Opportunities Abound

Hey out there in blogger land! I hope the day finds each of you rested and feeling optimistic about life and your place in it.

Funny thing about optimism...just when discouragement seems at its peak, the Universe seems to provide doors to walk through and opportunities to explore. In my case, a job possibility has just presented itself and I am amazed by the range of emotions I have been feeling for the past two days.

The job is as an intervention specialist--part-time-- with children three to five years old--assessing and setting up programs for troubled kids and working with their HeadStart teachers and parents in carrying out the programs both at home and in school. At least, this is what I understand the job to be. If so, it is a job that feels like I was born to do. It would combine all my skills, my experience, my joy in working with young children, teachers and parents...really, it would be perfect.

If I can do it. Not to mention, of course, that I would have to be hired first.

But assuming I did get hired, the question is, can I be a reliable employee and be where I need to be on the days I need to be there--will my brain manage learning all the new information required of starting any new job? Will I be able to compensate enough to be effective?

These are huge questions for me and the thought of trying to go back to work is both exhilarating and terrifying.

It has been interesting to me to observe my own reactions over the last two days, since I first learned of the opening. I feel a sense of optimism...of hope and of excitement that has long, long been missing from my life.

Here are the two dilemmas I perceive:

1. Am I being unrealistic? Is this an indication that I truly have not accepted this head injury and all its limitations, accepted the "new me," come to terms with no longer being a professional.....or in fact, is this a wise next step? Maybe this time around, with as much insight as I have gained into my strengths and my disabilities/inabilities, I could enter into a part time position knowing what accommodations and modifications are needed to help me maximize my strengths (like not working midweek, but rather setting up a schedule where I work on M, T, Th, F).

2. The treatments. Let's say I were to apply for and obtain this job...should I risk starting the brain treatments again? They could, of course, help me be successful. On the other hand, it seems like I am just leveling out from the incredible backward slide I took and do I want to risk those headaches or the need to shut down and sleep when I am just starting a new job??????

One thing I know for SURE is that I have never been able to get behind the self marketing and promoting of Panache that I need to do for it to become the kind of financial success that would allow me to be financially independent. I am burned out on the internet, burned out on the self hype gurus and their classes and burned out on the bonus programs, social networking and launch programs required in the online marketing of oneself and one's book. I feel an excitement at the thought of this job that I simply cannot generate from the idea of promoting the book.

I am proud of Panache. I think it is well written and it required hard, hard work on my part. I love the emails I continually get from people who have stumbled upon it and for whom it has helped. But I want to give away all my copies to the people who want to read it. I just can't get into the whole business end of self promotion. It's why I haven't reached my marketing goals yet...I just cannot seem to aggressively sell myself. I swear, I must be the only writer on the planet who does NOT want to be on Oprah.

I could champion for children with an assertiveness and aggressiveness that would make Bill Gates seem like a passive recipient in life...yet for the life of me, I cannot do the same for myself.

Interestingly, I feel like if I could get this job part time, I would have more confidence and excitement to pursue marketing and promoting the book a little more.

What do all of you out there think?

Are there even any of you out there???

I will keep you posted and in the meantime, be safe and please wear your helmet when biking and skating.

Sooooo... my concept of a day is a little skewed...

Hi readers. Are there actually any readers out there or am I blogging to myself? No matter, except that if there are readers, I do extend more apologies for my delay in writing (A-gain!!). Sigh. Seems I have done a lot of apologizing lately.

So, back to the topic at hand. Bottom line is that for a brief period in time, I had the old me back. Getting through a day did not seem such a challenge and I did not have to fight for feelings of competency every moment. And then all went belly up. Not everything went belly up...my dreams are still more vivid and lucid, as they became during the treatments and in some ways, on a daily basis I feel more "present," although I no longer remember the moments, the hours or the days as having been real. It's hard to explain that one.

On the other hand, I seem less capable of managing myself than before the treatment --as if I stepped backward in time instead of forward. I seem more prone to depression and overwhelm, more sensitive and emotional and more discouraged and less hopeful about my future. And my hormones seem to have gone totally whacky and are not abating one bit. Very strange.

