Tag Archives: Brain injury

Surviving the Storm Six Months On: My battle with Concussion & a CSF leak

July 7, 2015 Becky Hill 9 Comments

This post is a follow up post to Surviving The Storm: My Battle With Concussion And A CSF Leak that I wrote 3 months ago.

Life is a journey through different seasons. Seasons of celebration, happiness and success and seasons of loss, pain and frustration.

Sometimes unexpected things happen and life changes in an instant. Sometimes that change is temporary. Sometimes permanent. But it always brings a season of adjustment with it.

At the start of 2015 my life was going along normally. It was the start of a new year; a new season; a new time.

Then I had an accident.

In many ways, it was just a small accident. In an error of judgement I put a small step ladder on an uneven surface whilst painting. I painted with it there for hours, then in one moment the ladder toppled over and I fell.

One mistake on my part. And one I have paid for over the past six months.

We all make mistakes every day. Often the consequences are minimal. Then a day comes when we make a mistake that has bigger consequences.

We can’t change what happened.
We can only learn from our mistakes.

That journey is never easy.

When I fell, I hit my head, back, neck and arm. It was a blunt but forceful impact to my lower head and although I felt the impact and felt slightly dazed, in general I actually felt OK.

So I did what I always do: I got up and carried on.

I even joked to others about falling off that ladder – oblivious to what had actually taken place.

Then as I wrote in Surviving the Storm, over the next week my injury caught up with me and everything began to unravel.

Brain injuries like concussion, post concussion and CSF leaks are tough. They are difficult to fully diagnose and yet so debilitating. Your brain is like mission control to your whole body and when your brain gets rattled or strained so many things get out of sync.

I am one of the blessed people whose injury, although serious, was comparatively mild. Severe brain injuries are life threatening and permanently life transforming. I am so very thankful that it was no worse.

However,

It was and still is a storm in my life. It was debilitating. It changed my life for a time. It is still improving but it has not yet fully passed.

Four or five months ago, at its worst, the only way to ease the symptoms was to lie flat and do nothing. For hours, days and weeks on end.

Have you ever tried that?

Doing nothing but lying flat in a dark room.

It can be torture. Especially when you are dizzy and in pain.

I was then finally admitted to hospital 8 weeks after the initial injury. Although tough in itself, I was thankful for this, because we got some answers and I was finally diagnosed with a CSF leak (cerebral spinal fluid leak).

Many people will not know that after a few days in hospital I faced one of the darkest days in my life.

Some events took place that probably during an average day I would have coped with and managed mentally and emotionally a lot better than I did.

But on that day a pattern of events unfolded that involved a senior hospital staff member with an exceptionally bad attitude.

And it totally floored me.

I have never felt so utterly weak and helpless. I was in so much pain, was mentally impaired by the cloudiness and dizziness, and faced a very unpleasant situation that I was powerless to deal with.

Those two days (because things got worse before they got better) were probably two of the the hardest days of my life, in many ways.

I have never felt so desperate, so weak, so intimidated and so vulnerable.

I cried a lot that day, desperately and deeply (in a hospital ward full of other people).

Have you ever come to the end of yourself?
When you have no strength left physically or mentally.
When you feel desperately vulnerable.
When you can’t fight any more.
When you don’t know what to do.

At its worst my injury left me in severe pain and my body would start shaking violently in response. As this happened my mind would cloud over and take me into a drunk-like state.

You can’t think straight, struggle to talk, can hardly stand and walk, and it can be quite distressing.

You feel immensely vulnerable and it was in my vulnerability that I faced this intimidating situation that I couldn’t deal with alone.

In that moment I thank God so much for people who loved and cared for me. There was a wonderful nurse at the hospital who reached out to me in my desperation with compassion and understanding. My church family had already dedicated a week to praying for me and they fought for me spiritually in my dark hour.

My husband was at a pre-planned family gathering with my girls that day (over 2 hours away). It was to celebrate my Mum’s birthday, in her remembrance (just over a year after her death). He dropped everything to leave, earlier than planned, and got to me as soon as he could (about 3 hours later).

In my darkest hour I was physically and mentally wrecked and alone, and yet I did the one thing I could: I reached out to God in the midst of my desperation.

I knew that He would carry me.

When there was nothing left of me I knew He would hold me.

When I felt the most vulnerable I had ever felt, I knew I had advocate who was fighting for me.

And that is what got me through. Believing, hoping and trusting that things would get better.

