It's time for me to give a brief overdue update at the 3.7 year mark of my concussion accident. For those interested, here are the 4 month update and the 2 year update.

It's important to document how my recovery is going, both to serve me as a reminder, that things are getting better, and to give hope to others: Things will get better!

I am almost normal... Until I am not

What is remarkable about this stage of my recovery that I now can feel like my old self at times. I can wake up without the numbness in my face, I can look at my coworker's 60 HZ monitor, I can go to a concert, I can read a bit... Well, maybe not reading...

And that's the part where it gets precarious. Just because momentarily I feel like my old self, doesn't mean that I am my old self. Inevitably, I will try to do something my old self would have enjoyed and then suffer for it:

• I used to love roller coasters and lunaparks. Back in December, I got on one for the first time in years, and while it wasn't a particularly intense one, my head didn't feel right for hours afterwards.
• I used to headbang, just like any other metal fan. Well, I tried to do it again at a Karaoke, and, well, it didn't go well. It took me back more than a full year, with a constant headache that, no joke, lasted months. Will not do that ever again.
• I play video games. Well, most of them. Every now and then an artistic entry such as The return of the Obra Dinn will give me hours long motion sickness.
• I watch animation again. Flashy new ones are fine, what trips me up are the old ones, where the animation is only 12 frames per second. No Avatar/Naruto/Ghost in the Shell for me, my brain can't process the moving pictures into a smooth movie and I get incredibly dizzy even after a few minutes of watching.
• I watch movies. Most of them are fine. But some are not. Notably some of the slow zoom corridor scenes in The Substance made me feel unwell. But it's ok, since modern TVs have artificial smoothing (also known as the dreaded soap effect). It's a life saver.

In the end of the day, I am not back to normal, I am different still, but the focus is always on what is getting better. The view to the past is the path to depression.

Reading. The bane of my existence.

I used to love reading, and it sucks that I can't do much of it. My eyes are still not good at the left-right movement (thanks horizontal nystagmus), and it makes reading books incredibly challenging. The hardest thing for me are long lines with single spacing. As long as the text window is narrow enough (or the line short), and there's plenty of spacing, my eyes can focus on the text with a relative ease and it doesn't bother me.

Thanks to these little concussion life hacks, I am able to code, and just about cope with my normal work duties, albeit reading academic papers can get quite tiring. Normal paperback books are out of the question almost entirely...

I should treat reading as physio exercises for injury recovery. A page of day to keep the doctor away... And wait for that neuroplasticity to rewire my brain in just right way.

But it is hard to do this, because if I overdo the reading I will suffer for it: I won't be able to work for the next few days, and it's scary. It's hard to justify doing this for the recreational benefit of reading.

Other victories

It's not all gloom and doom! I am getting back to my hobbies and I am more confident at work.

• I am able to read Chinese again. I resumed language classes! Recalling characters just a year ago left me with debilitating headaches even one sentence in. Now, it seems to be fine.
• I feel I can do complicated things again, it feels like I finally have enough concentration to go through a complicated codebase and hold it in my head. I can't work as much as I used to, but I hope it will come back.
• I am slowly looking at sports again. I've avoided them due to the potential of hitting my head, but with enough precaution, maybe it can be fine? I am tentatively looking at acrobatics, and perhaps I can even play football again, with Petr Čech style helmet.

Things are getting better. Maybe not as fast as I hope, but they are. I am better than 1 year ago. And 1 year ago, I was better than 2 years ago. The important thing is to not lose hope and to not overdo it. Listen to my body, relax when it tells me to relax and let it tell me which activities it can do for now and which it can't. And of course, persevere. It's not I can't do this, it's I can't yet.

Take care,
Nick