The Accident with a side of traumatic brain injury to go...

Since October 2013 I've been exploring groups around Arkansas in an attempt to finally find some like-minded individuals with whom to chat and interact with. There is a decided dearth of such persons in my immediate area and if it weren't for Jim (my husband) I think I'd have gone completely mad by now.

Olivia and the kids moved in back in June of 2012 and that has offered considerably more alternatives and challenges in our tiny 3 bedroom home.

She's been attending some of the meetings with me and exploring her own spiritual path and I've enjoyed helping, listening and being there to see the changes and growth. I've also enjoyed having someone else to compare stories and opinions with and yet, I haven't been able to shake this feeling that I wanted/needed something more.

2008-2011 were really tough times. I was in a couple of vehicle accidents where the other driver simply plowed into me; once at a stop light and once as I was nearly through an intersection. Both caused muscle pains, nerve pain and head injuries but the one in 2009 was by far the worst. I'll affectionately call her "the blue-haired fruit bat" who hit me just plain chose not to stop at a red light. She did not see my car directly in front of her face. The kid in her passenger seat sure did, his eyes were as huge as saucers just before impact. 

She slammed into me, spun me around on the rain-soaked, oil-slicked asphalt and into oncoming traffic where I was hit again and spun some more for fun. My head bounced all over the window, steering wheel and such until I came to a rest. I know now I was in shock but I could only think to check and make sure everyone else was okay so I wandered out of the car to the woman who hit me. She started screaming at me but seemed okay so I went to the other car next. 

The other car was a brand spanking new sedan not a week off the lot. It held a beautiful young mother-to-be named Autumn and her husband, Bill. Autumn was sobbing behind the wheel and clearly shaken up but Bill said she'd be okay and that she was mostly just reacting to the shock of it all. At this point I walked away from her car and apparently into traffic until Bill grabbed my arm and guided me back to my car. Once I sat down for a second or two I started to become aware of a myriad of pain in my feet, legs, back, neck and head. I managed to phone Jim on the cell and said I was in an accident and that I was near Pizza Hut and needed him then I just kind of blanked out for a bit. (He said it wasn't nearly that clear but he simply drove the way I usually went until he spotted the accident.) 

My back spasms were so bad that I was having difficulty taking a breath and by the time the ambulance showed up I was both dazed and breathless. Each minute seemed to make it harder and harder to move and think. I don't think I was ever unconscious but I definitely lost touch with reality for a bit.

The rain was pouring down, it was after dark and the temperature hovered around 45. The ambulance man forced me to lie prone on a gurney which made the spasms much worse. I tried to get up and he strapped me onto it with bands across my head, chest and legs. He put a neck collar on me I think but I can't remember if that was him or the hospital later. Then he left to assess the other persons, leaving me in the pouring rain alone and in great pain without so much as a blanket. I'd been there about 30 minutes when Jim showed up. He yelled at the attendant about me being left unattended and freezing wet. Next thing I knew they pushed me into the nearby ambulance, where the blue-haired fruit bat was giving her statement to police officer. 

I could hear her saying she was on prescription meds and I heard the officer say she shouldn't have been driving while taking whatever it was. They chatted for another 10 minutes or so until Jim told them to get me to freaking hospital or he was going to do it. 

I think I lost some time again because the next thing I knew the ambulance was driving, the doors were closed, and the fruit bat had disappeared. The attendant was poking me over and over and asking me questions. I tried to answer him but I couldn't get any air. It felt like a ten inch wide steel band was crushing me from the bottom of my ribs to my hip bones. He got more and more insistent that I respond, saying things about how I wasn't helping the situation etc, all the while I was literally gasping unable to breathe. I realized I was about to pass out at the very least and remembered doing breathing exercises to help with the pain while in labor. I started doing la mas breathing and slowly but surely I was able to gain a little air and the wrenching band gave way. 

I ignored the idiot from that point on. When I got to White County Hospital, I was having seizure like spasms from head to toe, I was freezing and shivering so badly that I felt like I was being torn in half. The staff cut my cloths off of me saying something about hypothermia. I started to cry but I couldn't even move my head or lift my hands and I couldn't find Jim. My core temperature was in the 70's and I was having great difficulty staying awake. My cognitive function wasn't working much of the time and I was scared. I couldn't remember what had happened and why I was there.

Finally Jim showed up. I remember hearing his voice. I wasn't sleeping but I wasn't exactly awake either. They'd covered me at some point with hot blankets and some kind of fluid IV was running through a line in my arm. The spasms were still there but not nearly as intense. I'm sure they gave me shots to relax the muscles and such but I just don't remember it.

Jim held my hand and petted me and calmed me with his voice. He explained more than once what had happened because apparently I kept asking. He assured me he had my purse and gave them my insurance info and all that. Nice to know that when I can't remember my name I thought to ask how everyone else was and where my important papers were. LOL.

They did a bunch of scans and x-rays and the long and short of it didn't sound that bad. Two concussions, coup-contrecoup injury and a contusion of the brain. Whiplash in the neck was no surprise as well. The muscle spasms were because I'd seen her about to hit me and tensed up, thereby making the damage a little worse than it would have been if I hadn't. (Who wouldn't tense up though?) I had a lot of bruises and a monster headache.