I have never felt so desperate, so weak and so vulnerable.

CSF leaks can be very hard to fix. There is still a lot of uncertainly about the best ways to treat them. After two and a half weeks in hospital I ended up having a blood patch (where blood is injected into the epidural space in your spine) which helped a lot, but it certainly didn’t solve everything.

I again had to decide to hold onto my hope and have faith that it would get better. And things have got better. A sense of normality returned, but even 6 months on life post-injury is still a challenge in many ways.

I still can’t do everything I once did.

And that is hard.

As I shared in ‘Is Busyness a Choice?‘ I was a busy person. One of those people that always had a lot on and did a lot of rushing about.

But at the moment I still can’t rush about like I used to.

And it is SO frustrating.

I still have to sit and lie down at regular intervals. Especially when I have a lot on.

I often feel lightheaded, my head gets cloudy and a spaced out.

Life takes much more effort. Which is a mental, as well as a physical challenge for me.

I am a doer, a get up and get on type of person, but my body won’t always let me do that at the moment.

When your energy levels are low, everything becomes so much more difficult. The things you have to do become that much harder. And even your mental processing becomes impaired. These are all things that I still have to battle through daily.

I have to have wisdom to work out my days. If I know I have a lot to do I need to make sure I have clear rest points in the day, both before and after the activities I need to do.

It is manageable.
But it is frustrating.

And yet despite all these challenges I have learnt and grown so much.

I have so much more empathy and awareness of people with health issues. I hardly ever used to get ill, so my experience of battling this has given me more compassion for people who are struggling with injury and illness.

I have had to develop a longer term perspective so as not to get overwhelmed with the daily challenges. I have to see the bigger picture.

I have had to learn to say no to doing too much, allow other people to help me, and tell people when I am struggling. Which doesn’t come easy to me because I fight against self pity at all costs and do not enjoy being a victim.

Life has been more frustrating.
I have faced increased feelings of discouragement.
But I have certainly become more self aware and developed more humility.

The last six months have been tough in many ways.
However,
I believe we can never give up or lose hope.

Without hope we have nothing to live for. It is always faith, hope and love that give us confidence for the future.

I have faced my own vulnerabilities and weaknesses like never before. And more than ever I know I cannot rely on my own strength to keep going and do all I am meant to do.

But that is not a bad thing.

Coming face to face with your own weaknesses and vulnerability can be a good thing.

In the Bible God said this to the Apostle Paul when he was struggling with his own weaknesses:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Paul then wrote in response:

“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-11.

When I feel weak, I realise that I can’t ‘do life’ on my own. I realise that I don’t have the capacity and strength alone to face the challenges that life brings. But I do know God will work His power in and through me…. regardless.

That is grace.

The Almighty God uses us fragile humans in our weakness and vulnerability and makes us strong in His power.

When I come to the end of myself I have no where else to turn but God. It is then that God’s power works in and through me in the most beautiful way.

Because when you come face to face with your fragility you understand that we are all the same.

We are all human.
We all have struggles.

It is then, as God shows us His love and grace in the midst of our own struggles, that we can show love and grace to others in the midst of their struggles.

That is the power that works within us.
The power of love and the power of grace.

It is the mystery of God.
The divine paradox.

That weakness brings strength.
And that strength is spelt LOVE.

And love and grace are all you need!

So that’s my journey of surviving my unique storm. It is still not over, but writing this post has been helpful for me in looking back over the past six months, remembering, learning and growing towards the future.

This post has, in all honesty, been written through tears as I attempt to share some of the darker realities and vulnerabilities of my journey.

However, what I do know is that these dark days are not without purpose. They have been used to strengthen me and they will be used to help others.

There is always new strength to be found in weakness. Sometimes the journey to finding it will be painful.

But it is always there to be found.

How do you find strength in weakness?

Comments are always welcome below or on my social media links.

To read more about my ongoing story of living with a chronic spinal CSF Leak click here.

Here is a brilliant 2 min animation about Spinal CSF leaks.

For more information about spinal CSF leaks please see the UK charity website at www.csfleak.info or the US charity website at www.spinalcsfleak.org.

This is a wonderful new May 2018 medical paper about the 10 most common myths and misperceptions about spinal CSF leaks. It is by some of the top world experts in treating this condition. I was told so many of these myths by various neurologists, anaesthetists, radiologists and many other doctors during my lengthy and traumatic nearly 5 year battle with a spinal CSF leak. This kind of misinformation caused many delays, misunderstanding and great distress on my already immensely long winded and difficult medical journey.

