Hello.

Wowza! God just did a number on me! And I mean A NUMBER!!! We just got home from church and Mark preached through the tail end of Luke 7 about the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears. Holy toledo! It was like Jesus just peeled some scales from over my eyes. He revealed to me that this accident has just been Him doing His thing yet again in my life. He has pieced my body back together like he pieced my soul back together when I first met Him.

When I first came to Christ a number of years ago the hardest part for me was wrestling through my past. I just didn't get how any God could ever love me when I had done so much bad stuff and had so much bad stuff done to me. I was dirty and defiled. I felt like a whole new me when I learned that Jesus knows everything about us and still chooses us despite all that and loves us and sees us as clean. I had never thought ANYONE would EVER see me as clean after my teenage years. Let alone the life I led before that.

And, finally, now I get it...God loves me despite this accident and still sees me as His child not as a TBI survivor. This accident and it's aftermath do not define me. Jesus does.

And believe it or not I am actually in a place where I'm glad this accident happened. I see it now as a gift from God and a striking new way for me to be able to introduce people to Him and give Him glory. AWESOME! He has given me this great tool to be able to explain the transformation He did in my heart when I first met him even to people who don't know Him. Everyone can see the transformation that's been done in my body. I was in a coma and then paralyzed and now I can walk and even balance on my previously paralyzed leg. And this is just a taste of what He did in my heart. Wow!

I can't wait to tell pretty much anyone who is willing to listen to me. Thank you, Jesus! Thanks for being who you say you are, loving me, showing me copious amounts of grace, and sticking with me while I figure out the big E on the eye chart. I am so glad I came to know Him!

That pretty much sums it up. Any questions or comments would be much appreciated.

Word vomit at ya later.

Ang

Hi.

Lots to say but really not that many words. Here goes...


I'm officially a working girl again. Work went great on Wednesday and I'm headed back today. It was fun to get to see people I hadn't seen in a while, especially JoBrida, and all went well. I think the most shocking thing was that once I was able to log on to my computer again I opened my email and was greeted by 1720 emails! That's not a typo - 1720!!! So it'll be a while before I can wade through all of them. And today I'm going to have a meeting with my boss to find out what I'll be working on. And what I'm most excited about - today I get to go back to the Amgen gym! Yeah!!!


Let's see - what else...I am just about done with my cognitive and psychotherapy groups at UW. Next week they'll both wrap up. And I just can't say enough about how much I've enjoyed them! I've learned a lot and made a new friend too.


And that new friend just had a knee replacement and I got to go visit her yesterday with Mom. She made the funniest joke - Mom couldn't remember something and she told Mom to use the excuse, "I can't remember because my daughter has a brain injury (TBI)." I think that is SO funny!

That's about all I've got but I can't sign off without saying one more thing:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! Love you!

That's it.

Bye.

Ang

Hi.

Lots of progress to report.

The biggest of which is - I'LL BE BACK TO WORK TOMORROW!!! Dottore is giving me a ride there and Mom is picking me up. So we're on! And I don't even have to fret about the office. I don't have one yet but it is still in the works. And thanks much for the super helpful responses to my last blog entry. I am totally okay even if I do get an office. It's just a tool to help me be more successful. That's all. I don't need to attach any big meaning to it that it doesn't really carry. Should be good. I'm interested to see how long it takes me to wade through 9 months worth of emails. It'll be interesting at the very least. And I'm excited to be back around all my work buddies. If fact those numbers have actually increased since I've been gone. Thanks to this blog. And some big hearts. I'm blessed to be able to call more of you friends than ever before. Though it is quite possible I'll actually lose my voice from saying "thank you" so much to all the people who have stood by me through this whole adventure. You know who you are. And, thank you.

Next one is that I am almost done with my cognitive and psychotherapy groups at UW. And boy have they been good. I think I may have even made a new friend through them. And I've learned a ton! I'm so glad I signed up for both of them.

Also had a pretty big success today at PT. I walked across the balance beam! I fell off it at least once too but I stayed on it more than once as well. Who knew that was ever going to be possible again?!?! Bet you wouldn't guess I was paralyzed less than a year ago! Hallelujah! Miracle indeed! Go Jesus!

