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How schools can nurture every student's genius - Trish Millines Dziko Forget home economics and standardized tests, education visionary Trish Millines Dziko has a much more engaging and fulfilling way for students to develop real-world skills. Get schooled by Dziko as she shares how project-based learning can transform public education and unlock genius for the next g...

Getting back to normal...or whatever that is.

When I left the hospital after my brain injury, I planned on going back to live with my old roommate. We’d been friends my whole life and always got along quite well.

I always knew what to expect with him. There were rarely any surprises. But when I went home, I learned he'd moved out and some guy I’d never met before was living there instead.

At first, I wasn’t nice to my new roommate. I told him I didn’t think we’d ever be friends. I asked him to try and stay away from me, that I really had no interest in getting to know him better.

I told him to go ahead and start looking for a new place, a place he could move to when my old roommate came home - something I knew could be happening anytime soon. But I finally realized he wasn’t actually coming back. He had really left for good.

It was only after accepting this that I actually started giving my new roommate a chance. I figured I should at least probably try to get to know him a little better. And what I’ve learned so far is he’s a whole lot different than my old one.

He has a lot of annoying little quirks that are taking some getting used to. He sleeps a lot, doesn’t like loud noises, is always reading something, asks a lot of questions that are often times the same ones he just asked me, always wants to talk about serious stuff, is a little high strung at times, has a hard time relaxing, can’t pay attention for any length of time, and gets so easily fixated and annoyed by what seem like such trivial matters.

However, despite all of these things, I‘m actually kind of getting used to living with him. And there are even some days I like having this new guy around.

Maybe you should stop by and meet him someday soon - you might like him too!

- Jeff



(A New Normal The Movie)

Casting call for movie!

A New Normal (The Movie)

“After a small town doctor is in a near fatal car accident and left with severe brain damage, he and his family must try to put the pieces of his life back together and come to the realization that he will never be the same.”

From Dr. H.

Imagine if you had a good, reliable car that you drove everyday. You really liked the car. You’ve had it a long time and it felt like an extension of your body when you drove it.

During a typical morning commute to work, you get T-Boned by another car. You never saw it coming and had no way to avoid the wreck. You sustain some broken bones, nothing that can’t heal. Your car though is really damaged. It looks like they might have to total the whole thing. To your surprise, the insurance company fixes it instead. A few weeks go by and you get your car back.

You take the first drive in your favorite repaired car and something’s just not right. The repair shop did a great job, the car looks just like it did before the accident. To you though, it’s just not the same. It handles different, gets worse gas mileage, doesn’t fit into the same parking spaces that it used to, won’t stay in the lane, it’s just different.

Then there are all the “glitches.” The radio station randomly changes, the A/C won’t work, and the navigation system is so off that you don’t even bother using it any more. The repair shop tells you that they’ve done everything they can think of to fix it and can’t find anything wrong with your car.

That’s what living with a TBI feels like. It’s not explainable and nobody gets it. It’s just different. You have to accept it and make the best of it. There is no going back and there is no way to fix it. You are still alive and that gives you the power to make your life happy and fulfilling.

- Unknown

From the mouth of Dr. H.

“Ambiguous loss” is something people experience when they look the same on the outside but feel completely different on the inside. It’s something I didn’t understand before but I now understand all too well. However, ambiguous loss is not specific to those of us with a brain injury. It can happen to anyone who loses a huge part of their identity and what makes them “them.”

Ambiguous loss forces people to deal with all sorts of new and unfamiliar emotions as they’re trying to figure out who they’ve suddenly become - frustration, confusion, fear, anger, bitterness, embarrassment. These emotions, plus many more, were all things I dealt with after my brain injury. But by changing my perspective, I found a way to move forward in the midst of them - it was literally a matter of “life and death.”

You see, following my brain injury, I had suddenly turned into a brand new person. In many ways, it felt like the old "Jeff" had died. And for the longest time, this made it very difficult to move on. But I eventually stopped seeing my situation as one of "death” and started to view it as one of "life.” Instead of thinking about all I’d lost, I began thinking about all I’d gained. Instead of focusing on the old me who’d died, I started seeing a brand new me who was still very much alive.

