Head Injuries and Kyle

Kyle was my physical therapist. After coming out of the coma my car crash put me in, I was sent to a rehabilitation hospital. Some people believe in angles on Earth, and if there are such beings, then Kyle is one of them. In my car crash, I hit the left side of my head, and all functions of my right side were wiped out; I lost all the motor skills in the right hemisphere of my self. They were gone.

When your brain is whacked, the part that was hit dies. It doesn't rebuild, or heal, it is dead.  But, and this is important, other parts can take over the jobs the dead part was doing. That is, if the brain sees the need.

At least that is how I came to understand the whole fiasco of my TBI, and is how I explained it to my 5th grade students, at the start of each new school year. Therapy, then, would include training parts of the brain to do things they have never done. But all I was concerned with, when I started to come around, was that I needed to be able to walk.

From day one, at the new hospital, nurses would transfer (that's an important word) me from my bed, to a wheelchair and wheel me to the physical therapy area. Let's call it a gym; lots of physical stuff happened there. When I got to the gym, Mighty Kyle would transfer (there's that word again) me to a low, padded therapy table.  He began by teaching me, from a prone position, how to sit up.  That seems easy, but not if you're half paralyzed.  The dead part of my brain had been responsible for sending messages to muscles in my right leg, foot, arm, and hand.  I know movement requires many muscles, tendons, and ligaments, but I'll just use those four main extremities.  Those areas were deaf to any communication regarding movement.

Kyle taught me how to initiate movement with my still working left side. He would move my limbs, in the correct direction and sequence, to put me into the needed position. He was, in effect, teaching new parts of my brain to send the messages.  He took me, physically, from no where to somewhere.  He was both kind, and firm, and his encouragement helped me to want to do everything he asked of me. The smile rarely left his face, and I never thought There is no freakin' way I can do that! If Kyle said I could do it, then I did it.

Learning to Transfer safely, came first.  From bed to wheelchair, then from wheelchair to therapy table, and eventually to toilet.  In the beginning I had a catheter, and it sprang a leak during therapy with Kyle.  The cute PT getting soaked with my urine, caused a bit of embarrassment, but I should have been mortified.

My parents visited from Montana often, and those of you who knew my dad, or read earlier posts, know that he was a very friendly guy.  He and my mom had been watching me run for years, so I wasn't surprised to see them in the gym, watching me rehab.  They befriended Kyle as they had every coach I had run for, and I cried when, during my last session with him, they gave him a picture of me hurdling at the University of Oregon.  That's what my dad did, he showed others the love, and pride, he had for his children.

After leaving the hospital, my therapies continued on an out patient basis.  I would report each morning to a facility, across the street from where I spent the previous four months, and my treatment continued; occupational, speech, cognitive, and physical therapies.  At the end of my day, however, I got to go home!

One day, my new PT took me for a walk; back to the hospital.  She wanted to show Kyle, I was walking on my own.  Upon our arrival he was in the hall outside the gym, and walking towards us. My new PT gave me the go ahead to walk on my own, to meet him.  Sure, I thought, I can do this! Off I went but, after a few steps I faltered and was going down.  I had developed a new skill though, so I fought to correct myself before I actually hit the floor. At the same time, Kyle was moving forward, like the super hero he was, and caught me just in time.  He was impressed, but mostly with the move of trying to save myself.  He congratulated me because I was still improving, and I realized he was th PT I'd always remember.