Brain Awareness Week.

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Tuesday March 13, 2007 19:17 by Michelle Clarke - Social Inclusion; understanding and compassion

The intricacies of the brain, consciousness and the grasp that it is okay to be different

The year was 1993 or perhaps 1994, I lived in Zimbabwe and the past time that I most enjoyed was horse riding in the Veld near Sunset.

On this occasion....I was being brave. I had learned to canter so it was time to jump. An arena, an enthusiasm, the taste of speed and miscalculation and there was change, I went over the horse and under the horse.

Outcome: private emegency ambulance - a team who I will never know who most likely saved my life. There was only one elderly man as Neurosugeon in Zimbabwe at that time. From there life became a pilgrim path of exploration and many bumps and turns on the road.

Welcome to Brain Awareness Week. Let us all take the opportunity to learn about the brain, about acquired brain injury, about diseases of the brain, about mental health implications,

Funding is needed in particular for areas of rehabilitation. Let us look in earnest to the Government, to Socially and Ethically responsible public companies, to philantropic companies and to Minister Cowen's ability to set up a fund whereby families can get tax benefits and give donations to their own family members, when badly affected by brain injury. It is a life sentence but there is always a nugget - the expierience gained suggests, seek the inherent talent and then nurture it. It is after all okay to be different....

Can't believe it is 2007, 2003 the body seemed to give up because I sought to use the head to much.....They call it Chronic Fatigue and it is just that.. You become agoraphobic and anti people and phone but the reason is that your system can't cope.......a phone causes me to freeze rigid and likewise the doorbell.

Today I note in the Irish Times - Professor Ian Robertson from Trinity is to lecture in the Institute of Neuroscience and the Neurological Alliance of the Ireland.

I became acquainted with Professor Robertson's books on Mind Sculptor as I hoaked around bookshops in Dublin trying to add little droplets of light to my very dark brain.

Tomorrow's lecture is about bizarre twists of self awareness ......there are to be revelations and I can't wait to be enlightened.......the enlightenment is how I cope with the existence.

The Times newspaper says that 'Self-awareness is one of the highest achievements of the human body.....but if some parts of the brain stop working , it can have strange effects on self awareness'.

Consciousness is about appealing topic when it your and outside factors change it substantially.

One dimensionality tires the body.........but the greatest gift I have been given is a partner who had time to give and with character. He then decided to organise a Rescue dog......a Jack Russell. Between them, they have coaxed me out for a walk to Baggot Street, a coffee at O'Briens and gradually to interact with people again........

Good Luck tomorrow.

Think of those who do not die in road traffic accidents, think always of the marvellous work done by the Neurologists in hospitals like Beaumount, St. James, Mater and others. Then think about life for these people after the National Rehabilitation Hospital. Funds are badly needed. Ireland is one of the most underfunded countries in Europe in relation to Neurology.

Thank you to the Institute of Neuroscience in Trinity and to the endeavours of all involved in the work of research and making the outcomes general knowledge.

A quotation from Friedrich Nietzche, Philosopher (whom I found while on the pilgrim path amongst many others)

'Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path that they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal'