I have thought a lot about whether I should even mention this part of my personal life in my blog. After all, this is a blog about cooking and all of the neat things you can do with natural food. However, some readers may wonder how I find the time to take photos and create all of these cool recipes. After some deep soul-searching about the subject, I have decided to share. Perhaps other people with challenges of their own will be inspired or motivated in some way? I'm nobody special. I'm just someone trying to put it all back together one recipe at a time.
When I started this blog back in November of 2014, I wasn't too sure where it was going to go, or why exactly I was doing it in the first place! All I knew was that things had recently changed in my life in a major way and I was looking for something to help make sense of it all!
In July of 2011, everything in my life was moving along just fine. I had recently moved my family back home to California after living in the Blue Ridge mountains of Northern Georgia for over a decade (that's a whole other story). I had just started a new job with a great software company in San Francisco. I loved my new job! I was back in the Bay Area that I love! I was learning new things and truly enjoyed the challenge. Life was good. Life was very good...
Suddenly, I awoke in the hospital emergency room with the most excruciating headache! My tongue was all chewed up. Strange people were asking me questions such as; "Do you know where you are?" "Do you know what happened to you?" "Do you know what day it is?" Not only did I not know the answer to any these questions, I could not even recognize myself in the mirror! Something was seriously wrong with this picture! I felt like I had been abducted by aliens or something. I could barely speak, walk, or even think clearly at all. My thoughts were moving in slow motion. Virtually everything was a struggle!
I vaguely remember my wife and the doctor trying to explain to me that I had slipped and fallen in the bathroom at home and suffered a grand mal seizure when my head hit the counter on the way down to the floor. The force of the impact created a shock wave that was strong enough to cause me to sustain a severe Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). This type of injury causes the tiny little nerves (axons) in your brain to become pretty much obliterated in the affected areas. In other words, the complex and microscopic pathways throughout my brain were severely damaged or destroyed.
Each person with this condition is affected in different ways. Much of it depends upon the area of the brain that is injured. My injury is fairly diffuse and affects multiple areas. I'm never left alone. I always have somebody in my family kind of babysitting me, whenever Annette has to leave the house for any reason without me. I struggle both physically and mentally. My ability to walk, talk, or do just about anything is severely affected in various ways. I often confuse my left and right orientation. Too much activity of any kind can be very exhausting. I am easily overwhelmed with simple tasks. A trip to the grocery store can quickly overload my brain. Sometimes my words get stuck when I speak. Sometimes I cannot speak at all. Sometimes I cannot understand the words as they are being spoken. You never truly realize how many things that your brain does for you until it doesn't work properly.
The human brain is a mysterious, wonderful and complex creation. I don't pretend to understand why I am still able to cook and create new recipes when I struggle with nearly everything else in my daily life. All I know is that I am grateful for the ability!
Summer is rapidly approaching and I have a lot of recipe stories on deck. I am not always able to get my recipes published as quickly as I would like, but I am usually cooking something in my kitchen whenever I am able. It is nice to share my recipe creations with everyone. Thanks so much for your patience and all of the positive feedback!
Sincerely,
Carlos
When I started this blog back in November of 2014, I wasn't too sure where it was going to go, or why exactly I was doing it in the first place! All I knew was that things had recently changed in my life in a major way and I was looking for something to help make sense of it all!
In July of 2011, everything in my life was moving along just fine. I had recently moved my family back home to California after living in the Blue Ridge mountains of Northern Georgia for over a decade (that's a whole other story). I had just started a new job with a great software company in San Francisco. I loved my new job! I was back in the Bay Area that I love! I was learning new things and truly enjoyed the challenge. Life was good. Life was very good...
Suddenly, I awoke in the hospital emergency room with the most excruciating headache! My tongue was all chewed up. Strange people were asking me questions such as; "Do you know where you are?" "Do you know what happened to you?" "Do you know what day it is?" Not only did I not know the answer to any these questions, I could not even recognize myself in the mirror! Something was seriously wrong with this picture! I felt like I had been abducted by aliens or something. I could barely speak, walk, or even think clearly at all. My thoughts were moving in slow motion. Virtually everything was a struggle!
I vaguely remember my wife and the doctor trying to explain to me that I had slipped and fallen in the bathroom at home and suffered a grand mal seizure when my head hit the counter on the way down to the floor. The force of the impact created a shock wave that was strong enough to cause me to sustain a severe Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). This type of injury causes the tiny little nerves (axons) in your brain to become pretty much obliterated in the affected areas. In other words, the complex and microscopic pathways throughout my brain were severely damaged or destroyed.
Each person with this condition is affected in different ways. Much of it depends upon the area of the brain that is injured. My injury is fairly diffuse and affects multiple areas. I'm never left alone. I always have somebody in my family kind of babysitting me, whenever Annette has to leave the house for any reason without me. I struggle both physically and mentally. My ability to walk, talk, or do just about anything is severely affected in various ways. I often confuse my left and right orientation. Too much activity of any kind can be very exhausting. I am easily overwhelmed with simple tasks. A trip to the grocery store can quickly overload my brain. Sometimes my words get stuck when I speak. Sometimes I cannot speak at all. Sometimes I cannot understand the words as they are being spoken. You never truly realize how many things that your brain does for you until it doesn't work properly.
The human brain is a mysterious, wonderful and complex creation. I don't pretend to understand why I am still able to cook and create new recipes when I struggle with nearly everything else in my daily life. All I know is that I am grateful for the ability!
Summer is rapidly approaching and I have a lot of recipe stories on deck. I am not always able to get my recipes published as quickly as I would like, but I am usually cooking something in my kitchen whenever I am able. It is nice to share my recipe creations with everyone. Thanks so much for your patience and all of the positive feedback!
Sincerely,
Carlos
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