A New Dawn!

It's been three and a half years since my last post and what a post that was. Since then, I've been through all my occupational, physical therapy and speech therapies and I am as good as I am going to get now. I'm not 100% but I'm close to 80-85%. There are some deficits that have changed my life traumatically with my TBI (traumatic brain injury). My organization skills are non-existent, I don't cook any more, when I clean up a room I have to make a step by step list or ask someone to help me. I use to love to cook now my husband and daughter Danielle do the cooking. It's miserable to loose that part of yourself especially being a woman, because that's part of being a woman. It's taken me along time to get use to the changes and in some respects it's still pretty hard.

In the meantime I had to change careers, no longer able to work in the medical field. Did work at a wonderful bookstore while Mike was gone on the road, I did ok but from the beginning Mike has Ben my anchor and my main support. He learned real fast what my new boundaries were. So, with my daughters creating lives or their own, including Danielle, I had the great idea to get my CDL so I could drive with him. So started my quest. First I went and qualified with Voc rehab with new training. They sent me to a CDL school in Ogden. I thought it would be a piece of cake since Mike taught me to drive years ago. Boy was I wrong. The brain is a mysterious organ, I had to retrain my brain to do a few things and I had a wonderful teacher, he took his time with me. Normally it was driving with three others in the cab but he made special arrangements to only drive with me alone. DISCLAIMER: you all should know right now I didn't do any of this without all the clearances from my doctors and therapists.  A class usually takes anywhere up to four weeks...I went two months. But in that time I had problems with getting my birth certificate. California claimed I did not exist! That's another story for another time.

So with my CDL in my wallet, Mike and I team drove for Smoot Brothers.  Good company to cut my teeth on. Worked with them for a year and a half and now we are with Hobby Lobby. Wonderful company, couldn't be happier. So from here on out I will be making posts about where we've been, where we're going, etc. and of course any random thoughts that come along. 

I absolutely love driving! It's something I can do that I feel like my old self. I was told after the accident not to drive for awhile, did I do that? Heck no! In fact driving helped me a lot. There's a new freedom for me behind the wheel of our big-rig and it's awesome!