Welcome to the newly redesigned Concussion Talk website!

Please check out the Twitter and Facebook icons on the right side of the screen to go to my Twitter and Facebook pages!

Thank you Steve and John for the great work!

Now that the aesthetics are taken care of, it’s time for me to get back to posting. I haven’t posted in a long time, but I’ve had some time to think about my blog and in which direction I’ll lead it. There are sites that report medical news about brain injury, sites that report sports-related brain injuries, sites that report on stories of recovery and rehabilitation, and many other important brain injury issues. Discussing brain injury does not make Concussion Talk unique. Hopefully, people read this site because the issues I write about are different, but relatable. I hope the posts show that there is life after a brain injury, that along with the long, difficult, often tedious rehabilitation that life continues, and life in society continues. There are newly recognized accessibility issues (sidewalk snow clearing in St. John’s in the winter, for example), reasonable preventative measures that aren’t being taken, excellent rehabilitation advances and new understanding of different approaches. 

For example, I have posted a lot about Pilates and how much it has helped me – I’m going to Toronto in June to finish my Pilates teacher training at Body Harmonics! Pilates works for me. I enjoy it and it makes sense to my body. I also know that there are many people who do not enjoy physical activity as much as I do, or they have other issues and the physical aspect is not an important part of their recovery.

Basically, there are a lot of different topics that I want to write about; some of the difficulties with a brain injury, society’s response and reaction to accessibility, rehabilitation (physical, mental, etc.), strong health, and enjoyment of life, especially if it’s a different life than you were expecting/hoping for, or living. Even though you had plans to do x and you were really looking forward to x, there’s nothing wrong with y and if you open your mind, you’ll see how great y can be! Your life doesn’t go on pause while you deal with your brain injury, it’s part of your life. You probably don’t like what it’s doing or has done, but it’s part of who you are now! I’ve certainly found that once I truly recognized, and accepted that my brain injury is just part of who I am, I was happier and had even more incentive at Pilates, swimming, just treating myself better. I’m not trying to ‘get back to where I was’, I’m trying to be who I am.

Also, check out the ‘Canada By Bike 2002’ page on this site! It’s where I’ve posted my journal entries and retrospectives of those journal entries from that trip.