The doctor calls it “recovering” because it’s much easier to splain.
In my case … I remember going back to the office two or three weeks after my Unplanned Dismount. This was after intensive care, etc. Spent about 20 minutes sitting in front of my computer, trying to get my finger to push the ON button. Knew that was what had to happen, but it didn’t work.
Or if you asked me what color the sky was, in my head I would say blue but when I answered, I would say “yellow,” because I could not make the correct answer come out.
I could not walk a straight line for years. To this day, when I am very tired or mentally on overload, I cannot walk a straight line. And many, many, many more things, but I don’t want to belabor it.
And on top of that, which is something that Francesca and I discussed in email last week (MAD “introduced” us), each and every brain injury reacts totally differently from each and every brain injury, even if it was identical.
The ONLY thing which did “recover” had nothing to do with recovery, it had to do with movement. I fell on the back of my head, no helmet (that ONLY time, no joke), on hardpack. Broke my skull in seven places, fractured my jaw (still have awful TMJ), ripped all the cartilage up one side of my nose on the inside, and my right eardrum burst out. But before it did, the CSF and blood built up behind it, and that caused a big pocket. The pocked would fill with fluid and I had debilitating vertigo.
Last month, after nearly seven years, I got off ativan, which I was taking for the reverse effect - if you take ativan, it makes you dizzy, if you are already dizzy, it makes you normal. So I could finally get off it and when I told my dr, he said “Oh, good, then that part healed by going back to the normal way it was before your accident.” I still have to take a strong diuretic every day and restrict salt intake, otherwise I do spin and spin, and becuase of this I have to take a potassium replacement as well. But least I am off of one.
My accident happened on November 24, 1995. The rest of that year and all of 1996 are just tiny snippets, since most of that time is completely gone from my life. No recollection.
My poor mother, she had just gone through my dad having a benign brain tumor removed when I took my header.
Richard Spooner’s mother Ginny, the first day I went back to the stable (for a half hour, that was all I could manage), ripped me an new asshole the likes of nothing you could imagine. We still talk about it. I, of all people, always the poster child for approved helmets, without one. I, the poster child for not going out in ratty knickers, wearing the rattiest ones AND shredded pantihose under the breeches.
My doctor said if I had worn an unapproved, I would have had just as much shit happen. With an approved, it would have been one hell of a headache and minor concussion, but nothing at all like what I had.
And God bless my best friend, aka Pinkerdo on the BB, for every bit of support she gave me through that ordeal. I could kiss her ass every single day for the rest of my life and I could still never thank her enough for the help and support and friendship and such she gave me then.
Friends, I am not joking. I could barely even get up out of bed to shuffle to the john, and I could not move my arms enough to pull down my knickers to pee. I could not raise my arms higher than boob level or I would pass out. Lost my sense of smell and taste for about 1 1/2 years. My hearing on the right is still shot.
AND ALL BECAUSE I WAS TO VAIN TO PUT ON A HELMET. JUST ONE TIME. THAT’S ALL IT TAKES TO @#$% UP YOUR ENTIRE LIFE, OFTEN FOREVER.
Robby J, I still wanna marry you, especially when you post good stuff like this.
