This blog post is taken directly (with permission) from a comment that was made on one of our blog articles (on www.lapublishing.com/blog), and was quite intriguing and interesting. Meant to encourage, this story comes straight from the man that experienced it. We hope you enjoy this new post, and if you have a story you’d like to share, email it to bill@lapublishing.com for consideration! Now, onward to Simon’s story…. Life makes us who we are in accordance with the ‘gifts’ we are born with. Affected by my parents’ divorce at an early age, I could be emotional at times and, being a male, this ..read more

By Bill Herrin Brain Injury Awareness Month – Find Your Tribe!! Unexpected life change happens every day, to everyone. Some changes are good, others are just trivial events, and some are complete life-changers. TBI is most likely the all-time champion of unexpected life change. Nobody gets up in the morning knowing that TBI is going to strike, and really, nobody is ever ready for it. The term TBI is a broad term – with many different causes, including blast repercussions, falling, car accident, industrial accident, stroke, sports concussion, aneurism, and more. Brain Injury Awareness Month TB ..read more

Seasonal Affective Disorder and Sleep Issues Can Be A Year-Round Problem For TBI Survivors Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a form of depression that occurs at the same time each year, usually in winter. Otherwise known as seasonal depression, SAD can affect your mood, sleep, appetite, and energy levels, taking a toll on all aspects of your life from your relationships and social life to work, school, and your sense of self-worth. You may feel like a completely different person to who you are in the summer: hopeless, sad, tense, or stressed, with no interest in friends or the activities th ..read more

Perfectly Imperfect for The Holidays   By Bill Herrin   Tis the Season! Living with a TBI is a reality all its own, and as I reiterate in many posts – it’s different for everyone, including how people around you act, react, overact, act up, or don’t react to you at all. With the Holidays now “officially” here, and Thanksgiving already passed – it’s the time of year that many people dread, and for many good reasons. The way some people celebrate seems so perfectly “normal” from the outside – the whole family gets together, they have dinner together, or they open gifts, or they have a wonderfu ..read more

TBI Is A Thief… and Post-TBI Grief Is Rarely Brief   Having something personal stolen from you isn’t just upsetting…it’s offensive, and well…it’s just not fair. That’s how TBI feels to many. Leaving a TBI survivor to start over, the thief (TBI) often leaves no trace. Still, other times there is more than enough evidence. Try to talk about your grief. Talking about grief, versus experiencing grief…or living with grief daily are totally different things. Grief can be an overwhelming sense of loss, a heavy mental weight pressing down on your very soul. After a traumatic brain injury, grief is a ..read more

Five Good Choices to Make After a TBI By Bill Herrin Often, I work to encourage TBI survivors, through blog posts, Facebook memes, and with words of encouragement. This time, I’m hoping to encourage…and also inform. Many of the things I’ll include in this article will be things that you already know, but hopefully, some of them will be useful to you, your caregiver, family, friends, etc. Surviving Traumatic Brain Injury is different in every case – with each TBI having its own specific effects or limitations. Many people try working toward their “old self” – recalling things they loved to do ..read more

By Bill Herrin   Working with the topic of brain injury at Lash & Associates Publishing, I’ve heard on quite a few occasions that TBI can seriously alter a person’s ability to do certain things that they were once highly skilled at. Some basic things can also be affected, like driving a car, riding a bicycle, outdoor activities, walking/balance and more. Many may also sustain a brain injury that affects them on an even deeper level – such as paralysis, cognition, thought patterns, speech, logic, etc. The one thing that is very intriguing about TBI is how it can affect creativity – and how ..read more

By Bill Herrin TBI can make you feel isolated One of the most unsettling things I see in the TBI community is when survivors feel isolated and lonely. There have been heart-wrenching posts and comments on our blog site about families that shun (or brush off) their own family members that have experienced a traumatic brain injury. Worse yet, I’ve heard people say that they are totally on their own because they just don’t have emotional support from family (or friends). There is no way that I can offer a solution that will work for everybody – for that matter, even for one survivor…but I’m gonna ..read more

Shuffled Neurons & Other Speed Bumps…The Search For Self-Awareness By Bill Herrin Experiences in life make us who we are – they can intrinsically change who we are for better or worse, sometimes in a temporary way, and sometimes for the rest of our lives. There are things that happen that we’ll cherish, things we look back on and laugh about, things that we’d rather not think about…and then there are things that we won’t even recall. TBI can be like a thief in the night…slipping away with treasured memories and leaving us with little to work with. But take heart, because as the old saying ..read more

By Rick Bennett This is just my experience. Every concussion is different and the things that worked for me may not work for you. Laughter is great medicine. I laugh often at my misadventures. It is how I deal with challenging situations. I am also aware that dealing with a concussion is not a joke. Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2019, was the fifth anniversary of the “cracking of my head”. In 2014 I slipped on ice and fell, knocked myself unconscious and woke up on a stretcher as they were loading me into the ambulance. Stroke of luck #1 I fell at work which qualified me for worker’s compens ..read more