And yesterday I drank soda out of a can with my left hand and did the running game on the Wii. The game consisted of me jogging in place. And I did it! And I was able to lift the soda can to my mouth and tip it backward without spilling all down the front of myself!

And in the last few days I've ventured out and discovered that I can do stairs step over step without holding onto the rail! Both going up and going down! Yesssssssss! Success!

What the heck is coming next?

Feel free to do a little happy dance to celebrate with me. God knows I've been happy dancing plenty lately. Maybe even futterwacking?!?!

Talk at ya soon. I'll let y'all know how work goes.

Ang

Hi.

Not too much new here. Just working through three tough new things. One is just confusion, one has me wondering more than anything, and the other I just something I have to sit in until I can convince myself it's not that bad of a place to be.

First one first, ahhh confusion. I was thinking about how I don't remember the accident and trying to decide if I wish I did. It is definitely hard for it to be an unknown. And I know that not knowing what happened will just continue to eat at me little by little for the rest of my life. But there's a lot that I'm glad I don't remember. Like the whole coma, those first three surgeries, and the weeks of non-coherence coming out of the coma. Not to mention the whole pain thing. I'm sure that the accident hurt like you know what and I bet I was really scared for the first 4 hours when I was laying in the street and by myself in the ER. I consider it a huge blessing that I don't remember all that. Nor do I want to. But knowing what exactly happened to cause the accident would be nice. I would like to know that. So do I try hypnosis to help jog the memory? Or try something else to try to bring it back? Who knows. And if I do try to get something to help jog the memory can I be selective about what it jogs? I only want back what happened in the accident itself. I don't want any of the other 7-8 weeks that I don't remember. If it has to be all or none I choose none. I think it's my body's protection system to "erase" all that stuff in the first place. Thank you, Jesus that I don't have to relive any of it! And if I did remember the accident what would that be like? I imagine it might be really scary. Would it just be remembering what happened like watching a movie or would it be remembering it like it just happened like reliving it? And do I really want to know what happened bad enough to want to relive it? Would that make me too scared to even walk down the street ever again? What would the aftereffects be? These questions are fodder for my next session with the psychologist. Should be a good meeting a week from Friday.

On to the second thing, just wondering. I was talking with my mom about this whole thing and she told me to just "let go and let God". You know, give it to God and let Him have it. I would love to but my problem is that I don't have any idea what that looks like. I've given plenty of my life over to God including things I've done and things that have been done to me. But all those things just had emotional aftereffects. Those things lived on in me by making me feel a certain way or be afraid of a certain thing. Like the whole being a teenage drug addict thing, when I gave that to God I felt so free of it. I no longer felt like I was keeping a secret, like I was dirty or stupid from having done it, or guilty for all those bad decisions. I felt like it no longer defined me, like I now found my identity in Christ not in what I had done. Giving it to Jesus really made me feel known and free from from it. It no longer haunted me. I felt cleansed of it, like it was no longer a big stain on who I was. But this whole thing has me wondering. What will it be like to give this accident to God? I certainly feel like this accident defines me in many ways. I feel like my more important identity is as a child of God, but I still get some of my identity by what has happened to this child of God. It feels really weird, not really getting it. I just don't know what I'm supposed to do. If I "give" this accident to Jesus it won't just go away like some of the other things I have given to God. I'll still have the scars and physical limitations to remind me of it. More than anything I want for God to be glorified through this series of miracles He's doing in me. I want to suffer well for God's glory. I want Him to be made much of and for His name to be made great through this whole adventure and I'm really just trusting in blind faith that He'll let me know what I need to do when to get that done. What else can I do? Any ideas? Any responses?