If you are dealing with ambiguous loss, I would encourage you to stop looking at all you’ve lost and to start looking for all you’ve gained - what you end up finding just might bring you back to life.

- Jeff

This is fabulous!faboulous

Manaslu, Adventure Awaits.

, double amputee above the knee, wish him all the best for his mission.
Stay tuned for more updates

📷

Very helpful to know.

From Dr. H

When I sat down to write a book to tell my life story, it didn’t take me long to decide two that chapters would be enough to cover most everything that’s ever happened to me. The first chapter would be called “Before My Brain Injury” and its second would, obviously, be called “After My Brain Injury.”

However, I soon began to feel uncomfortable with what I’d chosen to call the second chapter. I knew the word “after” wouldn’t be accurate. It indicates a sense of finality. It gives the impression that something has ended when I knew very well that my brain injury hadn’t. It hadn’t left me and never would. I knew that I needed to figure out a better name and find a more accurate word for chapter two.

Because I'm not the greatest wordsmith, I had to use a dictionary to help me in my search. And I finally found what seemed like the near perfect word - “wake.” I would call chapter two, “The Wake of My Brain Injury.”

Now, when I was growing up, I always thought of “wake” as simply being "the water behind a moving boat.” And if that’s what you think of as well, I know this probably seems like a very strange word to use. But I found another definition for the word! Wake also means "the aftermath or consequences” of something and “the aftermath or consequences" of my brain injury is a place I will be living for the rest of my life.

Here’s just a few things you’ll read about in this new and now appropriately titled second chapter of my book.

- I try to do many of the things I used to be good at, only to find out that I no longer am.

- I try doing much of what I previously liked doing, but many of these don't bring me the joy they once did.

- I return to my medical practice, a job I knew and loved. But after just three years, I’m suddenly forced to retire.

- I look exactly the same on the outside but feel completely different on the inside.

- I worry a lot about what other people think of my "disability," suspecting others believe I might be fabricating or exaggerating my injuries in an effort to gain sympathy and attention.

- I often second guess myself and my effort, wondering if I would have had a different outcome if I had just worked a little harder in my recovery.

- I am not nearly as confident as I once was and start having a difficult time making decisions, always worried I'm making the wrong one.

- I start doubting my ability to be the husband and father my family needs me to be.

- I begin to deal with many issues (i.e. depression, anxiety, OCD) that I’d never dealt with before.

- Because of my short term memory problems, I'm forced to rely on various coping strategies that I never had to before.

- I become very rigid in my daily routines and get flustered when something doesn't go as planned.

- Fatigue becomes a major problem for me, especially after activities that require a lot of thinking. I even have to start taking a nap every afternoon.

- My communication skills aren't as good as they used to be, often struggling with finding the right word to say and with maintaining focus during long conversations.

- I sometimes lack what’s known as "social IQ," meaning I occasionally say or do something without fully thinking about how it might affect others.

Okay, now I know you’re probably thinking, "What a depressing way to end a book! I don’t think I even want to read it!” But I’d encourage you to read it anyway because that’s not all that’s in this second chapter.

- I begin to discover new skills and strengths.

- I start discovering meaning and purpose in places and things I never had before.

- “Perspective" becomes something I consider quite often and I start understanding how much it can determine my attitude.

- I no longer look at comfort as being the ultimate goal and start learning to embrace the uncomfortable, even seeing it as necessary if I want to keep growing and maturing.

- Remaining as "normal" as possible was always a priority of mine but I no longer strive for it. Instead, I start learning to accept and embrace that I’m now a little bit "abnormal."

- Going against everything I used to believe, I start understanding how we can find “strength in our weaknesses.”

- I always understood humility as something I could just think or talk about. I now realize it's something I need to practice as well.

- I start not taking things for granted, understanding how it can all be gone in the blink of an eye.

The Wake of a Brain Injury” hasn’t been an easy place for me to live. And I certainly wouldn’t recommend going to live there - or anyplace that sounds like it - if you don't have to. But if you ever find yourself in such a place, just try to remember a lot of good can happen while you’re there. Try to trust that whatever “wake” you’re living in can serve a purpose and it might be exactly where you needed to be.

- Jeff



FindingNormalBook.com

ANewNormalMovie.vom

This is truth.

You all need to see this.

Not One More Vet the Documentary Trailer