Bleak Times?

I realize I'm not necessarily doing what I said I'd do in my blog. My plan was to share my daily struggles, and I speak of bleak episodes.  Well, to tell you the truth, my life is pretty damn good!

      My family is healthy

     My kids are happy

        My husband is a gem

        I have a new home

        Bike path is close (it will be eventually)

       I’m surrounded by unimaginable beauty

     A best friend lives on Flathead Lake   

         I have time do the things I need to do, 
    so I'll stay mobile, and live with less pain

                                                       We get cable TV

     I certianly have nothing to complain about. Today, fresh snow on the peaks of the Swan Range has taken on a pinkish, orange hue, called alpenglow. It’s as if the summits are all dressed up for a fancy night out. 

·       
     Injuries I have suffered, led to most of my bleak times, but I've made a conscious decision to take better care of my physical self, and I even remember, mostly!

The Fabulous Doc John

The teeth in the front of my mouth aren't mine, because when I crashed, my head hit the side window either before, or after my face hit the steering wheel. Whatever the sequence, the results were the head injury, and a broken jaw.

Because my jaw was broken in two places, some of my teeth were probably going to die. So they took me across the street to a dentist, and he did some root canals while I slept in his chair. Hey, I had just come out of a coma!  The root canals didn't work, though, so they ended up pulling those teeth, and the dentist built a tooth bridge, using two good teeth as anchors.

When my then-husband first saw me, after the accident, the doctors focused their discussion on my main problem; the head injury.  They may have said Traumatic Brain Injury, or a Closed Cranium Trauma, but I always refer to it as my head injury. Almost as an after-thought, they said maybe my jaw was broken too. Hubby saw me yawn, and my lower jaw did some wacky shucks and jives, and he realized that maybe was the wrong adverb. The jaw was definitely broken.  So it was wired shut to heal.

Funny high light:  I was out of the hospital, but returning each day for outpatient therapies, and had my first temporary bridge in place.  On our way into L.A. from the Antelope Valley, we stopped for donuts.  As I bit into a glazed twist, my bridge stayed in the donut as I pulled it away. And with a squeal I turned to my ex.  He pulled the car to the edge of the freeway, reached across and calmly replaced my teeth.  As luck would have it, the dentist was arriving for work just as we pulled into his parking lot.

Yesterday, I spent four hours in my dentist’s chair, as he prepared my mouth for its third such bridge.  My teeth were simply chipping away, and I could actually see metal.  It took Doctor John, and his helper (are they called nurses?) quite some time to get my old bridge out. As he hammered away, his nurse commented on my brain rattling.  His reply came quickly:  Her brain was rattled a long time ago!

Finishing up, after those 4 long hours, he said he owed me a bottle of wine for letting him torture me.  My mouth was still full of stuff so I held up two fingers.  We all laughed, and he left the room.  On my way out, the girls at the front desk stopped me. Doctor John had left me two bottles of wine.  I think he is the best dentist, on this continent, for sure, but I hope this bridge lasts forever.

Error

OK, readers, after reviewing my last post I realized that there was a error.

I work real hard to check my posts before I publish them. Sometimes...who am I kidding? I always quadruple check.

Here is the problem sentence:

He began by teaching me, from a prone position, how to sit up.

No, my physical therapist did not instruct while laying down.  I was the one laying on therapy table. The sentence should have read:

He began by teaching me how to rise, from lying flat, to a sitting position.

So now you know. I am a Grammar Nazi and I won't apologize ! Just deal with it.

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.

If You Can't Laugh, You're Screwed

A very good, forever friend said to keep writing; that I was good.  Aside from my siblings she holds the longest run as my friend.  Of course, I love those comments, but what I really want to know is whether or not anything funny is getting through. I think if you can't laugh at yourself, or situations you find yourself in, than you're pretty much screwed. Without laughter you might as well give up, especially after sustaining the all encompassing head injury.

After the accident, I admit, I didn't laugh so much.  At first, it was because my broken jaw was wired shut.  After I was wire free, my lack of laughter was because I was still very messed up. 

No laughter, but I did do a lot of crying.  I shed tears like rain falls in Seattle.  They would erupt without warning and my husband, at the time, would simply send one of my children to give me a hug.  They were both sweet, huggable toddlers at the time. Most often their embrace would quell the flow.  Probably because I didn't know why I was crying to begin with. Later, though, the tears came from my realization that I was physically broken and my brain was the problem, and the part still functioning probably knew I'd never be the same.

Those around me did laugh, however, and sometimes it was because of something I said. Their laughs made me happy.  I'll say this just once: When I ran, I loved to win, but now, I love to make people laugh. 

I was still in the hospital, in a physical therapy session, when something I said resulted in loud guffaws. My therapist was Kyle; a young, very cute Asian. I'm sure the only reason I knew his name was because each session, twice daily for almost 4 months, began with him telling me his name.  It surprises me that I knew any other names, because there were about a bazillion people in the room, but I knew Jim.  

This is how I learned to walk again

    

This is where I always rested

Jim was the therapist who had helped Kyle use a shopping cart to get me walking for the first time, (maybe that's why I remembered his name.)  Jim held the front end of the cart,I held the handle, and Kyle moved my legs. This particular day, Jim was across the room and I was sitting on the side of one of those low, padded therapy tables resting.  I did that a lot. 

Well, I looked across the room at Jim, shook my head, and said, to no one in particular, Jim needs a haircut.  Kyle laughed like a hyena!  I was out of earshot (is that a word?) and Jim didn't hear me, but Kyle called him over and, between chuckles, told him what I had said.  And then they both had a good laugh, together.