For those of you who don't follow me on Twitter (shame on you, follow me NOW! @JarrettLWilson. I'll wait)...Welcome back! Thanks for following me! I try to tweet a new Terd (I mash two words together to make a new term. Ex: Terd = term + word) every other day, this previous Monday I introduced the Terd "Injourney" with the following definitions/example sentences:
Injourney(Injury+Journey):
1. Journey/adventure that results from an injury
2. Injury from a journey/adventure
Injourney eg 1
Jarrett's Injourney began after having brain bleed in May '09
Injourney eg 2
Mick injourneyed to the toilet after taking a drink of tap water while on vacation in Mexico
This is a very special Terd for two reasons -
#1. I have video footage of when I actually conceived this term, found HERE.
#2 (heh - terd, #2). It gave me a writing prompt for this here entry.
Listen, people often say that life is a journey, and that is very true. I am here to assert that, for people like me that have undergone a life changing transformation due to illness/disease, life is an "injourney". Listen some more, I've found that, as much as I'd like to carry on like things are as they've always been and not to let this condition "defeat" me, that dog just won't hunt, monsignor.
For some reason, some believe that giving in to the changes of such an event to be a sign that the illness has won - first of all, it's not a competition. Second of all, I don't lose EVER! Third of all, in a situation like mine, you have to embrace the "new normal" to be able to carry on.
My point here is that an "injourney" starts with an injury or illness and the journey can't start until you mourn the loss of your old self and embrace the five new personalities that have popped up in its place (read about the first four HERE, and the fifth one HERE).
Early on in my injourney, I jested that this happened because life was too easy. Getting something out of plastic wrap didn't take long enough. Now, unwrapping something in plastic wrap is like trying to solve a Rubics Cube.
I'm going to knock on a very large piece of wood after I write this (and I guess I'll have to knock on wood every time it gets read - would you kindly let me know after you read it?) Life... I really don't want to write this, I've become that superstitious. Let's talk about something else. What's that? Did someone out there ask me to talk more about implanted devices? Well, okay.
And now for another segment that I'll eventually get tired of and probably ignore. I have worked in education for my entire professional life. If there's one thing educators love (yes, more than every shining face that comes into the classroom and the legislators who want them to have assault rifles), it's acronyms. There's an acronym for just about everything - the latest standardized test goes by STAAR (I'm not sure what it means, I'll just guess based on my knowledge of educationese - State of Texas Academic Assessment of Rhubarbs... can't think of anything for R. The true meaning is *drumroll* State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness), readiness/rhubarbs - po-tay-toh/po-tah-toh.
Moving on, TBI encompasses so much more than Traumatic Brain Injury. To give you a better idea of what life is like with a TBI, I'm going to give a new meaning (while staying within the parameters of its true meaning). I'm going to call this serial (mmm...serial) Fun with TBI.
My first entry into this serial (mmm...serial) concerns a drug that has become my best good friend; you might go as far as to say it's a part of me :)
Fun with TBI #1 - Take Baclofen Intrathecally. Oral baclofen is great if you like to take a pill 3x a day that doesn't really do anything but make you sleepy. If you're serious about reducing hypertonicity, you need to go to your local neurosurgeon and ask for...nay, DEMAND s/he implant a device in your abdomen that delivers a continuous stream of liquid baclofen (far more potent) to your spine; thereby saying "up yours" to that pesky blood-brain barrier.
I will stop there, leaving you with visions of blood, brains, barriers and implants dancing in your head, like so much sugarplums (is that one word or two?).
On tap for next week - that damn ticking.
FIN
@JarrettLWilson PS My original plan for this entry was to get about 1800 words - I fell about 1000 short. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a pic of my daughter as she prepares to go spelunking in the cave of precious preciousness -
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