And on to number three - the one I just have to sit in until I can think about it differently. This one has to do with back to work. Big surprise, I won't be back tomorrow. But I'm hoping it'll be in the next week or so. The paperwork that I finally got signed by my doc said that one of my restrictions is that I need a distraction-free environment. So my boss and the occupational health nurse at my job are trying to achieve this by getting me a more private office area. This totally freaks me out because the way I hear this is they're trying to get me an "office". No one at my level gets an office at my company! Or even 2 levels above me! You pretty much have to be a big-wig to get an office at Amgen and a big-wig I am not! I am far from it! So I'm a little stressed about getting my own space and that it'll be super embarrassing. As for the thinking about it differently - I've started. When I take two seconds to assess the situation in reality I realize that this is not a bad idea since I'll be using voice activated software and if I have a more private area then I won't be distracting and bugging others. And when I take a deep breath I hear the occupational health nurse explaining to me that she just wants to set me up for success and to stack the odds in my favor for when I do come back. They're not trying to make me stick out like a sore thumb, they are on Team Sweet and just want this to be a successful integration back into the work force. All these people want is for me to be successful when I come back. And since when is an office a bad thing?!?! Then I can say to my coworkers, "step into my office..." and they can! It might not be so awesome if they stick me in a broom closet or part of the men's bathroom but then I can just work hard to get back to my old desk. In my psychotherapy group this is called adaptive thinking. The yes, I can do this, and it can be good, ways of thinking. I think this whole thing is making me an adaptive thinking pro.

Well, that's what I've got for now. Any comments/suggestions/nice feedback would be much appreciated. You can keep the nasty/snarky remarks to yourself.

Talk at ya soon.

Ang

Hi.

Back again. With new successes in hopefully fewer words.

To start it all off - had quite the successful PT therapy session on Tuesday. I actually started working on my walk in a way where it all comes together. Flo, here I come. Just to fill most everybody in, I have a weird naming fetish that started with my left leg in inpatient therapy while I was still living at Harborview. It all stared with naming my left knee with my PT at the time so we could tell "her" to get going. Anyways, my left knee is Mildred. My left hip is Byron. And my left thumb is Bentley. But what my outpatient PT and I have been working towards is Flo, the name of when my walk all comes together and starts to flow. And we are just about there! I'm now working on Flo. And I did it in front of a mirror and it actually looks normal too! I just focus on bringing my left hip forward when I step that leg forward and that triggers the knee to bend more so my foot doesn't drag. Then I just think about walking in the same plane as doing heel to toe stepping. And when I'm not thinking too hard my arms actually move too! Pretty neato! And the most neato part - I got authorization to pretty much be done with my cane! I'm just supposed to take it with me if I'm going walking somewhere that I know is uneven or if I'm going to be in a big group of people. Pretty darn good if you ask me. Although I have noticed a marked increase in the number of dirty looks getting out of the car in a handicapped space when I don't have my cane. But I'm willing to find a way to live with that. However, I still feel authorized to use the handicapped bathroom stall. I think I get to use that as long as I have the parking pass.

Another big success was Wednesday morning though it may only seem like a big deal to me. I made taco pie completely on my own. That includes browning ground beef and draining the fat! Up until yesterday morning I hadn't been comfortable doing that. Mom had always helped me or just done it, or Josh would. But my OT came up with the idea to use a slotted spoon and move all the meat to a separate container after it was all cooked and then just pour the fat out of the frying pan. And it worked like a charm! That OT is simply brilliant! Thanks, Beth!

And the other success - and boy is it a big one - I GOT MY BACK-TO-WORK PAPERWORK SIGNED BY MY DOCTOR AND TURNED IN!!! And even got an email back from my contact at the disability company without any requests for changes! So I might actually make it back to work by Monday. I'm hoping to hear something tomorrow. I'll let you know. That was tougher than I ever imagined!

That's about all I've got. Talk at y'all soon.

Ang

Hey there.

I've got lots to share so buckle your safety belt and maybe go grab a snack. There have been LOTS of successes lately for me to tell you about. Yessssssssssssss.

First off, on Sunday morning I did my Saebo (terminator splint) hand exercises where I move foam balls around and it went AWESOME! The last month the tone has been really kicking up in my left hand making these therapy exercises nearly impossible. When the tone kicks up it makes my fingers clench so tight that I have to use my right hand to stretch them out. No matter how hard I try I am simply unable to straighten out my fingers or thumb without the use of my other hand. This has made hand therapy with balls really tough because I've been able to pick the balls up but can't release them. So anyways, Sunday morning I did my hand exercises for a full 30 minutes and I could undo my grasp on the balls the whole time. It was incredible! And it didn't even seem like it was super hard. My hand just worked! For the first time in weeks! Before too long every time I dropped a ball successfully I said, "thank you, Jesus". Over and over again.

