Would you like to join in supporting the Brain Injury Association of Maryland's outreach initiatives like
#5ThoughtsFridays
?
We are launching a new
Special Summer Membership
Campaign
:
- Individuals with Brain Injuries: FREE
- General Membership (including Families) : only $35
- Professional Membership: only $95
There is No Brain Injury Association of Maryland
without Members.
That means there is no Brain Injury Association of Maryland
without YOU.
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#5ThoughtsFriday is Powered By
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#5Thoughts Friday
07/31/2020
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Here are the 5 things we thought were
worth sharing with you this week:
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Photo of Adrienne Dancing Joyfully courtesy of Adrienne Walker-Pittman
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My name is Adrienne Walker-Pittman. I was the Spokeswoman for Baltimore/Washington International now Thurgood Marshall BWI Airport until January 27, 1996. On that day, my husband and I were packing to move to our dream home. After being up all night packing boxes with little to no sleep, all I remember was being exciting about the move while bending over to put the last boxes in the trunk of my car when everything went black.
I was later told that a juvenile delinquent driving a stolen car hit me as he was trying to get away from the police who were chasing him. My left leg was amputated above the knee on impact and I sustained a traumatic brain injury. I was in a coma for 15 days, in two hospitals for 60 days and out of work for about a year.
In an instant, my life had gone from 100 to zero. I had to start my life all over again like a baby in an adult body.
Yes, in life you have to make adjustments but who would have thought the adjustments would be life changing and life impacting for ever?
Oh no, not I! I decided to set my mind to win so I could conquer this mountain! I decided that I would not let anything defeat me, not even this!!
CLICK HERE to read more of Adrienne's inspirational message.
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COME JOIN US ONLINE AT TODAY's
Group Check-In Chat
from Noon to 1pm.
Please
CLICK HERE to sign up using our online registration.
Once we receive your registration, we will send you the link.
We hope to "see" you there!
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We are witnessing mandated social isolation and social distancing on an epic scale. As part of BIAMD's interest in serving Maryland's Brain Injury Community, we are starting what we call "Check-In Chats".
We would like to "check in" with anyone looking to share their experiences and challenges with either an individual or in a social group setting.
Even though we can't meet in person, there are many ways open to us, and, if you are interested, we would like to hear from you about your needs and how we can help you feel more connected.
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Recently, I have been riding my bike a ton. It’s a great way to get outside, get some exercise, and feel like I’m going somewhere. I know I’m not alone: for a while there, bikes were sold out pretty much everywhere and the wait time at even small local bike shops for repairs were weeks long. Whenever it’s time to return to the office, I’m planning on riding my bike to work. And even until then, I’m planning on riding almost every day. While I’m not going to recommend a bike (just yet), I can recommend the next best thing: a good helmet
Thousand makes an excellent bike helmet that for once, you’ll actually want to wear. The design is sleek, a little retro even, with a nub of a visor that will make you look like you’re wearing a bicycle hat from the 1970s. It comes in 10 colors, all with a premium matte rubberized finish, like speedway creme, daybreak red, thousand navy,, all of which will turn heads without looking too flashy. The buckle is magnetic, which is super cool, and the helmet is easy to loosen or tighten thanks to a dial fit system located in the back. Plus, it has ventilation on top to keep you cool all summer long.
CLICK HERE to find out more about this cool summer helmet.
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ELON MUSK DOESN’T think his newest endeavor, revealed Tuesday night after two years of relative secrecy, will end all human suffering. Just a lot of it. Eventually.
At a presentation at the California Academy of Sciences, hastily announced via Twitter and beginning a half hour late, Musk presented the first product from his company Neuralink. It’s a tiny computer chip attached to ultrafine, electrode-studded wires, stitched into living brains by a clever robot. And depending on which part of the two-hour presentation you caught, it’s either a state-of-the-art tool for understanding the brain, a clinical advance for people with neurological disorders, or the next step in human evolution.
