Advice on Retraining After Brain Injury

[darrylmg]

I'm an IT professional with 15 years experience in systems support, infrastructure planning and implementation, and project management. I have old MCSE certifications and a Solaris admin certification. I'm also a certified PMP (project management professional). I'm not a developer.

I was in a bad car accident last year and suffered a traumatic brain injury. As a result I can no longer work in a noisy open office environment or data centre. If I work for more than half an hour in such an environment I suffer terrible headache symptoms similar to migraines. Otherwise, I'm the same as I always was cognitively. I'm stressed about being able to take care of myself and my family. I'm looking at having to retrain so I can either work from my home office or work solo in a quiet, private office. I'm currently in rehab and have some time for retraining and preparation for a career change. I'm open to taking new certs.

Ideas? Suggestions?

Cheers,
BW

From close personal experience with someone in a similar situation to you, things may get better, slowly.
My only piece of advice is to minimise and potentially try to remove the use of medicines (assuming you are on some), as these don't help in the long term.
If you can find time, take a look at the London Brain Clinic site and maybe they can provide some good advice for your specific case.

Lastly, if you have private medical insurance, and can prove through tests that you have a permanent cognitive deficiency due to your accident, then depending on your insurance policy you could get a payout and switch careers/clear mortgage.

Good luck and keep at it, no matter what life throws at you.

[centurian]

Really sorry to hear about the suffering after your accident.

I would have thought you need to go perm where they have less ability to turn you away because of your condition.

They never admit it, but large firms fall over themselves to increase their quota of employees with disabilities, so will be far more accommodating if you can show a disability which, given a bit of support from them, may not affect your overall productivity.

A disabled contractor probably doesn't count on their stats though.

[BrilloPad]

Norman Doidge, MD | The Brain That Changes Itself official website

[Unix]

I'm an IT professional with 15 years experience in systems support, infrastructure planning and implementation, and project management. I have old MCSE certifications and a Solaris admin certification. I'm also a certified PMP (project management professional). I'm not a developer.

I was in a bad car accident last year and suffered a traumatic brain injury. As a result I can no longer work in a noisy open office environment or data centre. If I work for more than half an hour in such an environment I suffer terrible headache symptoms similar to migraines. Otherwise, I'm the same as I always was cognitively. I'm stressed about being able to take care of myself and my family. I'm looking at having to retrain so I can either work from my home office or work solo in a quiet, private office. I'm currently in rehab and have some time for retraining and preparation for a career change. I'm open to taking new certs.

Ideas? Suggestions?

Cheers,
BW

Why don't you work from home?

[jmo21]

Noise cancelling headphones might work if he was 99% of his time at his desk, but I imagine meetings would be a massive problem.

Not sure what the answer is, hope it works out for you OP.

[northernladuk]

On a serious note if your medical situation has that adverse an effect is contracting the right approach for you?

I have to echo this. It's hard enough getting a gig at the moment without having to put some pretty serious caveats on the role. To be able to work from home you are going to have to be very lucky (most home working is achieved through contacts) or very good and certs won't help here. I really think contracting is going to be extremely stressful with long periods on the bench. I would have thought you need to go perm where they have less ability to turn you away because of your condition.

Just as a thought on the career though.. Have you though about becoming a trainer yourself? Room of up to say 12 people, quiet most of the time except when you are doing the talking. Is that something you can do or is talking most of the day going to be an issue?

[DaveB]

Technical Author...?

Serious suggestion, have you thought of wearing ear defenders? I worked in a busy data center / open plan office environment and lots of people wore them so that they could focus on their work.

White noise headphones or earplugs may be a solution as well. They don't need to be loud to block out the other noises, unless it really is the case you need absolute silence to work.

Is it any noise that causes the problems or noise that makes you focus on it without wanting to? That could be whats stressing you and causing the headaches, like someone snoring loudly that you can't ignore.

[MojoDog]

I'm an IT professional with 15 years experience in systems support, infrastructure planning and implementation, and project management. I have old MCSE certifications and a Solaris admin certification. I'm also a certified PMP (project management professional). I'm not a developer.

I was in a bad car accident last year and suffered a traumatic brain injury. As a result I can no longer work in a noisy open office environment or data centre. If I work for more than half an hour in such an environment I suffer terrible headache symptoms similar to migraines. Otherwise, I'm the same as I always was cognitively. I'm stressed about being able to take care of myself and my family. I'm looking at having to retrain so I can either work from my home office or work solo in a quiet, private office. I'm currently in rehab and have some time for retraining and preparation for a career change. I'm open to taking new certs.

Ideas? Suggestions?

Cheers,
BW

Technical Author...?

Serious suggestion, have you thought of wearing ear defenders? I worked in a busy data center / open plan office environment and lots of people wore them so that they could focus on their work.

[SimonMac]

On a serious note if your medical situation has that adverse an effect is contracting the right approach for you?

[BigWig]

I'm an IT professional with 15 years experience in systems support, infrastructure planning and implementation, and project management. I have old MCSE certifications and a Solaris admin certification. I'm also a certified PMP (project management professional). I'm not a developer.

I was in a bad car accident last year and suffered a traumatic brain injury. As a result I can no longer work in a noisy open office environment or data centre. If I work for more than half an hour in such an environment I suffer terrible headache symptoms similar to migraines. Otherwise, I'm the same as I always was cognitively. I'm stressed about being able to take care of myself and my family. I'm looking at having to retrain so I can either work from my home office or work solo in a quiet, private office. I'm currently in rehab and have some time for retraining and preparation for a career change. I'm open to taking new certs.

Ideas? Suggestions?

Cheers,
BW