In the afternoon I went to my mom's house to prep for my cognitive group tomorrow. Our homework was to make a 5 minute talk that we're going to present tomorrow. So I went to Mom's and was able to come up with 5 minutes worth of stuff to say about my job. I think it'll be interesting and the other people in my group will get to play with some lab stuff that people brought me to practice with when I was first hurt. I'll let you know how it goes.

Then Sunday night Josh and I got to go to a friend's house for dinner. It was wonderful! We had great dinner, dessert, and company. It was like a much needed date night for us. And the coolest part was that our friends are expecting in the next few months and we got to see some ultrasound video. It was really cool to get to watch the baby opening and closing his hands while in the womb. Neato!

And one more tad of goodness from Sunday - I had a really cool healing experience at church. They did an open mic to ask for prayer during communion and I wanted to go up so I turned to let Josh know and I just broke down. I was sobbing all of a sudden. And not just tears but heaving and full body shaking sobbing. The really hard kind. So I asked Josh to go with me to the front and tell the pastors what I wanted prayer for. As the awesome husband he is, he went. And when we got up there they stopped the band so Josh ended up telling the entire congregation what we wanted prayer for and the whole church prayed for us. The pastors who vocalized it prayed for healing for me specifically but also really prayed for Josh. That was unbelievably healing for me to have Josh prayed for. It felt really healing for my heart. So that too was grand.

And on Saturday morning I randomly tried and was able to get extra small latex gloves on both hands. For the first time. Up to that point I had tried probably 20-30 times and never was able to make it work. And what timing! I'm hoping to go back to work next week and this takes a huge burden off my plate! Again, thank you, Jesus!

And all afternoon I made jam with Sharon and Mom. Raspberry and strawberry. Excellent! So don't be shy. If you want some, just ask. It was fun. We got to be girly all day in aprons nonetheless. I did stirring, smashing fruit, putting jars out, and digging lids out of boiling water with tongs. Lots of work but it paid off. Lots of jam.

And then today was a huge success as a whole. I rode the bus and shuttle into work this morning on my own and met with my ATP (assistive technology professional) guy to help me figure out what kinds of things will help me when I go back to work. And I got to say hi to a bunch of people at Amgen so that was really nice too. Plus I met with the new occupational health nurse and got to know her a little bit too. All in all, it went very well. Please don't take offense to this anyone, but I think saying hi to Neil was probably the favorite moment of the day. He was just super glad to see me, very genuine, and really excited that I was visiting. So, thanks, Neil!

And I had a whole new experience this morning. I've slept like a rock my whole life but this morning I woke up at 4am and was kept up by my thoughts racing. I think I was just nervous about taking the bus solo, walking up to the bus stop and then around downtown, the Harbor Steps in general, and going to work by myself even if it was just for a visit. I've never been kept up by my thoughts before. So in my just lying in bed time I figured I could say my prayers. And I just kind of had some good hanging with Jesus time. I've never felt so not alone in my whole life even when no one was around. My heart just felt super secure and I just knew I was okay. Can't really explain it but I've never felt so safe and known I was okay like I did this morning. Pretty cool, I thought.

I think that's about all I've got. Thanks for keeping up.

And, Kathleen, I don't even know what to do with arugula. If you can tell me, of course I'll take some. I'm not much of one to turn down food. Ever.

Talk at ya soon.

Ang

Hi.

How are ya? I'm doing really well. I've had really awesome but fleeting successes lately. Some of my pins and needles have been taking random hiatus' that have been wonderful but unfortunately temporary. Most of the goodness has been pretty centrally located to my left arm. And this afternoon it was grand. The whole top of my arm from wrist to elbow felt like the pins and needles weren't totally gone but greatly reduced. But now in the PM it is all back to "normal". The pins and needles are back just as they have been. But the spot on the back of my left hand has been holding strong sans pins and needles for days now. I don't know what is working on them but whatever it is I'll take it. I think the two primary culprits are probably either the HBOT or the Chinese herbs. Can you believe it? I am actually a believer in Chinese herbs. I would have totally brushed them off as voodoo before the accident, but now they are making huge differences for me. That's wholly what I attribute having my sense of smell back to. So they might still be voodoo but they're voodoo that works! Although I won't for a minute tell you the taste doesn't bother me. Like eating big spoonfuls of dirt mixed with something dead or dying twice a day. Heck, they must work for people to be willing to suffer the horrendous flavor.

