THOUGHTS BEFORE ANOTHER FUTILE VESID MEETING

THOUGHTS BEFORE ANOTHER FUTILE VESID MEETING


I was thinking about work today and how I used to be. I realized that I am no longer willing to maintain the frantic pace that I had to maintain at my last employ.

At a time when many jobs require multi-tasking--a skill that was robbed from me by my tbi and is not coming back--I find that I no longer wish to live that way even if I could. Nor am I willing any longer to have a sky-rocketing stress level due to career.

Many employers are willing to give lip service to the idea of work-private life balance but how many of them really mean it? We are living in an age where employers are trying to squeeze more work out of less employees in order to save money.

The VESID "counselor" wants to speak to me about career goals and accomodations needed this Thursday. The CAP agency woman tells me that my career goals cannot be set until I am "fully rehabilitated." VESID is not willing to pay for my cognitive rehabilitation. [I am past the time when formal cognitive rehabilitation programs would accept someone with a tbi for treatment anyway.]

I have an idea of things that I would like to do when I am able to return to working. Yet, I am still suffering from the fatigue that comes with brain and spinal injuries and no one can really say at this point how many hours a week I will eventually be able to work. I have been told that the fatigue may not "bottom out" until two to three years post-injury.

I am volunteering on my own at a small local musuem. I started out with three hours one day a week most weeks back in February. I am now able to tolerate up to five hours a week most weeks--but not five hours a day as I so painfully found out recently.

The last neurologist told me that I am making a slow but remarkable recovery from my very serious brain injury. He also told me that because of the clonus and tremor I have from the brain injury itself, he is surprized that I can walk and balance so well. My balance has improved to "excellent" because I have been doing exercises to help me not be afraid of my object vertigo [meaning I am not dizzy, but the room spins to the left] and those same exercises must have helped the balance. Usually people with clonus have to get either an ankle brace or an ankle-knee brace. Instead, I am improving to the point where I rarely even need a cane anymore.
So I have had to undertake much cognitive rehabilitation on my own and now it appears I will continue to have to do so. [That in itself is a story for another post]. I know that I am not "rehabilitated" yet. But I just keep working it. I do brain exercises that I have found on the internet. I also do alot of physical exercise and I believe that the physical movement has helped me with the cognitive deficits from my brain injury. I keep in touch with good friends and I have a specific tbi support network. Friendship is very valuable. Very few people recover in isolation from anything. I am very fortunate that I have been able to find my way through this maze and I know that I will keep going and keep improving.

The CAP agency woman is right, I've come to realize today. Realistic career goals cannot be set until I know how many hours I will be able to work a week. Certainly if it turns out that I can ultimately tolerate only ten or fifteen hours a week, it would not be cost-effective to get a Masters. And that determination would narrow the scope of employment possibilities somewhat.

Well, uncertaincy of any kind is sometimes hard to live with. What is harder for me today though is dealing with an agency with "vocational" in its' name which claims that they don't provide nor pay for vocational counseling wanting to hurry me into setting career goals before the proper time.

The other problem is this whole idea of "rehabilitation." Re-habilitation supposes that one has been HABILITATED in the first place. And I've long maintained that the only thing domestic about me is that I live in a house. Hmmmmm.


Author's note: I did quit VESID because we never were able to communicate effectively. An agency whose web-published directives to their employees include the idea that the people they are attempting to help do not have true ownership of the process is sorely lacking in the basics of how vital self-determination is to successful outcomes.

~sapphoq