Posts

finding joy.

There was a time I wondered if I would ever find joy in life again.  I had managed to completely engulfed myself in despair. The battle of dealing with loss all while celebrating life was a concept I couldn't grasp. Most of my days were spent with a therapist, trying to make sense of my situation. The pile of problems I was facing looked more like mountains to me. I sat at the bottom of that mountain for several months and allowed satan to fill me with anger. There had been a day where I sat at the top of that mountain. How did God allow me to drop so quickly to the bottom? As I drowned in my own self-pity I slowly came to this realization: It starts with a step.  I started with a step which turned into a few steps. After a few steps I saw progress. Once I saw progress I began finding my confidence. The bigger my confidence grew the larger my steps were. Every once in a while I find a spot of loose stone and have to reroute. However, after a few wrong turns and a fe...

balance.

We have had a rough couple of months, as you may have seen from my recent posts. Troy and I have always been really good at balancing each other out. When one of us falls, the other is there to pick up the slack. I truly felt the load was too much to handle and Troy wasn't able to pick up anything for me. This is life for us now. There are more times Troy isn't able to pick up the slack and the load continues to fall heavier on me. I had many months of "too much" and finally broke. I called our "911", also known as, Doctor Vandenberg. He was able to get us in fairly quickly which NEVER happens so we are extremely thankful for that. We switched some meds around a few weeks ago and life has been significantly easier ever since. Concerta is known to have some crappy side effects which we were experiencing in full force. Since Troy's head injury one of the many issues he faces is just plain irritation with everything and everyone. He gets so unbelievably fru...

Thank you.

I just wanted to quick say Thank You to all of you. There were so many of you who messaged me, offered to take Brody off our hands, invited us for dinner, delivered flowers, etc. Seriously, I'm brought to tears just thinking about it. You guys broke our funk this weekend. THANK YOU.

a simple reason.

This will be a bit unusual for me. Back to back blog posts but I kind of feel this one is necessary. I want to share with you my reason for this blog. Its pretty simple. I just want to help people. Having been dealt the unfortunate card of TBI and trauma to our lives I want to let people in on our reality. Our reality with a TBI may differ from others but I think we can all relate in the fact that there are times that it just simply sucks. And it's ok to express that. Im not putting blame on Troy or shaming him in any way. What I am saying is that our situation is not exactly ideal. There is no one that would agree with me more than Troy himself. Our lives can be messy and that probably holds true for any person or family, TBI or not. But, I'm here to express how I feel and my experiences in hopes that others feel open to share their stories as well. Sometimes we need people in our lives to journey with; whether we have known then ten years or ten minutes. Having a relatable ...

Things could be worse.

I have been finding myself lately wondering what life would be like if October 11, 2014 never happened. If I could erase that day, I would. In fact, I'd like to erase that day and the six months following it. What crap. That brain injury robbed us of ever having a "normal" life. It's so unfair. I've been struggling lately. For the longest time I have really held it together. When it comes to my emotions or feelings in regards to Troy and life after a severe head injury I tend to push those deep down to the pits where I hope they go to die. It seems that when I finally fill up that pit, it all comes rushing to the surface accompanied with uncontrollable emotion. A few weeks ago I sat quietly in bed, trying to organize my thoughts before having a very well, thought through conversation about where we are in life and what things I've really been struggling with.  When I just started crying, uncontrollably. I don't typically talk through my struggles with Troy...

Have I told you?

Have I told you yet, how much head injuries suck? They do.  I don't live the brain injury but I live with the brain injury. And honestly, sometimes I wonder what's worse. It's tough and I hate that these things happen daily and families need to live this. It's hard everyday and what is  worse is that is usually gets worse before it gets better. Troy and I have really tried our best to journey with people who are entering the brain injury world. We have made many trips to Spectrums Neuro floor, introduced ourselves to strangers and really tried our best to love on as many people who get to join the "Brain Injury Club",  A few days after Troys accident I had a couple come to visit. I had never seen or heard of them before this. I actually told the nurse they were at the wrong room :) Both of them, along with their son had been in an accident and all suffered severe head injuries. They came and just offered to help me on my journey whenever I was ready...

Moving into May!

Good morning! So a little update on us. We have been incredibly BUSY. Is it just this time of year? It always seems that spring comes and all of the sudden the "to-do" lists triple. Hey, I can't complain. I've been so impatient waiting for this sun! Troy is just finishing up a project for work that has taken a pretty good toll on his attitude. He has been pretty hard to live with these last few weeks (This will not be news to him). He handles stress very differently now and the control he has over his emotions are... well, minimal. Most days he comes home and just completely loses it. It's really hard to have to handle that everyday when he comes home. I'll be honest, it's draining because those emotions then flood into home life. Troy is known to have unrealistic goals which, at times has been good for him. It's helped him get this far recovering from a brain injury. However, when it comes to work, it's hard to tell him to just take a breath...