On the other hand, the headaches have dissipated. And that in and of itself, is a blessing because they were wicked.

Here's the dilemma:

I am being offered the opportunity to try the treatments again, under closer (daily) supervision and instead of starting with 45 min. a day at full capacity, start at half capacity every other day for 15 minutes. This time around we would develop a specific chart so I can document things specifically, and we would move slowly.

What would you do if it were you? Stay the course now and hope to get back to where I was(you were)before the treatments ever started, or.... try the treatments in a more controlled fashion and see if I can(you could) regain what happened in those first five days?

This whole thing has been devastating and a huge interruption to what acceptance and calmness I had obtained and grown into....on the other hand, as I said, it did prove all those neuro connections have been dormant, not dead.

So....what would you do if you were me?

Be safe out there.

Debra

PS weird facts for the day:

- Scientists claim that goldfish have a memory span of just three seconds. Does this mean I am no longer smarter than a goldfish? And just how do scientists test the memory span of a goldfish, anyway????


- It is estimated that a snail can sleep for 3 years. Well, I estimate that I can sleep for more than that if I don't take my Adderall. Does this mean I am slower than a snail and dumber than a goldfish now?

- An ostrich's brain is smaller than its eye. My brother says when it comes to finances, I have stuck my head in the sand.......

I better stop here. These weird facts are somehow coming around to haunt me! LOL

Is it better to have had it for awhile than never to have had it at all?

I know on my last post of April 3, I said I had much to tell and would be writing about it all very soon. Given that it is now the 22nd of May, I realize I better have a pretty good reason for my absence if I want to gain my readers back. Actually, in a lot of ways I do but in some ways, I realize that I should have, and probably could have, been writing all along.

Lest I write a mini novel, let me simply say this: it has been a trying couple of months. For all those out there with head injuries, you will know exactly what I mean when I say that I have been feeling utterly exhausted by the constant vigilance, weary of the cotton batting that takes up so much space in my head;frustrated beyond description with the constant challenge of simple things being difficult and simply...worn out with and by the struggles. Not to sound whiny or pathetic or anything...but really, this is where I have been residing in my absence. Surely I didn't need to expose you to all that sniveling!

For all of you out there who live with and/or love someone with a brain injury, trust me when I say that no matter how empathetic you might be (and I know for a fact that so many of you are), it is impossible for you to know the absolute depth of devastation and loss that is experienced by anyone who once was in possession of a well oiled and reasonably intact working machine that now functions like a rusty, ill-functioning, undependable and unreliable imitation. Think, giving up your new laptop for the first desktop computer you ever used.

When I last wrote on April 3rd it was with the excitement of an unbelievable experience that I absolutely could not wait to share. In fact, I was in such a state of bliss that I had just about committed myself to doing whatever it would take to create a nonprofit that would ensure that every single individual with a mild/moderate head injury had access to what I was experiencing. What was it?

I had my old brain back. For five remarkable, incredible, indescribable days...I was the me I used to be. It was an experience almost impossible to put into words...one that had me thinking about each of you and how I could get you access to what I was experiencing. I don't know if I have ever felt such pure joy and such complete gratitude to the ones making this experience possible for me as I was feeling when I last posted on here. I felt, truly, as if I had been given my life back.

Under the guidance of medical and professional people,I underwent daily treatments--cortical electrical stimulation treatments, 45 minutes a day.What transpired was simply surreal, and the effects were not just my wishful, hopeful thinking. The changes in me were noticeable by people close to me who did not know what I was doing; who I hadn't told of my decision to undergo the treatments. It was in fact, immediately noticed by my dog, Teek...and that is a story in itself, but one I will save for another time. Just trust that he knew something had shifted and that I was the me of "old."

Almost immediately after the initial treatment and certainly after the second one,it was as if the chaos and the chatter in my head was suddenly gone...had just disappeared. Sensations and sensory awareness were present that I hadn't even realized had been missing until they suddenly returned(like, for example, my appestat registering fullness--something I didn't even know wasn't happening until suddenly it was happening).

