... now lets travel back in time ... the year is 1987, I'm a trendy popular young 19 year old, working several jobs & keeping up a busy social life. Is was Thursday night, and I dropped my boyfriend home, he wanted me to stay cos I looked so tired. But no I had an early start tomorrow so off I went in my Mirage turbo... thats the last I remember, my parents received a visit from the police - their daughter has been admitted to hospital with head injuries. The next few months were a blur, with incredible head pain, learning to walk thru doorways rather than the frame, showering in sox, spreading my food around the table & learning verbalise my thoughts. All the stuff that I previously just took for granted, huh! In my rush to resume normal life over the next year and totally mitigate any dysfuction, I did too much too soon. The Dr put me back on full accident benefit & told me to take a holiday. I got as far as Rotorua on Aug 2, 1988. As a pillian passenger on motorcycle I sustained a second HI & a fractured femur. Over the next 2 years I learned to cope with life all over again, once more pushing every boundary in rehabilation & retraining to become a Travel Consultant, with the set backs of cognitive impairment it was a real challenge. Still as stubborn as I was, setting the goals with my mind & body taking the score. Depression, low energy, short term memory, headaches & mood swings stepped in. The entourage of mind altering drugs followed & cancelled out the contraceptive pill! Welcoming motherhood with a new aray of needed qualifications. Well we handled the situation really well, & soon there were two. Muli-tasking supplied new challenges, medication changes & new O.T programs ... oh dear whoops one more makes 3, well this just won't do, time to visit the obstetrician & clip the tubes. For the first time in the last ten years I felt I had achieved something: "Full time work". I had something to live for, 3 wonderful nonjudging little people had given my confidence back! What could possibly go wrong?? ... Pregnant, what? how can this be? Oh yes number 4 had come thru a clipped tube. The first year with this boy was just a blur. I felt vunerable & listened to a lot of criticism, stopped looking at my achievements & kept beating myself up! That horrible tunnel of disillusion; 'depression had hit' - battling with 4 children, making it to appointments (feeling selfish to persue self care & preservation) deminished faith in some of my medical professionals. Trying to disect my day for an extra minute, trying to do everything at once so I don't forget a thing. Short changing my rests, struggling at half pace or dropping, fumbling & grasping in a mad misdirected dash. Thats me, right now. I longingly lust after that wonderful energizing rest. Exuasted but can't switch off, That silent pause, struggling to take it all in. Yawning & aching I remain. At times it worry that my children are getting itty bitty snitchs of good parenting, but most of the time grabbing the good stuff from else where. I'm very lucky to have such a wonderful husband who not only works fulltime & studies part time - but also cooks & takes over when I flip out! I depend very heavily on a homehelper every week day while I provide my 2 year old with a preschool education. Every Sunday my husband zips off to work on his motorbike to study civil engineering, of those Sunday's every 2nd one I get a 4 hour rest when a nanny comes out to care for the children & its great!! fingers crossed I'm hoping to get that help every Sunday. Then I won't spin out so much & rely on tranquilizers & painkillers! My file had grown very fat - no matter how many times the pieces of my puzzle were removed they still never managed to fit. Where now Di? Oh so insightful one - drug induced numbness (a place where I may feel no pain) or (feel the pain to make the gain) I now persue an alternative way, meditation, exercise & diet. Its working! Please Email me if you wish to learn more, love to all from Di

ps - the TBI chat rooms are one of the greatest recovery tools I have found

still recovering from HI one day at a time!

Love Di
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