This other in depth 2018 medical paper is about both low and high intracranial pressure syndromes and their similar and different symptoms. It also mentions cross overs with other headache types. When a patient suffers with a spinal CSF leak long term it can cause massive fluctuations in their whole pressure system both whilst suffering from a spinal CSF leak and following treatment. This is why lumbar puncture pressure readings and ICP pressure monitoring can prove an inaccurate disgnostic tool for SIH as this paper refers to as does the 10 myths paper. My initial LP reading was a 7 which was considered ‘evidence’ of low pressure by some doctors and normal by others.

This post was inspired by my last post called ‘Breaking Free! From Pretense’.

Identity

Is Busyness A Choice?

June 13, 2015 Becky Hill 8 Comments

Just stop and ponder this question for a moment.

Is busyness a choice?

What if we make it personal:

Is how busy I AM a choice?
Or is it an unchangeable fact of my life?

I have been thinking about writing about busyness for a while. At first I thought about adding it to my ‘Breaking Free!’ series and yet the more I thought about it, the more I kept coming back to these questions:

Is busyness actually choice?
How much control do we have over it?
Can I really ‘break free’ from it?
Do I want or need to ‘break free’ from it?

These are the type of questions I have been pondering and have asked myself on numerous occasions, especially since having kids.

Will this overwhelming, exhausting busyness ever stop?
The relentless do, do, do, go, go, go of life.

For years I have both thrived and have been exhausted by busyness.

My husband Matt and I are very driven and passionate about life. We live life with purpose, get involved with a lot of things, connect meaningfully with a lot of people and do not shy away from responsibility.

It’s in our nature to have a full life.
We love living life to the full!

But in at the start of 2015 things changed. I fell off a ladder and sustained a minor brain injury. And busyness began to happen around me rather than to me.

And
I struggled.

Enforced rest is hard. And it wasn’t fun rest either:
I couldn’t watch that movie.
I couldn’t read my favourite book.
I couldn’t listen to my favourite album.
I couldn’t go out for a meal with friends & family.

For about 3 months.
I mainly just had to lie there in a dark and quiet room feeling unwell.

Comparatively (to normality) I couldn’t DO anything.

Now if you know me personally, you will know I am a DOER. It’s in my nature to DO a lot of different things at the same time.

But suddenly I couldn’t

And it was hard.
Really hard!

And at these moments the question flies around your head:

Who am I when I can’t really DO anything?

An interesting question in itself and something I will come back to later.

Even now, 5 months on from the accident, I am so much better and improving each week, but I still cannot rush about as I did before without feeling the impact. My head begins to get cloudy and dizzy and everything takes much more energy.

I cannot DO busyness, like I used to and it’s a challenge to me.

A couple of months ago, I read an article called ‘Busy Is a Sickness’ by a guy called Scott Dannemiller. It said a lot of what I had been thinking about for a while.

In it Scott discusses two types of busyness.

1. Busyness we can’t control: Which he writes primarily affects the poor because their economic reality simply does not allow for downtime. They have to work 2 or 3 jobs just to make ends meet.

2. Busyness we can control: Self-created stress. He writes, “Most of the time, I manufacture urgency in the hope that it will create urgency in others. Instead, it only creates anxiety, resentment and spite. Which is absolutely counter-productive. And even in the cases where the urgency is real, it’s often due to a packed schedule I created.”

Why do so many of us get caught up in a cycle of busyness that we can control and yet can often feel out of control?

Scott Dannemiller writes:

“… we are defined by what we do. Our careers. What we produce. It’s the first question asked (of us)…. The implication is that if I am not busy doing something, I am somehow less than. Not worthy. Or at least worth less than those who are producing something.”

He goes on to make the case that many of us can use busyness because ‘we are afraid of ourselves’. True quiet time can be a challenge and also very revealing – as we come face to face with ourselves and our own thoughts.

So busyness is very linked to our identity.
1. It helps us to feel like, and let others know, we are DOING something useful or important.
2. It can keep us distracted from facing ourselves and our thoughts.

Perhaps Busyness is a sickness of epidemic proportions!

“We are defined by what we do.” – Scott Dannemiller

So many of us often feel crazy busy. The irony is, we complain about it and yet we can simultaneously wear it as a badge of honour. We mention it to empathise with others, but it can then quickly become something we compete over.