And then, just as quickly as the dendrites and neurons fired up and showed us they had been dormant, not destroyed...they stopped firing and connecting. At 11:30p.m. on night five, the headache set in and when I woke up the next morning it was as if I was the me-not that I had been the week before treatment began--but the me of those first few months post accident.

I have never felt such devastation or despair as in those next couple of weeks of battling the return of those white hot headaches and the need to sleep 18, 20 hours a day. Frankly, folks...it was touch and go there for a little bit.I mean, I had been feeling so REAL. I had been feeling so PRESENT in the moment, so clear and calm and....capable.

And then, just like Charly in Flowers for Algernon, I was horrifyingly aware that it was but a brief reprieve. For those of you not old enough to remember (or too old to remember), Flowers for Algernon is a play about a man with cognitive impairment--mental retardation--who was given experimental treatment and who become a genius, only to have the treatments stop working, leaving him aware that he was returning to his prior, impaired self.

My journal throughout those days is a bit heartbreaking, ending one day with the question and musing, "I wonder...did the velveteen rabbit stay real? I can't remember. I will have to go back and read the story to find out."

Charly and the velveteen rabbit came up frequently in my journal over the last couple of months.

Because I don't want to write a book in one posting, I am going to close here. I don't want to leave you with my angst and despair,however, so let me close by saying that this is a journey, like all of it is a journey and I am not residing in that bleak place of despondency that initially set in. Tune in tomorrow and I will tell you more of this story and more about where it has taken me. And when I am through, I have a few questions I would like to toss out to all or any of you out there, and I hope you will write in your thoughts and your responses.

Until then...be safe out there and wear your helmets if you are skating and riding your bikes. In fact, wear your helmets if you are just stepping in the shower. A little caution is not a bad thing....you know what I mean?

Okay, maybe not in the shower.

Remember to treat yourself and others with grace and patience...until tomorrow (for real this time!),

Debra

PS weird fact for today: A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off - it dies from starvation. hmm....O-kayyyy.

WHICH ONE FOR YOUTUBE by Debra Sanders

I have a great deal of interesting and exciting news to blog about, and before the day is over, I will do exactly that; but for right now I am trying to figure out how to load five Animotos for you to watch. They are all short--they range from 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

If you could take a little time, I would love to know which you like, which you don't, which you think should go on YouTube (one, some or all of them), etc. This of course, is assuming I figure out how to upload them because it isn't happening by hitting the video icon and saying upload. Hmmmm........

Thanks! And check back very soon for the big news. I mean, it is BIG news, folks!

Until then, happy video watching,

Debra

From Wonderland to Oz, Mad Hatters to Winged Monkeys by Debra Sanders

"You, my friend, are a victim of disorganized thinking. You are under the unfortunate impression that just because you run away you have no courage; you're confusing courage with wisdom"
Oz to the Lion.

In writing Panache, I likened myself to Alice, tumbling down a rabbit hole only to find myself in a bizarre world where time stood still and ran backwards; and where mad hatters and queens were not helping me very much as I tried to find my way home.

Now, in the marketing and promotion end of this book process, I find myself likening myself to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, where each character is symbolic of some part of me, and the ever present monkeys are continually threatening to overtake and lock me up before I reach the end of the yellow brick road.

In my quiet cave of words, the one in which I spent two years writing the book, I thought my brain had done a lot of healing. During that time, I was quite sure that I both knew and accepted the limitations of my new brain; and I compensated as needed. My world was quiet; it did not involve extraneous conversations, new experiences, interacting with others, or venturing outside the comfort of my picket fenced world. I slept as needed without shame or embarrassment because, other than my dogs, few were privy to the configuration of that world. I often did not return phone calls; I made excuses for not joining in on activities to which I was invited. I knew that to do so would be at great cost to my ability to remain on task and move forward. After all, every time I detoured, when I returned (a day later, two days...a few hours later) I had to reread everything written and sort of start over, because I couldn’t remember what I had said unless I read it all again.

