I have been working hard on my communication skills and now that I have your undivided attention I would like to practice a little. As you might know I am a Traumatic Brain Injury Warrior. I decided to change “survivor” to “warrior” because it embraces my “live, love, laugh, ride” philosophy befittingly. Living with a brain injury is a constant daily battle of endurance for millions of people; I choose to engage the challenge and toss down with all my spunky might. Telling my story is a big step in this often silent war. I won’t get into all the details and symptoms here that tag along for the ride, suffice to say there are many. The story intertwines with life from many years ago (more than I rather admit), with the day I did not die.
Communicating: Let me just say… It’s wheelie hard!
From somewhere in the middle of this tale…
I use to be a teacher. A linguist, multicultural, multi language speaker; I started out teaching Adult ED and Spanish then morphed into 3rd grade dual language and bilingual all inclusive classroom teacher. Purely and joyfully by accident, some of the most amazing days of my life were the days spent with those children. Oh, the stories they could tell… and in several languages at that! Most of those kiddos are now in middle school and high school, some have graduated and are in college or out living adult lives. I know so many of them are making me proud. But I digress, as I often do these days. Therein lies part of the communication issue. I know, we all do it; ramble away, off topic, forgetting what we intended to say… However, for many of us with TBI it’s a torment. Usually for the other person J Made you smile? Hope so! That’s the reason I do this. The reason I ride. The reason I get up each day and greet the day with fierce determination. So if by chance or by design, we meet along this journey, I hope you understand that there is all this passion, purpose, frustration, confusion, goofiness, aspiration and much more, trying to get out all at once, and that sometimes, well, it just gets a little gnarled up in the processing and verbalizing department. Just part of the fallout when a speeding ton of metal hit this girl on a bike.
March is Brain Injury Awareness Month -Therefore I thought I would start my story in the middle and give voice to a silent epidemic. Silent because often the full impact and long term consequences that result from mild to moderate brain injuryare not visible.
For more info on TBI look here. Hope you’ll comeback and join bicibits’ journey here on the website, FB, Instagram & Twitter. Also I have a mini blog post on TheBIND.org page “Color Me Rad”
In the mean time, get outside, carry out random acts of kindness & get your ride smile on…
Looking forward to the next installment & all the bike love
Gratefully yours ~Silvana