THE INCIDENT

The party was over. For me, forever. We broke up into buddy groups with designated drivers for each car. I had come alone, so one car followed us as my designated driver headed down the freeway to my home.

He mistook my rack-and-pinion steering for manual, and oversteered as we slid on the gravel spilled on a turn. We drove directly into the median ditch, hitting nose-first and flipping the car. No seat belts meant we were thrown through my sun roof as the car landed on its roof.

He broke his leg and went home from the hospital in a month. I broke my left arm and my right brain. I went home in 3 months.


The Intensive Care Unit

I went directly from the emergency room to I.C.U. My father was out of town when notified. He was at a church, preaching, and told to remain there and request prayer. My doctors held little hope for me being alive by morning.

They wheeled my comatose body into I.C.U. after attaching a device to drain the brain fluid seeping out of my right ear. A tracheostomy (a slice of the throat) was done for the insertion of a feeding tube.

I remained comatose for 5 weeks. During most of this time, I am told, my eyes were sealed shut by the massive swelling of my face. After 3 weeks of lying totally motionless and quiet, one day I made a grunt when the nurse took my blood pressure in my left arm, squeezing it with the pressure band.

Friends were visiting and told her my left arm had a metal plate with 6 screws in it. It had been broken twice before and the pain was why I grunted. A note was put on my chart to use the right arm only.

The next week, a new nurse didn't see that on my chart and used the left arm. This time, I batted her with my right arm, opened my eyes and said "Ouch!" She almost dropped dead from fright. The corpse had swatted her!


DOING TIME IN STROKE REHAB

I went from I.C.U. to the Stroke Rehab floor. I had a private room automatically because TBI patients can be quite obnoxious to a roommate--verbally, even physically, abusive.

I was just argumentative--always had been. I had never been the physical sort--bowling, fishing and bicycling were my only sports. When friends were asked if I was an aggressive person, likely to strike out or throw things, they laughed--hysterically. They said if I felt like throwing a violent fit, I would try to hire someone to throw it for me--getting violent was too much work.

So I was a calm head injury (that's what the nurses called me). I spent 2 months in Stroke Rehab as there is no Brain Injury Rehab in Springfield, MO. I discuss my therapies later.


GOING HOME

I had lived on one side of a duplex with my father on the other. I had one female roommate. During my hospital stay, another friend had moved in--the 2 alternated visits to me so I was seldom left alone during my waking hours.

My memory was shot. I recognized Tammy and Sue, but could not think of their names or how I knew them. They helped me through physical therapy at the hospital. I did not cooperate unless one was there. I had always hated gym and it was like gym.

The occupational therapist had it easy--she just wanted me to play games--I picked "UpWords." At first, we played ordinary Scrabble as I was unable to see the intricacies involved in making one word out of another. That involved thinking of 2 things at once--impossible at the time.

Speech therapy was a breeze. I could read, define words and had a normal IQ. Although my speech was difficult to understand, I "graduated" early.

PT was "physical torture" to me. (More later.)


MOVING TO NEW MEXICO

I had been attending school to obtain a 2nd degree in physics, with plans to move to Soccorro, New Mexico. There, I would attend the State University and get a Ph.D. in astrophysics, hoping eventually to get work at the Very Large Array Telescope there. Now, having virtually no short-term memory, school was impossible. I was extremely depressed--suicidal.

In an effort to help my emotional state, Tammy and Sue suggested I move to Soccorro, anyway, as I'd always loved the desert. The thought of moving there cheered me up. I didn't wish to be seen by my friends in Springfield in my condition.

We moved. Turn the page