A Nurse's Experiences with a Traumatic Brain Injury

Hello Friends!!!!  I'm back with another blog post and forgive my delay in my writings.  I've been recuperating from occipital nerve decompression surgery.  So today, I want to spend some time sharing what I've learned about the trauma to my occipital region that significantly impacted my overall functioning, what treatment options I've tried, and why surgery was my last and best option for relief. Nervous about my initial consult I was a front seat passenger riding with my friend when we were rear ended.  It was a quick, loud, but very powerful force that sifted through my whole body.  As my body rocked forward, it slammed back with even more force and unfortunately for me, my head took a serious blow onto the headrest.  My occipital region was impacted as well as my frontal region and some of the areas that affect motor and speech.  You could say my entire brain just shifted back and forth.  At that time, I didn't know what would be...

Hello everyone.  Today has been a tad bit rough.  Why?  I have only had about 2 hours of sleep. Before my concussion, it seemed as if I couldn't get enough sleep.  This is the most aggravating aspect of my brain injury.  The brain needs a lot of rest to heal.  So, when sleep doesn't happen, this is what actually does happen to me: As funny as these memes are, I don't play around with my sleep.  I'm trying to figure out the reasons why I am so off track with my sleeping patterns.  Could it be from something I ate, or the neck injury that has resurfaced?  I had a good two months free of tightened neck muscles and nerve pain but that has returned and I am finding myself waking up all kinds of times of the night with pain and stiffness.   I am so over this traumatic brain injury.  I know I am blessed to be well informed due to my profession, but with matters of the brain, nothing is exactly textbook.  My doctors have ...

They say nurses are the worst patients.  I try not to be, LOL!!!!  I apologize up front for the long post.  I need to give a quick synopsis of what took place.  So here we go.  On August 29th 2015, I was enjoying a lovely ride with a friend after a date when suddenly my entire world changed.  From behind, a distracted driver hit us going at least 35 mph as we had initiated a stop to make a right turn.  Bang!!! It felt like lightning was surging through my head from the back to the front.  I mean it felt like a serious brain freeze but ten times worse.  Dazed and stunned, I managed to gather myself and I thought I was ok.  Well, if you can imagine, 7 months later, I'm still trying to get this brain of mine together.  What scared the living daylights out of me was a day I will never forget:  September 9th 2015.  This was the day I woke up from a nap with severely slurred speech, difficulty walking, and dizziness wor...