Sitting at the kitchen table and listening to the wind outside, it sounds as if the storm forecast for yesterday just arrived. It’s wild out there.

In contrast to the meeting with the HSE I had today. The idea was to sign the service agreement and to kick off the An Saol Project – which didn’t happen. But only just about. A few really small things need to happen and we’ll be off, I’d say in just a few more weeks. Time that would have driven me crazy a few months ago. But now seems like nothing. What are a few more weeks if we can change how persons with very severe acquired brain injury are treated in this country, if we have a chance to change the hearts and minds of people about how they perceive sABI and sABI survivors?

I’m still somewhat exhausted by that cold and maybe that is the reason I don’t feel as ‘tempestuous’ as the wind that is sweeping through our back garden tonight. Maybe it’s the realisation that while raw anger is good at times, it needs to be supplemented with long-term determination. And while the former often feels very liberating, it’s the latter that brings sustainable change – but is also much harder.

It’s the sprint versus marathon analogy.

Being back with Pádraig at least for stretches of the day is really good. He had a speech and language therapy session in the morning and a music therapy session in the afternoon, with Dolly, moonlighting as a therapy dog at times. We were trying to teach her Irish, but when we wanted to teach her ‘slain’ we were told she only understands ‘Hello’.

Anyways, early bed time tonight – when it sounds like the only place to be is under a really warm, thick blanket. We’ll continue the marathon tomorrow…