Will Booth 4/9/26 Will Booth 4/9/26

Blog Post 10 - Personal Milestones

I don’t think you, or any of the medical professionals around you, will be able to declare when you’ve finally crossed the finish line. Is there one?

With the way things have gone, there has to be some more bullshit on its way soon, right?

One of the most important things that I always prioritized and paid attention to during my recovery was my attention to safety. That nagging reminder was with me with every step and stand that I took. Along the way, I had met multiple individuals that had made rash decisions and suffered another brain injury, effectively resetting their progress, and sometimes even setting themselves back even further.

So, what am I grateful for now? My life? I hadn’t given that much thought before, or after the injury. Teams of skilled doctors saved my life on many occasions, and I luckily hadn’t died or broken my neck during the actual accident. So, yeah, I guess I’m grateful to still be alive, have a brand new opportunity to reshape myself, abilities and the people I keep around me. Some/most of that will be out of my control, but I’ve somehow learned to accept that that’s how things will go now, and I hope that you can too, if you’re also brain injured and reading this. Life isn’t fair, but hopefully this new one that you’re reshaping for yourself will be more so.

As you go along, you may discover how much more of it is within your control than the last time around.

I’m definitely grateful for that, as I emerged on the other side with an altered personality, formed by a different sense of humor, empathy and approachability. Was I consciously developing those personal attributes, or was my impacted brain forming them? Who knows? Either way, consider what you may have not loved or appreciated about the past version of yourself, prior to your injury. Is there anything that you’ll change now, or would like to? I’m not suggesting that you’ll actively need to focus on evolving these new and improved traits about yourself, but what’s the harm in doing so? After all, you’ll likely never get an opportunity like this again, to reclaim and establish a new life for yourself, as unfortunate as that is.

So, what personal milestones do you desire for. yourself, or feel the need to achieve? These may come from deep within or might have been given to you by any therapists that you’ve worked with.

For me, the burning desire to stand up from my wheelchair and walk again woke up with me every day and haunted my existence for years after my injury, due to my status a physically disabled individual that was constantly fed up with the lack of his own abilities or fortune.

Therapy was the ignition to my internal drive and desire to be “normal” again, or at least a fraction of what my former self was. How could I manage that if I couldn’t even walk, or relied on a device such as a wheelchair or walker to move around?

Will Booth 2/19/26 Will Booth 2/19/26

Blog Post 3 - Where have you gone, and where are you going?

During frequent moments of frustration and exhaustion with the daily grind of trying to regain your abilities, you may keep finding yourself wondering, what’s next? The next shoe has to fall at some point, right?

What’s it going to be this time? Another diagnosis, setback, perhaps more medication?

Well, of course, because the new you is a doped up, suffering and incurable wreck. At least, that’s what you’ve convinced yourself by now, right? Yes, because hope’s for those who have better abilities and prospects, right?

Well, if you feel that you’ve backed yourself this far into a corner, rejoice, as there’s still a chance to rekindle the missing glow that you’ll need to move forward in this new and joyous life of yours.

What can we do with each new obstacle that you must overcome to progress forward?

You may find yourself asking, what did I do?

Most importantly, I always tried to zoom out and reflect on everything that I’d already done, would do, and what others just like me had overcome to shatter the shackles of their diagnoses and disabilities.

What’s that for you? There has to be something groundbreaking that you can reflect on, even if that just means the first few steps that you took out of your hospital bed, or a therapist cheering or encouraging you on as you defeated your next milestone alongside them.

Besides this, I spent countless hours writing (typing) my thoughts and emotions down. I encourage each of you to do the same, even if you don’t consider yourself a good writer. We’re looking for consistency, not quality here. For some, this may mean journaling, which can be done on a small notepad or app on a device that you keep by your bed to remind yourself to jot down your feelings, achievements or new goals from that day. The best part of journaling is revisiting these personal notes, as they’re quick and easy to read/digest. It always helps to remind yourself how you felt on certain days, what you’re working towards, and the future you’ve outlined for yourself.

Is it a dull or glimmering one? Have you found new ways to manifest hope and personal inspiration in your altered life? I just hope, for your sake, that your brain can function at a high enough level to form new plans, goals and

Will Booth 1/22/26 Will Booth 1/22/26

Blog Post 9 - What am I grateful for now, afterwards?

I don’t think you, or any of the medical professionals around you, will be able to declare when you’ve finally crossed the finish line. Is there one?

With the way things have gone, there has to be some more bullshit on its way soon, right?

As you go along, you may discover how much more of it is within your control than the last time around.

I’m definitely grateful for that, as I emerged on the other side with an altered personality, formed by a different sense of humor, empathy and approachability. Was I consciously developing those personal attributes, or was my impacted brain forming them? Who knows! Either way, consider what you may have not loved or appreciated about the past version of yourself, prior to your injury. Is there anything that you’ll change now, or would like to? I’m not suggesting that you’ll actively need to focus on evolving these new and improved traits about yourself, but what’s the harm in doing so? After all, you’ll likely never get an opportunity like this again, to reclaim and establish a life for yourself, as unfortunate as that is.

Will Booth 1/15/26 Will Booth 1/15/26

Blog Post 8 - Lingering Pain: Just how long will it, or does it last?

As much as I always wished that I had the answer for this question, I don’t have an answer or magic formula to calculate it.

Probably one of the most important things that I taught myself was that so much of my recovery time and progress was within my control.

So, what pain do brain injury survivors deal with?

For me, I’d say that most of it was mental and emotional pain. I wouldn’t call any of the physical duress or struggles that I faced pain, as, by then, I was used to the fact that strengthening your body requires heavy usage of muscles, which can sometimes be confused as “pain” by those that either aren’t used to it or don’t want it bad enough.

That’s one main thing that I didn’t question often.

I felt like nobody, including other brain injury survivors, wanted it more than me.

That was a mindset that I had to dust off and return from my school days, back when I competed against many others just as, or even more talented than I at sports that I competed in, which was a necessary way of thinking in order to survive and win in a crowd of like-minded athletes.

This is especially crucial when you zoom out and remember that you’re brain injured now and will be for the rest of your life. That unfortunately includes any lingering disabilities and symptoms that plague your daily efforts to aid and overcome them.

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Blog Post 11 - Loss of dreams vs. creating and living new ones

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Blog Post 7 - Guilt vs. remorse that comes with your brain injury

Just what exactly happened here? Is/was there anything that I could’ve done differently to avoid all of this?

The questions and guilt will continue to relentlessly pour in, and are, in my opinion, best left unanswered and unattended.

Any answers that you may have for them are unreliable, at times dishonest, and mostly wishful. These are the kinds of topics that are best discussed and dealt with by a psychologist therapist, not the fractured remains of your recovering brain.

Always remember, your capacity to process and understand incoming information and emotions has likely been impacted by your brain injury. The close relationship between your heart and brain may have been severed, or at best, lightly damaged. Which one can you trust now? Can you go with the bruised heart that no longer gets what it wants, and is likely heartbroken from the staggering amount of loss and devastation in your life now?

Or, should you trust the organ in your head that was tossed to and fro, damaged beyond belief, and operated upon by a team of medical staff? Based on this, as it recovers for however long after your injury, your brain will have distrustful thoughts and reach conclusions that are best left alone.

What do you do if you start to feel remorse towards yourself about the brain injury? Well, I guess that depends if the injury was self-inflicted or was your fault, both of which are likely not true, and are dangerous beliefs to have.

Will Booth 1/6/26 Will Booth 1/6/26

Blog Post 6 - symptoms, aftermath and what It’s going to require

What has happened, and what’s to come? That can definitely feel uncertain and overwhelming without medical input and guidance, and without having experienced it yet.

For me, I came across so many new barriers and challenges that I hadn’t first experienced in my weeks in the hospital, or months prior in therapy.

