Chapter 4 - The Claw, Hook, and Broca's Aphasia

 Traumatic brain injuries are like snowflakes, they’re all different but still the same. The way I understand TBI, and explain it, is as follows:  TBI patients don’t regain their lost abilities, as much as relearn them.  The section of my brain that told my right hemisphere what to do doesn't work anymore, because of the blow it took.  So the undamaged parts had to learn how to direct the body's right side limbs. It's a new job for that part of my brain, and although I can now use my right leg, arm, hand, fingers etc. they don't work like they once did.

I didn't look into, or research my disabilities, until several years after my TBI, when I began writing about my experience. The frontal lobe is important for voluntary and planned motor behaviors. I was drawn to a list that describes problems associated with injury to the frontal lobe because I had whacked mine pretty hard. The list told me damage there may result in any, or all, of the following
1.  Paralysis 
2.  Inability to sequence
3.  Loss of spontaneity in interacting with others
4.  Perseverance on a single thought
5.  Inability to focus and express language (Broca's Aphasia.

When I woke from my coma I was certainly paralyzed, on the right side.  But, I came away from the hospital able to walk with a loft strand cane; the tall cane with a strap around the upper arm, midway between the shoulder and elbow, and a horizontal handle to grasp, below the strap.   My right side motor skills function now, but not like they once did.  There is a delay somewhere in my circuits so I limp.  And the hitch in my get along is such that I can no longer run.

They also worked to get my right arm, hand and fingers moving again.  That was occupational therapy's (OT''s) primary goal. I started by manipulating large blocks, and moved to puzzles with large pieces, like my own kids had among their toys.  OT deals with being productive, and I was a housewife, so they must have assumed I baked.  One session of occupational therapy dealt with following a recipe, as well as cutting an apple with a sharp knife.  My family thought the whole activity was crazy because therapists had me holding an apple with one hand, and wielding a sharp knife in my compromised hand!  Today, I am apt to warn everyone in close proximity that I have a knife in my bad hand, and to stay clear!     

If they thought I could cut an apple with my affected hand, why didn't they think I would be able to write with it?  I know they didn't, because they tried to teach me to write left handed, just before my release. I never came close to proficient, and no one could read my chicken scratches, but I continued my left handed scrawl after leaving the hospital because that is what I was told to do. I am, at heart, a rule follower.

My legibility never did improve, and during my 1st year home, the young son of friends visiting, watched me struggle to write notes to myself.  Robert said to me, Why don’t you just try to write with your right hand?

Why didn’t I think of that?  I wondered.  And then I attempted to finish with my right hand. Bingo!   My left hand knew how to assist the other by holding/turning the paper, and my right hand knew how to form the letters.  It took much concentration, at first, but the letters were more legible, and the task was much easier than with my left hand. Over the years, I have gotten pretty good.

I can type now, too.  But, to use both hands and all ten fingers  is very slow and laborious. So, throughout the years, I have perfected unorthodox typing skills.  Mostly, I utilize my fully functional left hand.  My right pointer finger is relegated to hunt and peck, and usually hovers above the right shift key, for capitalization. 

Because my right hemisphere does not work like it did previously, I have come up with tricks to use the disability to my advantage. It is most comfortable for my right fist to be closed and that arm pulled up to my shoulder. My hand remains closed, without thought, so it’s easy to hold things that are easy to lose; like the pencil you need for quick notes, correct change for the snack machine, or the keys to… anything.  Nothing, and I mean nothing, will cause me to inadvertently release whatever I hold in the claw, and once there it will stay indefinitely.  

Also, because my elbow is naturally bent, I can slip the handles of many grocery bags onto the hook, and as long as I even out the weight by carrying something comparable on the left side, I am fairly balanced.  I guess I could say, One really does have to look for opportunities to best utilize what they have, rather than focus on what is missing, but I really was just trying to make my life easier.

Number 2 on the list is inability to sequence, and it continues to be difficult. I had cognitive therapy to deal with this. Those sessions included playing Where in the World is Carmon San Diego on the computer.  I don’t forget the steps involved, as much as I misjudge how long each step will take me. It can take me an inordinately long time to do something I think should be done in a jiffy.  So planning a meal where the food is ready to eat all at once, is not one of my stronger skills.  I’m sure that my head injury plays into that, but I also realize that the desire is not really there.  Hunger is something I rarely feel, but I do eat, and cleaning up, after the meal, is what I am best at.  It’s routine. 

