Confessions of a Concussed Cyclist: well, that didn’t last long

June 28, 2024

In my former life (pre-TBI) I was a special education teacher, so after my brain injury it was the easiest thing in the world for me to apply modifications and accommodations to my life.  After all, that is what I did for every one of my students.  

Back in December of 2023 it was suggested that I return to speech and language therapy to work on a few specific issues.  I’ve always had the attitude that it would be negligent of me to not try…to not try a new med, to not try a new therapy, to not try a new approach.  So I went.  I did all the testing (very taxing on a rattled brain) and then ta-da, I qualified for speech (again).  I was told “absolutely!  I can help you!” when I mentioned what my concerns were, and I was given hope. My first session I told the therapist that I needed to be wowed.  That I didn’t have a lot of energy and therefore I hate wasting it on things that don’t serve me.  I also told her that I was a special education teacher.  She handed me pages of accommodations and modifications that she wanted me to start implementing.  I honestly laughed and told her “I’m literally doing every single one of these and I have been for almost 10 years.”  I know she didn’t believe me.  I know she thought I was just another one of “those people”.  You know…all talk, no action.  She also made a comment in our first session that really rubbed me the wrong way.  She said to me “you’re way past your one year mark so there will be no more improvement.  You now just get compensatory strategies to learn how to live.”  That is such old school thinking and she is way too young to be thinking so old-school.  The second session she mentioned the pages she’d given me and I reminded her “I’m already doing every single one of them and I have been for almost 10 years now.”  I could tell that yet again, she didn’t believe me.  There were backhanded comments such as “tell me which ones you ARE doing…” so I literally started reading from her pages, going down the lists.  She didn’t seem to appreciate my humor.  She also changed her wording, instead of calling them accommodations or modifications, she asked me which compensatory strategies I used. I was not to be tricked, I knew exactly what she meant, and I started reeling off the laundry list I’ve acquired over the past decade. I also reminded her that she better wow me quickly because otherwise, my energy needed to go elsewhere.  She asked me to give her one more session, that she would come up with something.  So I drove the over 140 miles round trip to be told “I’m sorry, there is nothing I can do for you.”  I’d already figured that out after our first session, but man was it nice to have hope for a few weeks.  Hope that I hadn’t had in almost 10 years.  But it is crushing to lose that hope.   When you lose it, it’s just one more reminder that there are certain life-long struggles that are just that…life long. 

The plus side…I’m not technically a two-time speech drop out, it was a mutual decision to end my speech therapy for the second time.  But, at least I tried.