It can be a reality.
But also an excuse.

Busy, busy, busy…. Rush, Rush, Rush!!

No wonder people want to:
Escape it.
Get away.
Drink it away.
Eat it away.
Medicate it away.
Self medicate it away.
Run away.

The pressure of life.
The realisation that life and responsibility is not easy.
That it involves a lot of hard work.
That it never seems to end.

The stress.
The worry.
The exhaustion.

Of all I need to DO!

The modern world we live in demands more and more of our time and attention as technology invades every part of our lives. Until our lives can feel out of our control.

It can feel overwhelming!

Yet do we have more control over it than we might think?

This is something I have increasingly thought about and my answer is, of course: Yes & No!

After 10 years of having children I know full well that having kids makes life hectic. You have these little people dependent on you 24/7 however tired, exhausted & in need of a break you are. When you have kids busyness is often an inevitability. Even holidays can be exhausting.

But there is still a lot of choices I make each day in how I use and view my time. Often:
I chose it,
I agreed to it.
I took on that job.
Said yes to that appointment.
Agreed to that meet up.
Answered my phone.
Took on that new responsibility.

So I must either accept the consequences of my choices, do it with a humble heart and increase my capacity – which is a good thing to do and something some of us need to learn to do more.

Or I have to decide to somehow change it, whilst maintaining my integrity and honouring my commitments wherever possible.

There is no point in complaining or getting bitter about the choices I have made.

If my busyness is out of control maybe I need to think carefully about my life and make different choices. Change may not be possible over night but there are always ways forward.

What about the times when busyness is not a choice?

Life will always bring seasons that feel uncontrollable. Things happen that we did not expect in our personal lives and jobs and the balance in our life quickly shifts to ‘unbearable’. Sometimes we just have to manage and find a way through a particularly exhausting season.

Matt and I faced this, at the start of the year. We had to quickly make a lot of changes when I was ill. Matt couldn’t DO it all on his own as I wrote about here.

It showed us that we could scale back when we needed to. We can say no and reevaluate what needs to change. Lessons I hope we will apply more in the future.

I have realised that I need to ‘break free’ from a busy mindset and its hold on my identity and discover a rhythm of life that works for me and my family.

Much of our busyness is a choice. We can get frustrated by it and yet we often choose it. Sometimes we can end up blaming others and get angry about it. And yet we have agreed to it or allowed the people around us, or our own mindsets, to influence it.

I know Matt and I will always live a ‘full life’ even amidst challenging seasons. But I have realised that I need to ‘break free’ from a busy mindset and its hold on my identity and discover a rhythm of life that works for me and my family.

A life rhythm that continues to thrive on a ‘full and purposeful life’ which will inevitably include a lot of hard work, generosity of time, sacrifice, commitment and responsibility. But one that does not pull us into a place that is consistently overwhelming and potentially damaging to our health, faith, marriage and family.

Busyness will take everything if we let it!

To end I wanted to again use Scott Dannemiller’s words because he says it so well.

“So my prayer today is this. That I stop defining myself by my doing, and start defining myself by my being. That I stop measuring time by the clock on the wall, and start measuring it by the experiences I share with those around me. And that I stop seeing my life as “busy,” and instead, see it for what it truly is.
Full.”

Do you think busyness is a choice or do you think of it as an inevitability?
How could you bring a better rhythm to your life and see busyness a different way?

I invite you to discuss or comment below, or on my social media links, I would love to hear what you think.

Breaking Free

Breaking Free!

May 10, 2015 Becky Hill 8 Comments

Do you ever feel like you want to break free?

Break free from something … even though you cannot necessarily pinpoint what it is?
Do you feel like you want to break out and discover more freedom?
Do you desire change, even though you also fear it?

What does it mean to break free?
What does freedom really look like?

There are so many things that can trap us. That keep us bound up physically, emotionally, spiritually & mentally. Things that take control of our lives and stop us being the people we desire to be and doing what we desire to do.

What do you desire to break free from?
What is keeping you bound up?

Maybe it’s:
Fear
Worry
Sickness
Pain
Other people
A relationship
Others opinions
Comparison
Jealousy
A job
Family
Your thoughts
Depression
Anxiety
Addiction
Anger
Hate
Bitterness
Grief

The list goes on…..

Each of us know that there are things that trap and hold us back, but we can’t always see how to break free.

