TBI fun days

TBI is Fun Article​Typical clumsiness kind of follows me like a cloud. Learning not to bend over to pick up something I’ve dropped, takes memory power, and this Super Hero sometimes forgets that at home too. How do I manage to have a day so filled with blunders? Well, I manage mostly because I’m a TBI survivor. Nineteen years, Baby, that’s right! Part of my ability to do downright silly stuff is fueled by only getting sleep in a maximum of two hour increments. Yes, I’m going to blame most of my problems on lack of sleep today, why not, right? However, I’m ready to pass on the title of my long running insomniac record. It simply does me no good, and consumes most of my thoughts which are about how my body desperately feels the need to sleep. So, does obsessively thinking about sleep help me much? Sometimes it does, because I am so determined to get more sleep that I’m the thirstiest river in the Wild Fires of California right now. Any conversation about sleep intrigues me. Any tweet, any article, I just want to print it all up and juice them, as I couldn’t possibly swallow it fast enough. ​Sometime last fall, at least I think at the moment that’s when it happened, I stumbled upon an online article about a sleep study in Asia. Wow, I remembered while being stationed in Germany, how starkly different the European News about U.S. events where compared to news channels in the U.S. I somehow trusted this source of news more as it did seem more objective. More importantly I got a completely different view of the situation, which can be refreshing or terrifying, but important all the same. This is the same reason I really love watching the Food Matters Network, it’s derived by several independent sources globally. Now gracefully praying in thanks for my easy access to pertinent news. The article I was so thrilled about relayed a concept of getting sleep when you can. I remembered from my graduate studies envying big companies like Amazon and Google for allowing employees down time and naps and the positive impact on productivity and employee dedication. Giving people a down moment when they need or crave it not only helps them get through their day, but also lets them come back to their day refreshed and renewed, which is a beautiful thing, right? For me if I was able to get a nap during the day of just forty-five minutes, depending on the night before, it could mean I have just double the amount of sleep I got in a twenty-four hour period which is huge.​Napping started to take on a self-loving aspect in my life. My daughter grew up with me literally falling asleep at the dining room table at night. Mashies still on my plate, it didn’t matter. I was destined to have sleep marks of the table’s wood patterns nestled across my forehead like most people would with a comfy down pillow. Right there at the table, hopefully after I ate my veggies, corplunkk went my head. Way too tired to move out of the chair, and definitely too tired to bounce myself off the sides of the hallway leading up the stairway to my bedroom. That table worked just fine for me. Thank God this was before my daughter had a camera phone or Face Book account, because though I’m a Super Hero I still get very self-conscious about the silly stuff I do…twenty-four seven. I reiterate…its twenty-four seven with my silliness.​Nice family outing to Hollywood last week, had a memorable end for my out of town visitors. To them, I strangely requested to sit in the back seat for the drive back to Long Beach. I no longer drive since I got my diagnosis about two years ago for several really good reasons; and am known for riding shot-gun and mixing the tunes for everyone on the iPod- D.J. style. I go out and buy cars I can easily slide into from the passenger side, measure out trunk space for my wheelchair days, and never even sit behind the wheel. A tough thing to do as an all-around motor lover. So after I make everyone uncomfortable about switching seats around and make my cousin take the copilot spot, I get in the back seat, roll down the window, and proceed to give myself a super nice vertical back window face print, and pass out. The call of nature for me, is sleep, potty breaks come second. The relative in the back middle seat offers to let me lay on their lap as everyone laughs and jokes about me. I tell you I could not care less, and don’t even think I spent the extra energy to open my second eye when she nicely offered. Oh hell no I was perfectly comfortable where I was, and now I’m drifting off to wonder if I ever even replied or thanked her for the offer. Doggy in the window, yep that was me. I probably had a nice string of drool going on too. I will make a note to carry a bib next time, and yes most likely misplace that sticky, as it’s another one of my Super Powers. Oh the fun times just keeping rolling on in TBI land. All brought to you my choosing to have an outlook of being on an adventure, whether it’s stormy or all rainbows- it’s real and its here and it’s all about how I choose to deal. Rhyming was indeed necessary just then.