Some seemed to think I was a social butterfly—too busy to return phone calls and never initiating them. Some probably figured I was just antisocial. And some people simply stopped thinking about me at all, as I drifted away from their consciousness and into the role of someone from their past.

No matter. I was accomplishing what I had set out to do and I understood what it required. And when the book was written and in its final stages of revision, I knew I had to undertake the study of marketing and promotion. Again, there could be no distractions. Not only because it was impossible for me to hold on to new information if I allowed other stimulation and experiences to take place; but because it was humiliating enough just in front of myself to discover that in spite of the CD disks beginning to warp from overuse, every time I listened to them, the information was new. I would just keep at it until I got it, and then when I was all ready and my plan was in place, then I would leave my comfortable lair and go about the task of selling the book, getting my message out there and recouping the enormous amount of money this endeavor cost.

I was fairly confident, though perhaps a bit intimidated,to venture forth. After all, I had studied hard; I had a written plan that would guide me down the road; I knew the destination and I had all the tools surrounding me to help me reach it.

Well, the beginning road of the destination is here...this coming Tuesday, November 18th, the book will have its public launching.

Just as Dorothy would not have reached Oz without Toto, Scarecrow, TinMan and Lion...I would not be here without those who have surrounded me. The surprise is not just how incredible this supportive crew has been, but in the shock of my discovery of just how Much I have required of them.

Come back tomorrow and find out more about what the winged monkeys are doing on my own yellow brick road. The answers might surprise you.

"What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What have they got that I ain't got? Courage!"
Lion

A Matter of Panache by Debra Sanders

I am one of those people who thinks we all need to do a little bit better when it comes to avoiding the ease and trappings that accepting mediocrity brings. I am a fervent supporter of those who take a stand in effort to make things better for our planet and its no-legged, four-legged, two-legged, winged, single-celled, multi-celled, green, red, black, brown and white inhabitants.

I am also one who has deep respect for those individuals who can do this while demonstrating a little bit of panache, because I’ve learned that displaying passion without panache doesn’t accomplish much.

Not everyone has panache. Genuine panache is kind of like having good skin when you’re sixteen—it’s a remarkable blessing. Not that you’re any less of a person because you don’t have clear skin; it’s just a whole lot easier to get a date if you don’t have to contend with a face covered with obvious blemishes and eruptions.

So it is with panache. If you have it, things in life are just easier. Doors seem to open a little faster, and you can go places and do things that would require a lot more work than if you have, say, a personality that’s kind of.... oily and....you know, inflammatory.

Most of us have met someone during our lifetime with panache. I’m not referring to slick politicians or evangelists who display a kind of practiced and rehearsed (albeit intense and very compelling) sort of magnetism; but rather to the sort of person who displays the kind of genuine charm that turns reluctant bystanders into an avid participants…who seems to inspire affection while fighting for the right things to happen. The person who can advocate for the underdog without coming across like a martyr.

Julia Roberts, as Erin Brockovitch, was a good example of someone with panache. You couldn’t help but like her.

This blog is dedicated to offering people the chance to speak up regarding things they feel passionate about: public education, health care, disability rights, diversity, animal rights, the environment, brain injuries, children, the elderly, kindness. Whatever. But hopefully it’s to be more than a sanctuary with a pulpit from which we each emote, for many of those are already in place.

Here at A Matter of Panache, I hope to create a community where we also learn how to more effectively channel our passions in ways that brings about true reform; a place where we can be both teachers and learners in the art of being, not just passionate, but productively passionate.

So, speak up. Are you one of those individuals who have inspired change—be it within yourself, neighborhood, city or planet? What have been your successes? Where did you go wrong?

Or tell of someone who has impacted you; someone displaying a bit of panache that we can all learn from.

Because when it comes right down to it, I think it’s about more than just being passionate. It’s about displaying our passions in ways that embrace rather than alienates. It's about championing our causes in ways that draw others in and lights the way, making it safer for them to ride our bandwagons.

It's about having both passion and a little bit of panache.