I believe the desire for freedom is something that is inbuilt within us.
To feel free & liberated is a deep human desire.

But what does freedom actually mean and why can we often feel trapped and bound?

At the start of 2015 the brain and neck injury I sustained was debilitating. My life became so restricted as I spent 22-23 hours a day lying down and could do very little for about 3 months (followed by another month of recovery). During that time I felt trapped physically within a body that would not function as it should. I desired my body and mind to work properly, but they wouldn’t and I felt trapped by it. I desired freedom from the injury and the damage it had caused, but each day things hardly got better and they actually began to get worse.

I couldn’t shake it off.
It wouldn’t go away.
If I fought it – it got worse.
I couldn’t break free.

However.

Even though I could not break free from the physical symptoms, I decided, from the start, that the injury couldn’t and shouldn’t control everything.

I decided that I could break free and choose freedom in other areas. I was adamant that the injury wouldn’t take my psychological health as well as my physical health.

Now this was a challenge because the brain injury affected my cognitive processing. At first I couldn’t really do anything. I couldn’t:
Read.
Listen to music.
Watch TV.
Look at or use screens.
Walk outside without support.
Sit up or stand for more than about 15 mins at a time.
Have long conversations.

However, I knew I had to take back what I could control and choose to stay positive, to stay thankful, to not let fear and worry control me.

Even when I could not break free from the physical symptoms I chose to fight for freedom spiritually, physiologically and mentally.

Some days that was easier than others.

Even when we face setbacks and discouragements, when things seem to be getting worse rather than better:

We can still fight for freedom.

We cannot control everything in our lives but we can choose to take control of our thoughts and attitudes.

The times I felt most trapped by my injury and illness were the times I allowed my mind to dwell for too long on the negatives.

On the ‘what ifs’.
On the frustrations.
On the horrible symptoms.
On the restrictions.
On how I felt.

It was then that the battle would set in, trying to drag me into an unhealthy mental state. To pull me down into negative thinking and attack my physiological stability.

In those moments I had to fight to break free. To remember all the things I could be thankful for. To choose to believe that things would get better. To focus on the positives and to push through to the inner peace that I knew was deep within my soul.

I can remember as my husband drove me to A&E for the first time, 7 days after my initial injury, I was in a bad way. I felt so dizzy & out of it. Disconnected from the world. Keeping my eyes closed because my brain couldn’t deal with the lights and movement of the car. I could hardly talk, I couldn’t walk without help or support. And on that journey I just kept saying to my husband Matt – “everything’s fine isn’t it. It’s all OK.” And he would just gently, yet confidently, say, “yes it will be fine, everything will be OK.”

I am so thankful that Matt and I share the same outlook on life. That even when things get tough we dig deep to find that inner peace. To hear the gentle calming voice within saying – ‘it will all be fine, you are OK, don’t be scared’.

Now that was day 7 after my injury. I wasn’t, of course, OK and was diagnosed with Post Concussion Syndrome, but it wasn’t life threatening and that’s what the being ‘OK’ was about. However, by week 7 things had got worse; we took our 3rd trip to A&E and I was finally admitted and we got some answers as I was diagnosed with a Cerebral Spinal Fluid (CFS) leak. I then had to again fight to stay positive, to be patient, to trust I would recover, to choose everyday to keep on believing, trusting & pushing through and taking hold of that peace & hope within.

Even when I felt at my weakest physically, emotionally and mentally, when it felt like I was getting battered from all sorts of directions, in all sorts of ways, I had to choose to stay hopeful. To find that strength amidst weakness and to hold on to the way forward.

Breaking free is a mindset.
It is birthed in the heart and received in the mind.
You have to be determined to take hold of it.
You have to choose it.
You have to believe it.

There have been many seasons in my life as well as many daily battles when I have to push to ‘break free’.

My last two blog posts about insecurity, due to comparison and others opinions, talk about some of these daily battles.

We all have them and some of our battles will be similar. And yet because we are all individuals, many of our battles will be unique to our circumstances and personalities.

So to explore this subject of ‘breaking free’ I am going to write a series of blog posts about this subject.

As with all of my posts I will try and make them as ‘real’ as possible. Sharing stories from my own life and things that have helped me.

I am certainly not there yet. I still often have to fight to break free from the things that come against me. I still have days and moments where I feel more trapped, than free, especially in my thoughts.

But I am on the journey.
I have not arrived.
But I have left.
I have seen freedom.
I have tasted of its liberation, peace and joy.
I have lived it.
I have experienced it.

But I know there is more.
I know I can push in further still.
To grasp hold of my freedom and not let go.

And I will not give up pursuing it until I have experienced it in every area of my life and thoughts. That is a life time goal. Unattainable; perhaps, but…

What a vision for life – total freedom! For you and for me.

It’s available. We just have to reach out and take hold of it. We are not built to feel trapped & bound.

We are built to be free!

“As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” – Nelson Mandela

Spinal CSF Leak, Suffering & Grief

Surviving the Storm: My Battle With Concussion & A CSF Leak.

March 21, 2015 Becky Hill 26 Comments

‘The longer I live the more I realise the impact of attitude on my life. Attitude to me is more important than failures or successes, than what people think, say or do, it is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. The remarkable thing is that I have a choice everyday as to the attitude I will embrace and I am convinced that life is 10% of what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.’ – Charles Swindoll

It’s been a while since I wrote on this blog. In fact, only a few days after I started the blog, I had (what I considered at the time) a little accident and fell off a step ladder and hit my head, neck, & spine as well as sustaining some other minor bruises.

The end result of this little fall was two and a half months of, at times, severe symptoms which were diagnosed by various medical professionals, firstly as Concussion, then Post-Concussion Syndrome & Whiplash and finally, about 3 weeks ago, I was diagnosed in hospital by neurologists as having a spinal CSF (Cerebral Spinal Fluid) Leak. (This is a tear in the membrane that surrounds your brain and spinal cord. It results in the spinal fluid leaking out and absorbed into your body, reducing pressure and causing your brain to drop in your skull.)

I am not sure we really fully know which of my symptoms could be attributed to what diagnosis, at what point. However, in the end, the CSF leak seemed to fit many ongoing symptoms, a lumbar puncture confirmed ‘low pressure’ spinal fluid and I received treatment for this which helped a lot. (This included an epidural blood patch following over 2 weeks of lying flat in hospital whilst taking caffeine supplements & pain relief).

In short I had battled for weeks with an array of symptoms which included:
Severe dizziness
Lack of balance
Pressure headaches
Severe head and neck pain
Cognitive (thinking) impairment
Sensitivity to light and noise
Nausea
Body shaking and spasms
Struggling to walk very far (and only with support)
Struggling to talk at times
A constant need to lie down flat to alleviate/ ease symptoms. (typical of a spinal CFS leak).
Exhaustion of body & mind

Over the last 11 weeks I saw multiple NHS doctors & consultants, nurses, physios, had 3 trips to A&E, one ambulance to the house, a two and a half weeks stay in an NHS neurology ward, a CT scan, X-rays, 3 MRI scans, (all inconclusive) 1 lumbar puncture and 1 epidural blood patch.

I am currently still on the journey of recovery and building up my strength. Not fully back to normal and still have to lie down at times during the day, especially in the evenings, but I am so much better than I was.

It’s certainly been a challenging 11 weeks which totally disrupted my, and my family’s, normality. I spent 22-23 hours a day, for the first couple of months, lying in bed in a dark room, mostly on my own, doing very little and then two and a half weeks in hospital lying flat as much as possible whilst I waited for various tests and procedures.

After starting my blog in January, the third blog post I wrote was about Perspective: Stepping Back From The Detail To See The Bigger Picture. I wrote about how our perspective is really important and how we sometimes we need to step back from the details to see the bigger picture. I spoke about how sometimes it’s not circumstances that need to change but the way we see what is happening. Sometimes we have to choose to see things differently, we have to see with new eyes.

Who could have known that the words that I wrote at that time could be so significant for me in the days, weeks, and even months after I wrote them. Sometimes it’s our own words that become powerful in speaking back to us. The words we say or write in one season of our life becomes so applicable to another season of our life, in a new way.

So over the past few weeks I’ve learnt a lot about perspective. Many hours, of many days, I’ve had to step back from the detail to see the bigger picture. I have had to step back from the symptoms to get a larger perspective.

Some days you have to fight for a better perspective.
Sometimes you have to push your way through the details to gain a better understanding.
Sometimes you have to step back from the circumstances and choose to change your attitude.