The 3rd thing listed is loss of spontaneity when reacting with others.  This was never a problem, that's how strange TBI's are.  My difficulty is that I am impulsive; I vocalize what is going through my mind, at any given time.  During a physical therapy session with Kyle, I looked across the room at Jim, a therapist who often assisted when more than two hands were needed.  I simply stated, Jim needs a haircut, as his hair was floppy long. You could say my comment was inappropriate, as well as arbitrary, but it brought a smile to Kyle’s face, nonetheless.  He even laughed aloud!  Kyle told me later that my comment showed him I was finally coming around.

Next on the list is perseverance on a single thought.  Although I was always driven to complete what I started, I don't find that to be true anymore. But, I think the perseverance indicated here has more to do with  focusing  on only one unimportant issue, and has a slightly negative connotation.  All I can say about this is that I probably do it, more often than I think, and I know I still struggle with letting things things go.

The list concludes with the inability to focus and express language.  Aphasia is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as …a loss or impairment of the power to use or comprehend words usually resulting from brain damage. Broca's area is in the lower part of the left frontal lobe (exactly where my head was hit) therefore it is called Broca’s Aphasia.  It feels good to know their is a name for what has plagued me since 1991.

The frontal lobe controls the motor aspects of speech so that’s why, especially early on, my speech was halting, and mono tone.  Speech therapy, then, was also part of my daily regimen.  Once home, the daily conversations with my family provided the practice I would need to sound more normal.  I spoke easily to my two young children, and later, I was comfortable talking to my fifth grade students.  Even though my speech definitely improved over the years, I still hate to hear my recorded voice.

My inflection may be right, and I'm not as mono tone as I once was but I’m still a step behind verbally, struggling sometimes to find the words I want.  I know the word is very familiar but I can’t locate it. I pause, as if thinking deeply on the subject when all I’m really doing is rifling through the files in my head for the simple, much-used word I need.  It can feel like I’m wading through sludge trying to reach it.

Close friends, who know my history and feel comfortable with me, often fill-in-the-blank with the word I am searching for.  They are not surprised when I say Can you flip that thing on the wall so that… poof?  They know that I am referring to the light switch, and that I’d like the lights turned on.  Or I give the a brief definition of the word just out of reach and they provide the word.

Not only was my brain's left frontal lobe damaged, the brain stem also took a shot. That's why I see double.  But since my TBI, I've had two eye surgeries.  When I started to drive again, I  wore an eye patch. I didn't want to be caught trying to determine whether the car coming straight towards me, was the real image or not.  I don't  wear the patch, anymore, because now I only see double if I'm very tired or just want to. 

Sometimes I like to show people my weird eyes.  I cover one eye, focus with the other, then uncover the covered eye because then my pupils jump around.   Both of my eyes work, but they don't work together, is how I explain it.  My right eyeball does most of the work, and focuses on what I'm looking at.  My left eyeball looks off to left, but it still can visualize things that are to the right.  It doesn't appear to be looking at what it should be focused on until the right eye is closed.  It's as if my eyes have a brain of their own, that I'm not in control of.

Chapter 3 ... coached, coach·ing, coach·es: to train or tutor or to act as a trainer or tutor

          The pneumonia lengthened my stay in Palmdale, and I spent a week recovering. I needed the extra time though, to gain the skills that would get me transferred to an appropriate facility.  The head injury recovery process  begins in the intensive care unit and moves to a neurosurgical ward.  The patient might then be transferred to a sub-acute unit and then either a long-term acute care facility or a treatment unit.  To Gary, the long-term acute care facility looked like what we used to refer to as an Old Folks Home, and he decided against warehousing me.  He was my strong advocate. Many may not have pushed me towards the recovery I was capable of making.

He educated himself about head trauma, and knew that I needed inpatient treatment in a unit that specialized in that field, and he found Northridge hospital. It had an Acute Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program.  For my doctor to agree to the transfer, though, I was going to need to be able to perform cognitively.

While I ran track at the University of Oregon, my husband played football.  Coaches had been part of our lives since we were young.  I was, basically, an impassive lump of flesh, but I was his wife, and he had seen me train in college and then again while working full-time so he knew I was up to the task.

The cognitive assessment would require me to respond to a verbal command. So that’s what Gary would train me to do.  He prepared me to take a ball from his hand upon his command.  In essence he coached me to that end. During the doc’s formal assessment I was able to respond to his direction so I was sent to Northridge. 