The chip is custom-built to receive and process the electrical action potentials—“spikes”—that signal activity in the interconnected neurons that make up the brain. The wires embed into brain tissue and
receive those spikes
. And the
robotic sewing machine
places those wires with enviable precision, a “neural lace” straight out of science fiction that dodges the delicate blood vessels spreading across the brain’s surface like ivy.
If Neuralink’s technologies work as Musk and his team intend, they’ll be able to pick up signals from across a person’s brain—first from the motor cortex that controls movement but eventually throughout your think-meat—and turn them into machine-readable code that a computer can understand. It might use them to control a computer or a prosthesis, to someday even feed information back to help the blind see, or to create entire virtual Matrixes inside your mind.
]
CLICK HERE to read more about this possibly new product from the man who brought the world the Tesla.
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ONLINE Brain Injury Support Groups
Severe Brain Injury Caregiver Group
Zoom Room Internet Conference
2
nd
and 4
th
Sunday of the month, 7:30 p – 8:45p
Tom Gallup 301-502-8420
BIAMD Check In Chats
Every Friday at Noon
To register for a Check-In-Chat please visit
Young Stroke Group
The first and third Fridays of the month from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET.
Rockville Brain Injury Support Group
2
nd
Thursday, 6:30p – 7:30p
Tom Wilkinson 240-493-8472
Anne Arundel County Brain Injury Support Group
3rd Tuesday, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Debbie Cottrill (410) 320-8948
Brain Injury Support Group
1st Monday, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Candice Rebuck (410) 448-6303
Caregivers Support Group
4th Tuesday, 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Gwen Alexander (410) 448-6311
Stroke Support Group
Meets monthly 10:00 a.m. – Noon
Brandy Breaux (410) 448-6821
Call for the monthly calendar
Online stroke support and information resources
The John “Jack” Godfrey Brain Injury Support Group
2nd Tuesday, 6:00p – 7:00p
Dawn Moreland (301) 618-2364
Brentrell Spencer (301) 618-2134
BIADC Support Group
3rd Wednesday, 5:30p – 7:30p
Gemma Rosas (NRH) (202)-877-1192
Joan Joyce (NRH) (202) 877-1420
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2) What We are Reading This Week
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National bestselling author Dr. Judith Orloff invites you to take a remarkable journey, one that leads to happiness and serenity, and a place where you can gain mastery over the negativity that pervades daily life. No matter how stressed you currently feel, the time for positive change is now. You possess the ability to liberate yourself from depression, anger, and fear.
Synthesizing neuroscience, intuitive medicine, psychology, and subtle energy techniques, Dr. Orloff maps the elegant relationships between our minds, bodies, spirits, and environments. With humor and compassion, she shows you how to identify the most powerful negative emotions and how to transform them into hope, kindness, and courage. Compelling patient case studies and stories from her online community, her workshop participants, and her own private life illustrate the simple, easy-to-follow action steps that you can take to cope with emotional vampires, disappointments, and rejection.
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1)
Quote We Are Contemplating...
“Rosa Parks inspired me to find a way to get in the way, to get in trouble… good trouble, necessary trouble.”
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Have you ever clicked on the pictures posted at the end of every #5ThoughtsFridays? Try it. You might learn something fun!
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HAVE A WONDERFUL
WEEKEND.
(THANK YOU FOR PRACTICING "SAFER AT HOME", SOCIAL DISTANCING, AND WEARING YOUR MASKS IN PUBLIC SPACES.)
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Did you enjoy #5ThoughtsFriday? If so, please forward this email to a friend!
Please let us know your requests and suggestions by emailing us at
info@biamd.org
.
Which bullet above is your favorite? What do you want more or less of? Let us know! Just send a tweet to
@biamd1
and put
#5ThoughtsFriday
in there so we can find it.
This blog is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute endorsement of treatments, individuals, or programs which appear herein. Any external links on the website are provided for the visitor’s convenience; once you click on any of these links you are leaving BIAMD's #5ThoughtsFriday blog post. BIAMD has no control over and is not responsible for the nature, content, and availability of those sites.
Thanks for reading! Have a wonderful weekend.
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