This included increases in medication, whether it was type, quantity or dosage, as well as the breakthrough phenomenon of experiencing what are called acquired seizures and are pretty common amongst brain injury survivors. No, averaging one seizure per month like I eventually did doesn’t make you an epileptic. So, please do yourself a favor and seek out the services of a reputable neurologist, get a proper diagnosis and the necessary medication as needed. The last thing that you would want to do is end up in the hospital for a seizure! (like I did, but that was after having three in one day!) I’m lucky enough that most of mine have occurred while I was lying in bed or sitting in my wheelchair, so no harm done. I’ve only ever had one while standing, and while it put me on the ground, I luckily had two people with me that helped me back to my feet. I’ve also only had two seizures around people that were unfamiliar with the fact that I had them, and never in a crowd or group of people.

So, what else is coming? How about difficult questions without reliable or comforting answers?

Here’s one that I struggled with for years: can I leave behind the aching desire to return to my old life and abilities, and finally accept that this was my new life now, would be for years to come, and that I was now “hampered with these physical disabilities that always felt horrifyingly irreversible, no matter how much hard work I put into my therapy and frustration I felt over the years of waking up early, looking over to my left first thing and seeing my wheelchair there, waiting for my battered soul and body to enter it for another day of mental and emotional defeat.

Try this one on for size: How about, on top of everything else, you throw a communication disability on the top of everything else? Yes, my brain injury did just that! For some of you, this will likely mean aphasia. For me, I was dealt the dysarthria card.

According to Google, dysarthria is a motor-speech disorder resulting from muscle weakness or poor coordination affecting the muscles of the mouth, face, and throat, leading to slurred, slow, or muffled speech. It can manifest in various ways, such as speaking too softly, in a monotone, or with a breathy or harsh voice, and can also affect breathing, chewing, and swallowing.

Essentially, this means that, after my brain injury and initial surgery to remove a piece of my skull and reduce the brain swelling (craniectomy), I had intensive speech therapy to focus on speech articulation, relearning how to swallow solids and liquids, an ongoing form of therapy that I continued for years after to improve my speech articulation and impacted cognition.

Will Booth 1/5/26 Will Booth 1/5/26

Blog Post 5 - What’s this going to take, and do I have what it takes?

You awake in a stupor. Just what are you doing? Laying in a hospital bed, vision clouded by fluorescent lights overhead, and your head wrapped tightly in bandages like a mummy?

Hopefully, you have or had loved ones nearby that immediately noticed and rejoiced you coming to. Where are you, and what happened? You have one hell of a story coming your way, and then a flood of memories may, or may not come rushing back with it.

For me, it didn’t all magically return to me like that. I can’t say how it’s supposed to go, but it took a while for me to put the pieces back together again.

The moments leading up to the actual accident drifted through my mind. “Oh! That’s what I could’ve done differently!” Pangs of regret and sorrow for my foolishness then overwhelmed me as I overanalyzed how I could’ve avoided my current predicament, which is very easy to do when you have the ability to look back and formulate how you could’ve avoided “ruining” and rewriting the course of your life.

If that was possible, think of all the moments in your life that you would’ve put that ability to use.

No, it’s only when you’ve done almost irreparable damage to your life that you long so hard to rewind and do it over again, except differently this time.

Well, if your accident/injury was your fault, where was this judgment and wisdom at the time?

You can’t blame yourself for a split-second incident that may have been very much out of your control.

Will Booth 1/4/26 Will Booth 1/4/26

Blog Post 4 - Are you in love with this me, or am I?

Welcome to the new, redefined you. Are they any better than the previous, uninjured version of you? Probably not yet, unfortunately. Of course, that depends on how long it has been! Who determines if this new version of you is any better?

After all, do you have an intact cognition that remembers that far back, or can even process the critical thinking and self-awareness involved in such an introspective determination such as this?

