve researched and collected over the past twenty-five years. Some of the writings are words from my own experiences and much material from sources unknown (some of which has been re-written and re-phrased by me). I am sharing this information in the spirit of promoting greater awareness of head (or brain) injury, as well as helping and hopefully encouraging “victims of the hidden ‘handicap’” to realise their full potentials and be all that they are capable of achieving, being and becoming.
Craig Lock
October 2005
*
Some introductory comments re the title of this article
* because it can’t be seen and brain /head damaged people look perfectly “normal” (what’s that!).
NB: NO, I don’t necessarily see it, this label as a ‘handicap’, but rather as an opportunity for personal growth.
Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed* of an equal or greater benefit.”
– Napoleon Hill (in his great book ‘Think and Grow Rich’)
* this should perhaps read “rather the POTENTIAL seed” in cases of head (brain) damage
“Just because a brain has been damaged, does NOT necessarily have to affect the human mind…and so the quality and height of our thoughts!”
*
Continue reading
Posted in brain injury, cognitive difficulties, cognitive difficulties/problems, concussion, Head (brain injury), head injury, head injury and fatigue, living with head injury, Medical resources (information)
Tagged brain injury, head injury, medical information, medical resources, neuro-psychology
670 Comments
Sharing some Information and Thoughts on Head and Brain Injury 
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