Anyways, I also took another step on the back to work adventure this week. I met with my DVR (division of vocational rehab) lady at UW and we made a plan for how we are going to try achieve job retention for me. How she is going to be my resource if I run into any unexpected challenges, how we plan on tackling those kinds of issues, and how we plan on providing my boss with an okay and acceptable forum to tell on me if I'm sucking wind at work in a productive way. It was good to make the plan and sort of outline how all that is going to work when I get to go back. Unfortunately I'm no closer on the paperwork front. The forms are still in doctor purgatory right now. I'm trying to get a response from my doc about whether she's even working on them but I'm pretty sure she's buried in junk to do with too big a patient load. Hopefully I'll hear back from her soon.

Another fun thing is my homework for my cognitive group this week. We have to prepare a 5 minute talk and then give it next week. I think I'm going to talk about my work, what I do, why I love science, etc. and then tie it together with, of course, food. I'm going to focus on the nerdy science behind caramel corn and then share some corn with the group. Should be a good (and tasty) time. And I have a bunch of fun type contraptions from my work that I can bring in and do a little show and tell. And I'm pretty certain that nobody else will pick this topic. There's not many ultra-nerds out there. Especially after a brain injury.

That's what I got for now.

Bye.

Ang

Hey there.

How's it going? Hopefully well.

Don't have much for today but here goes...It's kind of weird how life changes so much so quickly. Last week at this time I was totally wigging out about the seemingly looming go-back-to-work adventure. This week it seems off in the distant future again. Not stressed at all. I know, I know - it's exactly the same situation but it feels so different now. Feels like it's really far off again, like stressing about it would just be a waste. I think it shifted because the whole paperwork fiasco started over again. I have yet to get the form back from my doc and then I have to resubmit it so the disability company can tell me how it's all wrong again. Oh joy.

I went to the pool again yesterday. Wow! Talk about a butt kicking! It's pretty much a solid hour and a half workout. No wonder I'm so exhausted after it!

Josh and I got to have a date night last night. Yeah! We went out to dinner and then saw Ironman 2. It was pretty good. Not disappointed in the least. I just love Mickey Rourke. Well, not really love, maybe more like like. You know what I mean.

And had a fun adventure on Friday too. Mom and I took Genghis to the vet. For any of you who might not know, Genghis is one of my cats.

He's been crapping on the carpet so we took him in to see if he's sick. It was an eventful almost hour trying to get him in the cat carrier. But we did it! And that is no small success, trust me. Anyways, he's totally fine. His blood work even came back a-ok. The vet just said that it is most likely a behavioral issue. Isn't that just what you want to hear?!?! So he's just a butt-head. That's all. Maybe we corrected that "behavioral" issue by letting him know that if he keeps it up we'll take him to the vet. Pretty sure he didn't much like that outing.

I had one other wild adventure in the last few days - I got to talk to my half-sister. You didn't even know I have a half-sister, did you? I haven't seen her or talked to her in about 15 years. And out of the blue we hooked back up. She seems pretty cool. Don't know where it will go, but I'm open. She's graduating from high school this year, so that's exciting! I thought it was pretty cool. A little twilight zone, but pretty cool.

That's about all I've got. Talk at ya again soon.

Ang

Hi there.

Back again with not too much to say. But I've got a bit, so here goes...

I've officially begun the sure-to-be nightmare of dealing with actually trying to get cleared to go back to work. So far the disability company has "not gotten my form" once and then they came back to me today after "finally" getting my form and asked for a new form to be filled out by my doctor. Apparently "May - late May 2010" is too general and they need a specific date for when I can go back to work. So I sent my doc a note asking her to pretty please fill out the form one more time with 5/24/10 in the when section. Who knew 5/24 isn't late May??? Kinda or actually ridiculously silly if you ask me. So the games begin. We have officially started this ballroom dance with a rabid rhinoceros. What fun I think it will be. It was pretty cute that my mom made the joke that near the end they'll probably come back and tell me it's in the wrong color ink. They need black not blue or vice versa.