I had hit my head in the left frontal lobe region and as a result lost all motor skills in my right hemisphere.  I also suffered from constant double vision, but that would not be known for some time.  I was not in good shape at all, but I was alive.  The admittance history describes me as a 30 year old, previously healthy female, suffering from an underlying brain injury caused by a closed cranial trauma resulting from an automobile accident.

          For some reason, it feels good to read the residual post traumatic encephalopathy, or brain injury, I was suffering from was of a severe degree.  My athletic soul often thinks I’ve been a wimp, and part of me thinks I should have come further, in terms of recovery.  Sometimes, I still think if I had worked a little harder or put more effort into my recovery, I would be more like I once was.  But, then I recall it was severe and I give myself permission to go easier on myself. 

Upon admittance to the second hospital, he pushed my wheel chair through the hall, and turning into my room I passed by a mirror, or a glass window, and saw my reflection.  A look of surprise registered on my face.  An area of my scalp was shaved to allow for insertion of the pressure relieving shunt, and although the device itself had been removed, my hair line was still uneven.  I have a vague recollection of this, and I remember just wanting to be put in bed so I could sleep

The report also states that I fractured my mandible, and my jaw was surgically wired shut to allow for healing.  When I did begin to rejoin the living, the wiring, as well as the inability to eat, didn't even register as out of the ordinary.  I had a hearty appetite, and loved to eat so the fact food was not a part of my daily life should have been quite upsetting. 

I was in a hospital, unable to speak or move, with no recollection of what brought me there in the first place, and on top of that, I was seeing two of everything.  The two images were not side by side either. Things were really out of sync but I quickly figured out how to deal with the problem.  I simply closed one eye.  Medical professionals equated the one closed eye with double vision but the same experts chose to address other, more pressing problems first.

The more urgent issue I faced was the paralysis of my right hemisphere, so I began with two sessions of physical therapy daily.  My therapist was new to the hospital, but Kyle quickly endeared himself to my family.  He laughed easily, but definitely made me work.  We formed an immediate bond but it was my father’s efforts that brought us there.  

My father was proud of all his children.  We nicknamed him friendly because of he entertained complete strangers with stories of his kids' accomplishments.  Less than 10 years prior to my crash I had been a record setting, track and field athlete at the University of Oregon, and my successes gave him plenty of story material.  He regaled anybody within earshot with my achievements. 

          My father let Kyle know, probably immediately, about my sports accomplishments, as if to say Yeah, she’ll get this taken care of.  We started work on a low, matted physical therapy table, where he began by teaching me to move from lying down to sitting up.  This can be tricky, especially if only half your body works. 

          After transitioning to sitting, we worked on getting on my hands and knees.  That too was challenging as my right hand was closed in a tight fist, as if ready to clobber someone.  Kyle would have to pry my digits open and so that my fist was not clenched.  He would splay my fingers so my palm would rest flat on the surface of the mat.  This hand position is still difficult, many years post TBI.

In the hospital I wore a molded plastic brace, created specifically for me to force my hand to remain open while I slept.  Also, the created a cast for that arm to open it in varying degrees.  My brain would be reminded that the arm was not suppose to be pulled up, and rigid all the time.  They divided my final cast in half so that it could be removed during the day, but I wore it, along with the hand brace, at night. While awake, I had to consciously focus on keeping my hand and fingers as well as my elbow joint, relaxed.

My right side was not just weak, it did not function at all, initially, and when I could actually bear weight and stand upright, I was not able to rely on a walker.  Therefore, Kyle and two other therapists parked me upright, in front of an ordinary shopping cart.  I gripped the handle, as if it were a lifeline and one of the therapists was assigned to my bad leg, one was assigned to the cart, and Kyle was, somehow, in charge of the whole escapade.  To those watching, I am sure, we moved agonizingly slow, but it was a milestone.  Kyle had taken me from doing nothing, to doing something.  To me it was just another day in therapy, doing what I was told to do, with as little back talk, or complaint as possible. 

Along with physical therapy, I also received occupational and speech therapies at Northridge Hospital. Occupational therapy dealt with being physically productive, and the speech work I had also involved working on my cognition; my actual thought process.  That was an area needing help, too. 

