Q - What is the difference between a balloon and your brain?
A - a balloon is something you can breathe air into. It fills up. It needs that air to be something more than a small piece of material and an idea in someone else's brain originally! You can see a balloon, tie it to a chair, let it float in the air - but yes you can see it, control it! Others can see it and understand what you do with it although It does not live and breathe on its own, it needs the person who owns it, to make it more than a piece of cheap plastic. And there is a sense of achievement. But then something pops it, or the air slowly leaves it, so it is not a controllable balloon anymore, just the semblance of what it once was. We can all recognise and equate with that picture.
BUT.....a brain is more than that - although it is also the same - it is conceived in some one's mind, as part of a whole entity, but takes two people to bring it to life. and as it lives, it grows in a body, that is full of the sustainable, it becomes controllable by the person who owns it. But what happens when the brain pops,? Not suddenly......, but slowly, like the air escapes from the balloon......, the parts of the brain that worked and controlled our actions, speech, perceptions, behaviour have changed and we do not have that same natural control any more. But do we all recognise and equate with that - for the people who have had a Brain Injury I say yes - but for almost all others I say no - so I wonder if they would understand better with that explanation.
Does that explanation make sense to my friends here....... please do not be afraid to say no, I wouldn't mind - its just an idea that popped into my brain today.
Persistent head aches 
Press article on TBI
Blog on Brain Injury
Stop calling it a headache!
At last!!! Well done James Cracknell and Beverley Turner!!
