I haven’t written a post in a long time, but I was still writing. In October I started writing a manuscript for what I hope will be a book about my cross Canada bike trip in 2002, my bike accident and brain injury in 2003 and how my life has changed since then. I finished writing about 10 days ago, read it through myself and I asked two others to read it. I’ve never done this before, so right now I’m thrilled to have written it. From what I’ve heard though, it’s a long process, full of edits and frustrations. Being a naive first time writer, I’m actually looking forward to that part of it. So anyway, that’s where I am now. I’ve written a few posts since October, but this is my first in 2012. It’s not that there haven’t been stories that I wanted to comment on, it’s that I was concentrating on writing my manuscript and by the time I felt like writing even more about brain injury, the stories were old news. That said, I really like writing and I have fun with it (especially writing my now favourite post: The concussion Tipping Point )

I like to think I was, at least somewhat, ahead of the game when I started this blog in August 2010. Now, of course, it has moved from ‘the hidden injury that no one considers’ to an issue that’s been covered so much that it’s become part of the wallpaper. I started this site because I wanted to write. I wanted to make public some of the issues about brain injury that were being overlooked. I also wanted to write about sports.

When I started, it was before the NFL had the rash of concussions in the 2010 season and before Sidney Crosby was concussed. I remember thinking, “This site will provide news about concussions and I’ll write articles. No one’s writing about brain injury in sports!” Now everyone is and I’m trying to find new angles. I wrote about Tebow in December – that didn’t work, but what the hell, might as well give it a shot. I’m not about to write a Jeremy Lin post, but I’m definitely following it.

The reason I wrote the Tebow post wasn’t even about Tebow. It was about the blatant close-mindedness of many of the people following football in the media. They would use the disclaimer that what they were about to say or write wasn’t a knock on Tebow, just his style of play and that it can’t work with any consistency, all the while taking obvious pleasure in any failure he might have had. What got to me was that no one was calling them on their hypocrisy – ‘Nothing against the guy, but he’s terrible at his profession that he’s spent his whole life preparing for and I hope he fails miserably.’

Let it go Nick. Let it go. I’m really a happy guy, but it’s tough to write in a light-hearted way about brain injury. It’s not impossible though. I’ll do it. I just need to find the right approach. That’s it for me, for now, but I’ll be back sooner with a post that’s more light-hearted, yet still about brain injury in some respect.