Especially when things can be:
Scary
Unknown
Different
Exceedingly frustrating
Exhausting

When you can feel:
Very unwell
Naive
Helpless
Weak
Uninformed
Mentally impaired

When the new season requires new:
Patience
Endurance
Wisdom
Strength
Faith
Determination

The past number of weeks again opened my eyes to new perspective. I can’t recall in my life ever being ill for more than a few days. I’ve never had a brain injury before and I really didn’t know a lot about them. I now have a much better understanding, and a better perspective of people who experience them and similar things.

The challenge of mild traumatic brain injuries, is that they are often unseen. They are not a visible injury. Concussions, whiplash, and often CSF leaks, don’t appear on normal CT or MRI scans so it creates problems in diagnosis, all you have is the symptoms to go on.

It’s a humbling process as you try and work your way through the symptoms, often having to rely on the information you seek out yourself, to work out what on earth is wrong with you and how to get the right treatment. It’s a challenge when you are diagnosed with something that people don’t know a lot about. When your illness or injury is not fully tangible, yet so debilitating, and can often only be diagnosed by the symptoms that you experience and have to try and communicate to medical professionals.

So it’s been a season of learning.

Challenge and hardship are often a place we grow, a place we learn, a place we develop. If we choose to approach them in the right way and with the right perspective.

The Bible NLT Translation, James‬ ‭1‬:‭2-4. You can experience joy through challenging times because you know that it is stretching your ability to endure.

Sometimes:
We just have to be patient.
We have to keep walking through the storm and trust the calm will come.
We have to face the challenges of life and then use what we learn to make us stronger and help other people.
We have to keep holding on to hope without knowing all the answers.
We have to fight to stay thankful and see the positives within a difficult time.

It’s all about having the right perspective.

It’s not easy.

Some days you have to fight through the frustration, the fear, the worry and the negative thoughts. Until you can again see with a better, more positive and hopeful perspective and step back from the details of your circumstances.

When I stepped back from the detail in my situation, I could see that it could have been worse. Yes this accident interrupted my life, yes it was frustrating, a real challenge. It totally changed my life for a number of weeks and months. However, I had so much wonderful help and support from my family and friends. I have learnt so much and gained a better perspective and more appreciation of life. And I am now coming through my storm, I am doing well in recovery and I am getting back to some kind of normality day by day.

There is never any point in wasting energy on the ‘why me?’ or ‘what ifs?’ A negative mindset, looking backwards or forwards, just destroys you from the inside out. Even amidst very difficult times there’s always something to be thankful for and others worse off than you. I always chose to believe that my storm would pass (even when I seemed to be getting worse rather than better), others don’t have that blessing, the storm just gets worse and doesn’t go away.

Some days you have to fight through the frustration, the fear, the worry and the negative thoughts. Until you can again see with a better, more positive and hopeful perspective.

So again, with new insight, I say that so much is linked to perspective. We can choose to see the positives or become consumed by the negatives in our lives. We can choose remain thankful for the good things, even when we are going through a dark time.

Often it’s not the circumstances of our lives that need to change. It’s our perspective, it’s our attitude, it’s the way we ‘see’ and think about our life.

Sometimes we need to step back from the detail to see the bigger picture. We then realise that often the storms in life come and go. And with the right attitude and a hopeful perspective we will come through it:
a little stronger,
a little wiser,
a little more thankful for daily life,
and have a little more compassion for others.

It’s all about perspective!

I am convinced that life is 10% of what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.’ – Charles Swindoll

Lets keep asking ourselves: What parts of our own lives could we see with a more positive perspective? Self awareness is always the first step to personal change.

UPDATE: Please note that in August 2020 I was also diagnosed with arachnoiditis as well as a spinal CSF Leak – I now have radiological evidence to support both those diagnosis. To read more about the new diagnosis please see this link.

I have now written two update posts about my recovery journey at 6 months and at 8 months; I then have a series of posts about a relapse at 9 months when it was decided that I probably never had a concussion and all my symptoms could be attributed to a spinal CSF Leak

To read more about my 20 months on story of living with a chronic spinal CSF Leak click here

Here is a brilliant 2 min animation about Spinal CSF leaks.

For more information about spinal CSF leaks please see the UK charity website at www.csfleak.info or the US charity website at www.spinalcsfleak.org

A fantastic informative video that you can refer to about spinal CSF Leaks, their symptoms and treatments is The Mystery Headache: Migraine, Positional Headache, Spinal Fluid Leak? by Professor Ian Carroll at Stamford University Hospitals.

To find out more about Concussion and Post Concussion this video is a great resource: Concussion Management

Becky Hill's Blog