It took years, in fact, I would say the healing continues to this day but the brunt of it was by far worse at the start and the following 23 months. The brain injuries didn't seem bad so no one listened when I kept having hallucinations, bladder issues, and an inability to read, write or understand written language. By far the worst side effect of the damage was the inability to trust my own brain. Things I'd known for decades suddenly were gone, information as simple as "add water when you make Ramen soup on the stove" or "green means go not stop" had been removed. In their place was the sure knowledge one moment that I was 100% correct only to find five minutes or a day later that not only was I completely wrong but it was ludicrous that I'd ever thought I was right in the first place.  

I lost my independence. I couldn't drive. I lost my part-time job. I lost me. 

Jim and I argued constantly over stupid things. Even with insurance, the financial consequences of the accident added up and piled the stress on both of us and our fledgling marriage. Everyone I used to do work for accounting and my family kept saying things like "you look fine" or "I don't see anything wrong with you." I felt as though I were going insane. 

Was I making it up? Were the experiences I continued to have all in my mind? WHY couldn't I think like I used to? WHY were my emotions so violent and erratic? Why did I laugh when I should cry and cry when I meant to laugh?  Why didn't anyone believe me?

Finally I switched from the doctor I'd had from the start, whom I detested,  to a new D.O. (like an MD but they can do manipulations and muscle stuff that most MDs won't do.) He put me in physical therapy, which led to a lot of short-term pain for long-term gain. He adjusted my neck and back and legs and in an instant ended completely once and for all nerve pain and muscle strain I'd suffered for nearly a year. He suggested I see a neuro-psychiatrist  in Little Rock so I did. She tested me and finally I had my proof. 

Her tests showed that I wasn't a malingering faker. I consistently scored above average and superior on most of the twenty odd tests and yet there were three tests which I scored less than 30 points on. Executive function, sequencing and one other that I can't remember now. They showed gross impairment and the fact that all my other scores were so high made it incredibly obvious that these three areas of the brain were greatly and negatively impacted.

I had already taken the initiative to start doing Lumosity online to strengthen my brain and reading, reaction times and to help me track improvement. I'd even started playing World of Warcraft. Don't laugh; it gave me an environment where I had to read and interpret requests, perform simple tasks, and when I got them correct, I was rewarded. I could fail again and again and it didn't matter, no one else was affected. It took me six months to get a character up to level six. I can do that now in under an hour, 30 minutes if I hurry.

I'd also been trying to read to Jim which was hideously slow. At first I'd forget a word as soon as I read it and moved to the next. I couldn't string the sentence together. After several months I was able to remember the sentence but not two. Then I could do two or three but not the whole paragraph. It was agonizing, but at least I knew there was progress. 

It was more than year post accident that I was able to speak to a cognitive therapist. I had eight appointments with her. She saw the difficulty I was having but reassured me that I was already doing everything she would have recommended and that I had to be content with whatever progress I was making. I would get so upset and frustrated and start bawling because I knew that I used to be able to take over 87,000 documents and put them together in one spreadsheet from start to finish for the Exxon Valdez cost bill for the entire trial. Now I couldn't figure out movie times or do the exercises where I had to organize a few pieces of information. 

I knew I should know. I knew I USED to know. But I couldn't do it. I would get stuck in this loop in my head and the result was always the same. Self recrimination and abuse. I expected myself to function where I had been and now, though I clearly remembered being able to do so, I couldn't. I felt useless.

The words that I'd always found so easy to put on paper were now laborious and chunky. There was no flow or style to them. It was like lumps of concrete, thrown hither and thither, being called a sidewalk. Laughable.

Stories, poems and ramblings I'd written were unknown to me. It was like reading someone else's writing. I knew because they were in my files that I'd written them but I couldn't recall the stories, or even some of the events. It was surreal.

Even my inner dialog had changed. It was like I stood ostracized in my own head watching this complete stranger run my life and ruin it. Thoughts went through my head that I know I never would have even considered before and I was helpless to stop them.

All the weight I'd lost after leaving Seattle and working on the ranch, came back with a vengeance. Partly from nearly four months lying in bed most of the day on muscle relaxants and Valium. Also in part because the more unsure I became, the more I ate. Since my normal activities were curtailed severely while I recovered, I gained weight quickly.

I also had post-traumatic stress. When I was finally deemed okay to drive I would have panic attacks if a car turned onto the road on that side of the car. It would send adrenaline throughout my body in an instant, I'd start shaking and sobbing uncontrollably and had to pull off the road. I even cried when it happened suddenly on TV. I hated myself and my weaknesses.

If I hadn't of had Jim I think I'd be a number in a morgue journal at this point. No kidding. That's pretty bad considering I was so positive and upbeat that I made any number of friends,family and strangers sick and disgusted cheering them out of perfectly good blue funks prior to all this. I couldn't see the light at the end of tunnel.

That was then. My intention in writing this wasn't to garner sympathy or pity. If anything it was to offer hope to anyone in similar situation and to help fill in the gap of almost six years since my last post. I think this blog is part of a series of blogs leading up to my current experiences and attempts at healing. 

At the time I thought I was going through hell or simply IN hell, but with time and perspective I can see that everything that happened, did so for a reason. Each obstacle and challenge offered me an opportunity to overcome my fears and limitations. It has brought, in some ways, an even better understanding of who I am. Though I do mourn the loss of that part of me that did not move forward, I am starting to celebrate the parts of me created or, perhaps more precisely - unearthed, since.