“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” – A.A. Milne (Christopher Robin to Pooh)

You don't have to say this, necessarily, but it's a good quote to pass on to someone navigating a great difficulty. 

With brain injury, we really are braver than we believe, stronger than we seem, and smarter than we think. If I hadn't believed this, I would have quit years ago. This stuff is difficult! The work never goes away completely, though the amount of it does decrease over time. 

There's always one more new thing to work on, or one more thing that needs doing. Even though we’ve reacquired the tools to get these things done, it doesn't always seem to be a, we, no-brainer. 

There aren't anymore no-brainers for us. As many things that we are able to do, seemingly without thought, don't happen without thought anymore. So much goes into every task we do, from planning to doing to finishing. 

For instance, I have to change GPs, again. It's the third time this year, and the fourth time since the stroke. In order to do this successfully and with a minimal loss of time and effort that has been put in already, I have to hash things out with doctor's office admin departments. I handled changing doctors pretty well in the past, but now the task seems insurmountable. 

I worked with my speech pathologist to figure out who I needed to talk to and what I needed to say, and then part of my health insurance decided I didn't need it. I got that back online, but not before losing an entire week of therapies. Of course, then I forgot I lost the week, and now I'm back at square one, waiting for a call back. 

It's an avalanche of crap I don't need to deal with (because who does, really), and I am more than overwhelmed. Yet here I am, dealing with it. 

Whatever the case, here we are: I’ve made my phone calls, left my messages, made my calendar alarms to remind me to call if they don't get back to me. I’ve done everything on my end that I can until next week, when I hopefully won't forget I need to do all of this. 

This isn't the only circuitous part of my life. It's not the only circuitous part of anyone's life, is it? We all get tackled with any number of strange scenarios at inconvenient times. By God though, I can't get through this nonsense on my own. 

It's always good to get encouragement. This stuff is hard.

Life is hard. We can help each other out in different ways, though. Sometimes all it takes is reminding someone that they are definitely doing better than they think. Not perfectly, but better.