Surviving Traumatic Brain Injury

SPEAK OUT! Itty-Bitty GIANT Steps

SPEAK OUT! Itty-Bitty Giant Steps will provide a venue for brain-injury survivors and caregivers to shout out their accomplishments of the week.

If you have an Itty-Bitty Giant Step and you would like to share it, just send an email to me at donnaodonnellfigurski@gmail.com.

If you are on Facebook, you can simply send a Private Message to me. It need only be a sentence or two. I’ll gather the accomplishments and post them with your name on my blog approximately once a week. (If you do not want your last name to be posted, please tell me in your email or Private Message.)

I hope we have millions of Itty-Bitty Giant Steps.

Here are this week’s Itty-Bitty Giant Steps.

Anonymous (survivor)…I have an Itty-Bitty Giant Step for you. My husband and I were traveling on the freeway, so the bathroom stops were infrequent. I had to make a restroom stop really bad, and I was able to hold it for about twenty minutes until we could stop at a Rest Area. It is HUGE for me – a “Huge-er,” HUGE step!

Jimi Cunning (survivor)…I joined some MeetUp groups and a church I really like. It was very hard for me to climb out of my cocoon and get back into socializing in a healthy manner.

Grays Harbor Brain Injury Support Group…Our town is in a real crisis. Flooding and mudslides have taken homes and messed up lives. While hundreds have been displaced, NO lives have been lost. Our brain-injury support-group has pulled together – doing laundry, taking household items, cooking meals, and shopping for our neighbors. Just because we have an injury does not mean that we are not able to help. In this endeavor, our friendships have grown.

Barry Hughes (survivor)…Yay! Hi, Donna!! Yesterday my best friend in life became my girlfriend! This joyous event brought me to the momentous conclusion that my injury is the best thing that ever happened to me in my life!! Finding my dream woman and my life-partner after forty-four years was only made possible because we are both survivors!

Barry Hughes (survivor)…I was thinking that I wish every survivor could know such great joy as mine. It suddenly struck me that I needed to make it my goal and focus in life to create a Facebook friendship and dating group for survivors. It is desperately needed, since so many survivors are in utter despair, as I was until yesterday. I could find no such group, so I created https://www.facebook.com/groups/BrainInjuryConfidential/, so survivors all across the Facebook world can meet in one group and find friendships, relationships, and possibly dates. It will meet our basic human need and end the loneliness almost every survivor experiences when he or she is alone.

Jodi Jizmejian (survivor)…Hi, Donna! Here’s an Itty-Bitty Giant Step: Today I drove. It was just a wee little bit, but I did it! When my husband and I returned from visiting my folks, I asked him to let me drive into the parking lot of where we live. He let me, and then he – yes, he, not me – told me to drive out onto the road, through the parking lot of a nearby mall, and back to “our” parking lot. Boy, do I feel “mature”!

YOU did it!

Congratulations to all contributors!

(Clip Art compliments of Bing.)