Baby steps: How do you measure your recovery progress?

Posted by hevykevy @hevykevy, Nov 12, 2019

One of the things that has helped me greatly is paying attention to benchmarks in progress that I have made. Like the first time I could open the bag in a box of cereal with just my hands, no scissors. I knew I was slowly regaining strength in my left hand. When my dizzy spells finally went away, very encouraging! Although they returned twice, but only for a few days each time. When I got my mouth un-wired, and then about 3 months later could finally get my mouth open wide enough to eat a hamburger. Seriously, it took nearly an hour, but I did it.< r />Anyone else noticing little things that were huge indicators of progress?

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Support Group.

I'm probably past the point of fishing alone. I'm to much of an extrovert anyway. Most of the time, when I do go fishing, I go with people who can't fish alone: older than me and disabled in some way. If I didn't take them, they would never get to fish.
Myself, I don't go alone anymore because if anything happens, there is no cell service in many places up here.
I have been out twice this winter. I wish we had crappie up here, Nice one.

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Hi all, what were your small steps this past month? Any frustrations or setbacks you'd like to share?

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My baby steps are 4 forward and 2 back. I’m able to do games on Lumosity, am better at some than others, and even with that, my scores aren’t going up steadily. I’m up and down . I’m presently scoring badly. I experience the same with tasks in my daily life. Some days, I can do things, but if I can’t, I recognize the signs and stop, which turns the stress right down. Thanks to my speech therapist, who’s been helping me with this.

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I have been so busy lately that I haven't had time to think about progress or setbacks. It started out with replacing the shower in our master bath. Took a week. Then there is a snow blower that needed a lot of work. Now I have three snowmobiles and two trailers to get fixed for ice fishing. I've gone fishing three times in the last two weeks. I am amazed at how tired I get on the days I work so hard. I guess recovery is still using a lot of my energy.
I have been working on concentration, when I go to get or do something, sticking to that rather than getting side-tracked by other things. It seems to be working.

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Great coping skill tips on dealing with the frustrating tasks, moments and days - just stopping for the moment and coming back to it.

I'd like to bring the rest of the group members into this discussion too. @badbenny @ethancarruthers @frontrunner @icydecember @kimfeist @littlepitzen @lolabelle1 @luckylizardlady @mkgarrity @msa1396 @roslyna @sseiker what baby steps of recovery do you acknowledge? How do you cope with the frustrating times?

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We have been so busy lately with recovering from surgery in January and preparing for another surgery on the 19th, that the only thing we can say is the 1st surgery went well and recovery is going good...praying for the same with the next one in a week and a half.

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I started on antidepressant Zoloft a few weeks ago. I think it has helped with my anxiety and sense of wellbeing. At the same time I've been concerned about increasing pain at my surgery site and ringing in my ears. Also for some reason my sense of taste changed again. Some of these things might be due to a cold I'm recovering from. How do people decide when to go to the doctor about what may seem like little things but could be worse? It's 1 year since my surgery this Wednesday.

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I guess I had a step backwards today.
I went snowmobiling with six friends. One of the guys asked me if I wanted to try his machine, it's a huge one. I came around a corner, thought I was going to miss some trees on the edge of the trail… then woke up to a friend asking me if I was OK and if I knew who he was.

I’m home from ER now with only minor bruises to compliment my new concussion. I feel pretty good, just a few sore spots. Not even a headache.
A part of me thinks that the miscalculation was at least partly due to my limitations from the previous injury. I really thought I was going to clear the tree, but my eyesight/perspective has been a little off at times, sometimes I still see double.
Fortunately I survived a reminder that I have to continue to be more cautious than I realized.

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@hevykevy

I guess I had a step backwards today.
I went snowmobiling with six friends. One of the guys asked me if I wanted to try his machine, it's a huge one. I came around a corner, thought I was going to miss some trees on the edge of the trail… then woke up to a friend asking me if I was OK and if I knew who he was.

I’m home from ER now with only minor bruises to compliment my new concussion. I feel pretty good, just a few sore spots. Not even a headache.
A part of me thinks that the miscalculation was at least partly due to my limitations from the previous injury. I really thought I was going to clear the tree, but my eyesight/perspective has been a little off at times, sometimes I still see double.
Fortunately I survived a reminder that I have to continue to be more cautious than I realized.

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Oh no, @hevykevy! That must've been very scary for you AND for your friends and family. How long were you unconscious? How bad is the new concussion? This all happened just today?

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@colleenyoung

Oh no, @hevykevy! That must've been very scary for you AND for your friends and family. How long were you unconscious? How bad is the new concussion? This all happened just today?

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Yes, early this afternoon. I was only out for a very short time, less than a minute. There was a couple on the sled very close behind me.
I actually drove my own sled the rest of the way to where we planned to have lunch. We were able to call a friend who drove down and picked 4 of us up and took us to the ER. I called my wife once we got on the rode. She met us at the hospital.
I'm really doing quite well. Very little pain, very slight headache. A couple of ibuprofen with dinner and I am good.
My wife got over getting excited many years ago. I'm not so much accident prone, but have always had jobs and done things that are not as soft and fuzzy as most. The wife of the guy that found me was quite shaken though.
It's quite interesting in a small town, many of the hospital staff are your friends...which makes it nice.

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