Today is the proudest day of my life. Im crying tears of joy

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I've never been prouder of myself. I'm so exhausted that I cant even make this thread long. if I sound like I'm drunk writing this know that the effort I put into this moment to make it happen exhausted me to the point where I feel knocked the hell out. if for the rest of today I feel drunk and sound drunk know that I exhausted myself to death doing this.

After suffering brain injuries and head trauma I lost the ability to read without headaches, getting sick, and at worst having blood clots as well as passing out. This Tuesday I take my 1st ever neuropsyche evaluation by medical professionals where they administer a battery of tests and even do several different scans of my brain to assess my level of cognitive function and mental acuity as a result of this head trauma. However I couldn't wait for that. Today I woke up sick from the being gluten poisoned a few days ago and on top of severe head pain finishing an entire book was something everyone advised me against

Even I, who normally takes pride in stubbornness and refusing to listen to medical advice, chose to just lay in bed and not push myself too hard. Only while in bed I began to reflect on my life and how much I want to be more than a beat down has been washed up idiot fighter with head injuries, so I grabbed one of the books in my room and started to read it. The book was Ben Carson's "Gifted Hands" and while it is a short book, for someone like me with bad head injury that robbed me of my ability to read unencumbered it was a daunting tome to finish. While reading the book I suffered several moments where I passed out, vomited, and severe migraine. Rather than giving up I chose to trudge through the book and after almost 5 hours I finally finished it. Today is my 1st day in almost a year where I finished a book cover to cover, let alone in 1 go. Words fail to capture my feeling of elation at this moment

My brain feels on fire. It's pounding with a severe migraine and im holding myself through sheer willpower from vomiting. Personally I don't care that I put my brain through hell to finish this book, the feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment finishing a book after a year where I barely touched any reading due to head injury, it feels beyond cathartic

I cant wait for my fiancee to get off work for me to tell her this. I dont care if im in pain right now so severe it feels like hell, this moment is me breaking down a barrier thats kept me feeling imprisoned.

This song captures how I feel right now so well:

Congrats.
I often take reading for granted.

Thanks
I think in life we all take our blessings for granted. I for sure took it for granted before my head injuries. Biggest regret in life is not reading and finishing more books before head injuries made it a lot harder to do that

I've had a couple myself, along with other factors I don't even have the level of executive function I had when I was a teenager. I regret not doing more while I still could because it's not as though I can't still achieve, it's just that it's much harder.

Dear salad,

I know you to be a person who loves a good challenge.

So I am daring you to do something you don't normally do. FOLLOW YOUR MEDICAL PROVIDERS' ADVICE TO THE T.

And if you can do that for a month or two, I will feel proud of you, too.

Best wishes, Bea

p.s. I hope the neuropsych eval gives you a lot of new tools for mastering the injury. It for sure will help you understand where specific challenges lie.

That's very good news.

f*****g AWESOME!

I can't possibly tell you how AMAZING it was to read this post!! 100% signal, no noise!

Farrrrrr too many posts all across the forums are complaints & "I can'ts," as opposed to "F that, I did it anyways, and I feel FANTASTIC about it!"

f**k YEAH, BROTHER!

Totally got tingly feels just near the end of your post.. keep it up! Do things for yourself, even if someone else says you can't, and then share about it - it's a great influence on the "I can't," crowd that they're not getting nearly enough of!!

that's awesome! Reading is such a mindful thing to do at times