Different

Different

Was catching up on some of my data entry today when I realised how well I cope with my brain injury. So well, people often forget my AVM/ABI is not so much mental but physical.

I guess the point of my blog is to educate people that all brain injuries are different. While catching up on my data entry, which is a lovely excel spreadsheet where I record the carer hours and other services for future reference, I realised a date in November 2020 I had so much on at the same time it wasn’t funny. Yet I can cope. This particular day, I had my Personal Care (PC), carer for an hour. My community access carer, despite not going out arrived just ahead of the PC chick. All of which I can work with, as can they.

I still had to be presentable as I had a committee meeting via Zoom. While I don’t do make-up when I’m not out of my home (apartment!). I won’t do make-up to stay at home, but I do need to not do colour and then I remembered my MOTHER was here. It was not planned; it was very last minute the night before. But it is what it is.

My mum had gone out to her appointment and returned by the end of the Zoom meeting.
By which time my handyman had arrived. My handyman comes once yearly for a spring clean. Does windows on the inside, the fan covers in the bathroom, any areas on walls or floor that take a serious hit and it’s not the light cleaning my weekly HC (home care) carers need to do. Suddenly with too many warm bodies in my apartment, a complaint goes out that it’s too hot and can the A/C go on? Well, it’s set still too hot but here’s the remote, work it out.

Still three people are in my home and I’m to prioritise what everybody wants as the most important thing to solve first. At this point I get a bit grumpy. OK! We are working on it, if you can’t help, don’t be part of the problem my mum gets the heater to cool air.

There is a new calm. Mum makes her lunch and coffee and departs for her long drive home. What she was here for had been achieved.

Despite what she may think of how I feel about my mum. My mum is a ROCKSTAR! She really is.

The second carer gets her stuff done for me and departs. It’s just me and the handyman and a recently departed carer visits for a bit. She distracts the handyman briefly with talk of fruit trees and such. I’m meant to roll with the punches, it’s fine. The handyman goes, as does the visitor.

My brain is fried. But I coped with all the craziness. All these things, they wouldn’t normally happen ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

Dear God

 

Dear God!

Dear God! And I could say ‘Dear Fred!’ but that might be confusing. Sometimes when life is too hard and you have thrown me one too many hurdles in life and I can’t take it anymore. And all I can do to make my point is to hold people to ransom until I am heard and someone helps me!

Anyway, this was not how I wanted my next post to start, but it seems the best way to tackle the topic of some ‘shit’ that went down today.

Some people may think my disability is not as bad as theirs or be irrelevant because it’s just a brain injury! Or because I don’t seem physically challenged by my disability! So to explain;

Monday, I found a new ‘fucked-up’ way to pull muscles in my back and all I was trying to do was lie down on a massage table face down! Yes! Really!

While I do manage to get out to appointments one way or another and I manage to get myself home usually in one piece, it comes at a price and can take its toll and definitely more of this “shit” later because right now this is not my point.

I still need to advocate for myself at times and when I’m smart enough to know I’m getting a raw deal from my ‘Service Provider’ and they should be doing better. I dread to think how they treat others and that’s when people like you ‘God!’ don’t have the ability to cope as well.

This is why I advocate for people with A.B.I’s.

Today, while at a Brain Injury Self Advocacy Group’s monthly committee meeting one of our new members ‘Fred’ (we will call him) burst into the room just as we were finishing.

Let me premise this by saying; Fred was having a much shittier day than I was up until that point and his multiple A.B.I’s proving to be far worse than mine. He was very angry and had been to court, hence missing the meeting.

He blasted us with random facts about his situation that we obviously needed to know. But, for all his many issues we work largely as a referral/networking service and while we tried to recommend some Advocacy groups. He told us they had been less than helpful and that is me paraphrasing what he actually had to say about them. What he should have said was they had been less than helpful to him and I imagine if he dealt with all his situations and troubles in life the same way, he informed us today that we were not of much use to him.

After about 15 minutes of dealing with Fred’s fury, I had to leave because I started to feel sick. I really respect Russell Brand when he has been known to say;

“I don’t have a drug problem; I have a dealing with life problem!”

And that is the problem with Mental Health and that is when dealing with Chronic Medical and Health issues, the thing, the thing & the thing that lead to the serious mental health issues it’s hard to cope with the shit that happens and how to deal with them, so the already fragile mental health doesn’t get worse.

Now lastly, I don’t know that everyone followed this post and while the intention, the meaning and the conclusion, my point or at least a little out of it.

Now for a cuppa T.