May 1, 2017

Hi everybody. Welcome to the blog where I talk about the present.

Let's call this blog fugly. I'll explain. I have a therapist. We'll call him Jack. I see him Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Every time I see him, we're like two brothers always telling jokes and picking on each other. Well, this past Friday, I saw my therapist Jack. He was wearing an orange t-shirt. I said, "Man, you look like an ugly pumpkin." Then we proceeded to insult each other. Anyway, I got back to work on my arm bike. Remember, I can't see too good. All of a sudden, in my peripheral vision, I see a flash of orange. I say to Jack, "Man, you're fugly." Then I realize, it's not Jack. It was another patient. I didn't bother to explain, but I got a lot of strange looks for the rest of the session. Oh well, just blame it on a traumatic brain injury.

Hey, speaking of traumatic brain injury, I just found out New York State is the leading state in the United States for traumatic brain injury waiver. All the other states look up to New York State as an example. So I guess, by default, I picked a good place to live. If you have a traumatic brain injury, you might want to consider moving to New York State. You'll get more services.

I'm gonna leave you with a profound thought I had. You see, I always wake up around 4 am, and can't get back to sleep. The thought I had right before I woke up was this: Life is like water over a long fall. Think about it. Pretty profound, huh?

I'll talk to you guys next week. Here's my link to my other blog. Love, B. Nice

April 17, 2017

Hi everybody. Welcome to my blog where I talk about the present.

So, I get up early every morning. I don't know if it's because of my injury or what, but I just lay there and some thoughts come to my mind sometimes. I call them fortune cookie thoughts, because they sound like thoughts you have when you open up a fortune cookie. Here's an example: OK, so I'm lying there, and I thought, "Always follow your intuition as you would your nose." I mean, who thinks of stuff like that? OK, here's another one, "Never think too much as you have to be careful what you ask for." Now where, exactly, did my doctor operate? And the last one, I can't describe what the next one is because it's too weird. The point is, when you have a brain injury, you're gonna have huge swings in thoughts and moods. Just go with it and you'll be fine.

That's all I'm gonna talk about for this week. Just remember when you have a brain injury, you have to work real hard. I mean I had some tough training in track and field, but this rehab stuff is really tough. It makes college days of training seem like a walk in the park. REmember, don't give up.

This is B. Nice signing off. Love, B. Nice

Oh yeah, check out my other blog, where I talk about the past.

April 3, 2017

Be the master of your own universe. You've heard that before, right? Well, it's true. When you're sick, like this, you've got to take charge, be your own doctor, in a way. Look after yourself. I'll give you an example.

The insurance companies, let's say, won't cover you for 2 - 100 mg tablets of "whatever." But, they will cover you for one tablet of 200 mg. It's insane, but you need a point person that understands insurance speak. You've gotta get it right or you'll miss out. Remember, I said before, they wouldn't give a man who clearly needs a wheelchair, a wheelchair. The insurance companies almost play doctor. It's crazy. I've had great insurance, but it's only because the people that looked after me know how to talk insurance talk. I can't stress enough how important this is when you're looking to be covered. I'll just give you one other example. My doctor prescribed a certain medicine and the insurance wouldn't cover it, so we said it was for epilepsy and it was covered. It's crazy, I know, but it worked. Like my friend here said, it's enough to make your head spin.

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I have someone who is an independent living person. I've been going out and taking photos with an assistant. It feels great to get out and take pictures. Mind you, I can't see what I'm shooting, because I'm legally blind, but I'm having a great time.  That's what it's all about, right? Art for art's sake. Happiness for happiness sake.

You know, I forgot what I was going to talk to you about, so let's just leave it here. Check out my other blog where I talk about the past. Here's a link.

Have a good week. Love, B. Nice.

March 19, 2017

This is a quote: Life is but a walking shadow. Yes, and you know where this philosophical thought came from? It came from a character named Patrick on Sponge Bob. Sponge Bob Square Pants. My daughter was here for a week, and it was great. We watched Sponge Bob. We played cards, did a lot of reading. Baked, cooked. You know, we just hung out basically. We had a huge blizzard here. Probably the blizzard of the century. I'm so glad my daughter got to see it. Oh yeah, and the quote from above is actually Shakespeare. My friend here just told me it's actually from "The Scottish Play." Very impressive.

The week before my daughter came to visit, I went to the Rec Center and walked again, using the Up n Go. Like I said before, man, it's tough. I mean, really tough. I used to train for the 1500 meter run, and we went through some tough workouts, but his made that look like child's play. I can see why people just say, "To hell with this," and just stay in the wheelchair.

I'm not gonna talk about much of anything else because I want to hear about my friend's vacation. My friend who's typing this went on a 10 day vacation and I want to hear about it.

Talk to you guys next week.

Love, B. Nice

P.S. Above is a photo of a project I'm doing. My mother says, "Brian, your photos are so dark and moody." I said, "Yeah? Well, life isn't a bowl of cherries right now." So here it is, my bowl of cherries.

Here's a link to my other blog.

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