building up....

Well let's see, today in an order to pull myself up from under the crashing sea raging around and above my head; I made a thank you video for my first intensive speech therapist. I reminded her of the timeframe that I was her patient and reminded her that I revealed my most disheartening and petrifying post stroke hurdle discovered. While on an instinct trying to calm myself by singing (as I have done since I learned to use my vocal chords as a baby)but discovered that there was nothing melodic coming out. It was as though I was reading the lyrics of an unfamiliar song for the first time, robotic,and something I have not been able to recreate since. Without dance and now singing i was at a loss, my cathartic outlets no longer available was imposing and a wall I could not work around or ignore, or simply find a replacement for. I would not, could not attempt to sing for her because what would come out sent me into panic attacks and a spiral into the dark that I was not sure I would know how to navigate back from. She didn't pressure me to sing, instead picked a course of therapy targeting that part of my brain where it not only houses our rhyming, lyrical, and melodic properties but was also as it happens the epicenter, the origin of the weakend blood vessel that burst. She would walk next to me in my new wheelchair and together we would take slow laps around the rehab gym rhyming together, firing words back and forth. I continued that after I was discharged and slowly, awkwardly, painfully (for the eardrums of those within hearing range)I started to sound a little more harmonious, a little more like a human singing. Everyday I sang, I would stand for as many hours as I could standing and singing with all the emotions and fears, insecurities and anger that fill my long all encompassing road of recovery. I recently received a minor concussion in a fender bender on 8/22/2014 and today was the first day since that I could handle music- without it prompting nausea or a migraine. Because if this is new to you as it was for me, you learn that with brain damage still healing from a very traumatic event will not react to a minor concussion like a minor concussion; more like your brain scrambled like eggs yet to be fried or beef so tenderized that it is no longer recognizeable. So I jumped at the opportunity to shed my shyness and insecurities about how I sound singing and recorded a video of me singing her a song that has become my inner mantra. I wanted to shed the pretense of 'oh hey look at how much better I am' and show her just how intimately and magically she gave me back an integral part of myself that if had not been addressed when and how it was, would most likely have died with my emotional boundaries and defense mechanisms that died with the stroke. I have no words to express my gratitude for the staff at The Sutter Roseville Acute TBI Rehab Institution, I will come back and pay it forward if that would be appropriate. The eight or so minute video I recorded is sadly too large to share with her through Facebook and I'm not yet brave enough to load it to youtube so I could post it here.... I wish I was,It was HARD for me to record it without crying, because the parts of me that she helped me find again are the parts that will see me through the rest of my recovery journey willing and excited to educate, inspire and motivate as many as I can along the way. Hopefully I can figure out a way to get her to see it, or grow brave enough to load it here, then maybe she could access it.... Well, after the sharing of the cathartic video has hit a reef I was under water before I knew it and like clockwork my best buddy my twin brotha from another motha called me and with perfect love and support brought me not only above the surface but dragged my exhausted ass up onto the dock. They will never know how much they mean to me. Still want to get my video to Allison...any suggestions?