Well last Friday marked 6 months on this part of my journey to wellness. The week prior Brad and I took a quick trip to Portland to support a dear friend and her family at the funeral for her dad. We were so glad to be there with them during that time. I had not gone on a car trip as a passenger (I have not yet been cleared to drive) since May so was not sure how that would go. In May it took weeks for me to recover from it. This time about 10 days! Definitely improvement. And, 10 days to recover from riding in a car for a few hours. UGH. Really this can be so frustrating! What happened in this case was immense brain fatigue . .. my brain shut off and would not let me do much more than go for a walk each day and listen to audiobooks. No screens, very little time with people. Times like this everything is more exacerbated . . I end up way more sensitive to light, sound, etc. Today is finally much better!
So over the past month I saw my functional neuro who works on vestibular therapy. He said that from his side of the game I am doing really well and I just need to see him later this month . . .6 weeks between visits! Whiplash is slowly improving so I am getting to decrease chiro visits. Muscles are not quite ready to decrease from the massage front. I visited my naturopath for the first time since my accident to do bloodwork. As is very typical of those with a concussion, my adrenals were starting to crash so I added a natural supplement to support them. Super common when your body is under stress. Though really not fun to start having weird eczema flairs and such. Man our bodies get cranky when things are not in line!
I saw my neuro ophthalmologist last week for a recheck. She sees me every 6-8 weeks to check on the progress of vision therapy and how we need to change what is being worked on. She was able to note a good amount of improvement and some areas that we need to continue working on. So that is what I will be tackling each week for awhile. I work on exercises that help my eyes work together as well as getting my brain to join the party. It is the craziest thing to literally feel your brain inside your skull working so hard to try to get your eyes to do what they are supposed to do when they just don't want to do it. I intentionally keep my days after vision therapy each week very quiet as I work super hard there and am generally pretty fatigued the rest of the day. Thankfully I am able to schedule my life this way currently. I am very blessed that is the case. The other thing she reminded me about in the recheck is to continue to be patient and know that, though I am improving and things are looking good, it is still going to be a slow going road with forward and backward movement. But, this is normal! Some of my homework is playing card games like speed. I know it sounds crazy but there are a whole lot of things happening visually and cognitively with that game. I have to also retrain my brain to calm down in stressful situations and fast cards is stressful to me at this time.
This whole process is mostly a roller coaster. One day I feel like I can conquer the world with all the dreams and goals I have! God has placed a big call on my heart and we will see how he allows me to tackle it. I have also started writing a book! Hence, the decrease in blogposts . .. any screen time I can handle has been going to book writing. Then another day comes and I am nervous. Those days generally come after an experience that is really hard. When we were in Portland I needed to go to IKEA to check out something for the boys for school. Earlier in recovery that whole environment would have been pure misery. Thankfully the chaos of the store was not the problem if I stayed focused on where I was trying to go and could hold on to Brad for grounding. I cannot mosey through a store and browse. I am not able to mentally do that at this time. It is too much to think about and process at once. The biggest challenge I have in stores like IKEA is the lighting. Even with sunglasses and a hat, fluorescent and some LED lighting is literally painful. It shuts down my brain. It makes me feel like my eyes are about 10 feet in front of my head and so what I see does not make any sense in my brain. Then my brain will shut down and my body will start going a bit numb. One of the things that happens often in our society is people putting phones in your face to look at a picture or post or something. Y'all when your screens are bright it is not just a bright light but it literally makes my brain and eyes hurt. My phone is on the night setting at the lowest brightness possible where I can still actually see what is on it. My computer has f.lux on it and is set on the lowest brightness. I also have blue tinted prescription glasses to help with the lighting. Even with all of this I am incredibly limited on what I can look at. So please, do not be offended if I decline to look at your screen. I am not trying to be rude, I am trying to heal. I am trying to do what is best for my brain now. I promise you, it is not fun and I absolutely hate that I have to assess every single environment I walk into. I think about every detail of places I go before I go to them and often I still miss something. Sitting at a restaurant I will choose my seat carefully to see the least amount of info possible. I will not face the bustle of the restaurant.
I have hit a point where I am really struggling many days. First, I completely trust God that He has a plan and that He does all things for good. I know this and I believe this. That does not mean that some days I am very painfully human and I get scared. I get scared that this is as healed as I will get. If that is the case I will not be able to drive again. Relying on other people all the time really stinks. I will have to reinvent what a job will look like for me. I will not be able to do anything I have done and been trained to do. I trust God will provide and has a plan. My home is my sanctuary in so many ways. We had a family meeting last week and talked about this a little. I desperately need to have a safe, peaceful environment where I feel safe, where I can have low stimulation. I know I have said this time and time again but we live in a big world. Our brains have to work so incredibly hard to take in all of the data thrown at us at every given moment. If I have learned 1 thing it is to slow down. We do not need to go a million miles a minute. So, I move slower. I choose less chaotic environments to be in. If this is as healed as I get, I will survive and I will have a very different life than I had prior to my accident. Right now I miss having freedom, I miss reading, I miss cooking recipes. Even if I do heal completely or mostly, I think our life will still be different. We are not interested in the way our world is currently. We are not interested in keeping up with the Joneses. I believe God is calling us to bigger, better and greater. I am not interested in floating through life, I have been called to make a difference and make change. So, that is what I am focusing on in my little bubble at home. What I know for sure is that Satan is working hard to shut me down. And that means I am doing something that he is threatened by. So I will keep rocking his boat and the reality is, I know who wins the battle. Praise God for that!
This experience is the ultimate trusting of God with every move. I have no control over anything each day except trusting Him. Some days are good and some days are not good. Some days I roll with everything and some days are really tough. I hope these updates help you to know what is going on with me and with so many others in your space. Now I am off to sit in my closet with my light and colored glasses as part of my therapy. Have a wonderful day and let me know if you want to play a game of speed!