For me, I often longed to have my old life and body back. How could I not? While lying there most nights, feeling defeated, I couldn’t imagine why I was sentenced to, or deserved this cruel fate or existence.

Along the way, some of my therapists and loved ones stressed that this was it now! What abilities I now possessed, they would likely remain that way or worse for the rest of my life.

I’ll always remember being sat down at the one-year mark post-injury to have a meeting/discussion about this with my team of therapists, who had all been working with me for months.

They broke it to me lightly, but this news still shackled itself to my ankles and traumatized brain for the years that followed. Still, I kept coming back to this devastating news when I needed a fresh dose of motivation to improve, recover, or further strengthen myself, all of which were crucial in working towards my ultimate goal of standing up from my wheelchair and walking away from it for the final time. I had always been the active, on-the-move guy while growing up! I couldn’t imagine or accept that this highly experienced and knowledgeable group of therapists could tell my fortune just like that, so conclusive and with complete disregard for my goals and dreams of achieving the impossible. I would walk again! My feet belonged on the ground walking or running, not propelling my wheelchair while my one strong arm pushed a wheel forward, a dynamic trio of hopeful limbs pushing me to my next destination.

So, how can you respect and love what you’ve become, even for as unrecognizable as that may be? It’s necessary to quickly find an answer to this troubling question, which unfortunately wasn’t stressed to me until three years after my injury. By that point, I had broken my body, mind and spirit in a desperate struggle to recover and regain a glimpse of my old life. Just a peek!

It felt important to form a semblance of love and respect for my new self, the broken and battered version of what I had once hailed as a thriving and successful young man who was rapidly approaching his peak. Now that I was here,, how could I ever regain any chance at that again? Every day after was incredibly defeating, as I woke up to familiar faces dressing my limp body, and the all-too-familiar wheelchair parked a few feet from my bed, ready for me to plop my body into it for the remainder of the day.

My daily schedule was now out of my control and had transformed into a packed agenda of therapy sessions, including speech, (since my body had lost the ability to speak clearly and swallow without choking) and physical therapy (a desperate attempt to get myself out of my hospital bed and restore function to a disappointing group of limp limbs), and occupational therapy (the hospital’s dire attempt to teach a traumatized brain and maligned body how to do normal, everyday tasks that I couldn’t imagine myself needing again anytime soon.

For now, I was resigned to laying in a hospital bed, breathing through a tube, and being fed through another tube jammed into my neck and above my bellybutton.

Experiencing all of this at once started to make me wonder, is this my life now, and what will I get back, if anything? Years later, it was stressed to me that I should just accept what happened, and also that my old life was never coming back. How could I love the blank slate laid before me? I hadn’t been ready or even desired for a new life before my injury! So, it was now my responsibility to rebuild everything that I had achieved, wanted and gained for this new life of mine, which would start in the middle of year 28, not at day one like my previous one. I now had to rely on the care, focus and encouragement of my therapists to develop new and crucial abilities, including speaking, swallowing, walking, moving the paralyzed left half of my body, and also loving and motivating this second version of me back into existence and society.

What will that journey, including the first year after, look like for you? That all depends on how you decide to take care of yourself, mentally, physically and emotionally.

This means that you need the fortitude to take whatever comes your way, embrace and accept it, and quickly adjust your life on the fly as needed to continue surviving.

For me, this started with my sudden seizures, which came on quickly into my life, and added more medication, anticipation, and worries of having one while standing and falling. That has only happened once, but I survived it, as I have everything else during this long detour that life threw my way.

Can I call it a detour? Just where is all of this leading me? How much of that is within, or outside of my control? Who will I be on the other side, and how in the hell will I know once I get there?

Will Booth 1/3/26 Will Booth 1/3/26

Blog Post 3 - Where have you gone, and where are you going?

What’s it going to be this time? Another diagnosis, setback, perhaps more medication?

What can we do with each new obstacle that you must overcome to progress forward?

You may find yourself asking, what did I do?