I also have a new success to report. Not only is the sense of smell back and just getting better, but now there is a big spot on the back of my left hand that doesn't have pins and needles. Awesome!!! It's probably a little bigger than a golf ball and goes all the way down to my wrist. I don't know what specifically I can attribute it to but I'll take it! And the sense of smell is getting pretty good now. I even smelled it when Josh was toasting an English muffin in the kitchen while I was all the way in the shower. And if you know my house you know how far that is. The kitchen and the bathroom aren't even next to each other. So, yesssssss.

And OT has been really good lately too. I got assessed by a new therapist on Tuesday and now my same-as-before therapist has made a new plan of attack. We did lots of scapula work Tuesday and today and stretching.

I had a new realization this morning. I realized that I am looking forward to going back to work because that'll be only going one place those days. I am SICK of driving to heck and back from appointment to appointment. Leaving the house at 8:30am and not getting back until 6:30pm is officially old. And I'm sick of it!

And my groups at the UW are still great. Had psychotherapy group today and it's been really good the last 2 weeks! I'm glad I signed up for them.

That's it. That's all I've got for now.

Talk at ya soon.

Ang

Hi.

Not a lot for today, but I've got some. Always.

The rest of the TBI conference was good. Lots learned and I think one of my best compliments ever. As for what was learned - lots about TBI from other survivors, I am definitely not alone in any of this. I'm not alone in any part of my struggles or any of my successes. Pretty cool to know that this is all just part of the fun of TBI recovery. All the feelings of scariness, hurt, anger, exasperation, etc. is all normal. I'm not the only one who's ever been where I'm at nor will I be the last. Certainly a club I'd rather not be a part of but a club nonetheless. As for the compliment - a lady that works at UW with TBI survivors was surprised to hear that my accident was only 8 months ago. She said I look like a 10-year survivor. Cool! So I may be a spring chicken but I don't look like one. And the other big thing that I learned was, well I didn't really learn it, it was just reinforced - anywho what was strongly reinforced was that I am REALLY blessed to be where I'm at. A lot of TBI survivors are a lot worse off than me. I think my TBI was pretty bad but I'm really doing pretty well considering.

If you want to check out the website for the folks that put on the conference it's www.tbiwashington.org. They said they'd be posting minutes to it in the near future.

What else, well I made more progress on the go-back-to-work stuff. I got a loaner laptop from UW with the Dragon voice recognition program on it. I practiced by dictating part of an industry paper to it and it went well. When the guru came to help me out and I showed him how far I'd gotten he pretty much said I was good to go and had a good enough grip of things. So that's good news.

And Sunday was an awesome day! Got to sleep in with Josh, went to church, and then went to lunch with some friends we hadn't seen in a while after church. Then went home, got stuff done for a few hours, went out to dinner, and went to the movies. We went and saw The Bounty Hunter which was pretty cute. All in all it was just awesome to get to have a whole date-day with my husband! Barring the rockstar parking and super slow walking to and from the car it was almost like before the accident. Pretty nice!

We got to go see Baby Doodle today too! It was pretty cool to get to hold a baby that was less than 24 hours old! And he was cute!!! I didn't realize how much of a vortex newborns are. Holding him was like time had stopped. Josh said it was time for us to go and I felt like I had just gotten him. Little did I know that it had really been about 20 minutes with him in my arms. Wow! What a trip! He was certainly mesmerizing to say the least. What a doll!

Just one other thing - I got to go to the pool again on Monday. And whew, was it tiring! I fell asleep on the couch Monday night and still just passed out when I went to bed. Then this morning I had to peel myself out of bed at 8 and get going. I haven't slept that late for weeks! And I could've just kept sleeping. What a trip! I knew it was a good workout but my God! Sharon, I'm going to start calling you the butt kicker extraordinaire if this keeps up. Holy you know what!

Ok, that's all I've got. Hope y'all are doing well.

Bye,

Ang