KGEZ Radio

I was interviewed this morning on KGEZ here in Kalispell.  Last month I was inducted into the University of Oregon Hall of Fame and it was a bigger deal than I thought and I was hoping the hullabaloo was over after I gave an interview to the city newspaper but then I got the call to come talk to Mike Hodges.  It wasn't that difficult since I've told the same stories for years now, but hearing my voice, pregnant pauses and all, was pretty excruciating.  Yes, I do sound like I've sustained brain trauma, but I appreciate everyone saying I sounded fine.

After hearing myself I realized that I speak similar to the way I walk; slow, and deliberate.  On foot I'm always extra careful to pick the shortest distance between here, and there, and talking live on the radio I had to choose my words carefully too.  I tend to ramble, and it can be hard for me to reach the point I had started towards, and I didn't want to do that to a station kind enough to talk to a mature track athlete who just happens to still hold a record after many years.

The record I still hold is the 400 meter hurdles and for a while I thought I held it for so long because Oregon, in my mind, was always a distance school; think Prefontaine, Salazar or Warren. When I left I held records in the long jump, 100 meter hurdles, and the 400 meter hurdles.  My long jump record was the 1st to be broken, and I don't think I had been gone very long. It was understandable, a Pac 10 (that's what it was when I ran) long jumper really should jump at least 20 feet, and I never broke that barrier.

The 2nd record to go was the 100 meter hurdle mark, and it was broken by the winning NCAA pentathlete  (or maybe she only placed in the top three.)  I thought was justifiable too, as I was never a national champion, or even close, for that matter.

That leaves the 400 meter hurdle mark of 57.0 something.  It still stands, after many years.  I'm not sure how many because I forgot the last time I set it, and I don't feel like looking it up again.  It's a strange event, for sure.  And I was fast in that race because I could hurdle well.  I was an OK 100 meter hurdler, and I never quit running them, and continued focusing on my hurdle technique.  I ran an OK open 400 meters too, but only ran it consistently in the mile relay.  My best was 54 something, The difference in times, between my open 400 time, and 400 hurdles was closer than most.

So that's why I got inducted.  I hold a record I've held for longer than most are held.

The radio show focuses on local athletics; coaches talk about game play and they choose a high school athlete of the week. My interview mimicked my HOF acceptance speech, as I talked about how I got to Oregon, and I now coach at Kalispell Middle School.  I was able to say a lot of my hurdlers are distance runners because I also coach cross country. That makes me laugh.

You should giggle as much as possible, it makes life easier.

Chapter 2 aftermath: the period of time after a bad and usually destructive event

            At the hospital, a plastic surgeon stitched up my son’s forehead, which shattering glass had torn apart. He quit counting sutures after taking 100.  Harrison wore his scars, with little consideration.  But, to me, they were a constant reminder of my guilt.  My brain told me it was entirely my fault that my son’s beautiful face had been mangled, and somehow I felt he would be emotionally, as well as physically, scarred forever.  

Some years later we visited a doctor, to discuss having plastic surgery done to make them less visible. That doctor said my son was still too young, and that he would need to mature before we should consider cosmetic work.  Moreover, it should be Harrison’s decision to have additional work done. 

He is now in his 20s and his scars remain.  He is a charming, caring young man, with a very free spirit.  I sometimes wonder if he would have turned out differently if we had not crashed. But, then I remind myself that I am wasting energy on those thoughts, and I force my brain elsewhere.

My young son’s forehead was a mess, but it seems I was in far worse shape.  The gash on the back of my right arm, bruises, and a cut near my left temple were the only visible injuries, but I had broken my jaw, and collarbone.  The biggest problem, although not immediately visible, was the closed head injury I had sustained when my head hit the side window.                 

          The ambulance took my baby, and the helicopter transported me, but we both ended up at the hospital in Palmdale.  My husband received word of the accident after arriving in Arizona.  I would not be joining him as planned, and our celebration would be postponed indefinitely.  On the telephone, the doc told Gary that my condition was tenuous, but to stay safe traveling home, because his son was fine, and needed his father. 

He immediately flew to LAX, and an old friend, we affectionately referred to as Jimmy-the-Greek, picked him up in an ancient sports car.  As Jimmy raced the rattletrap to Palmdale, Gary worried, not only about his wife and son, but about the tread left on the Jimmy’s tires.  Always pragmatic, Gary asked him to slow down. 

When Gary saw me I was pretty beat up, and as I yawned, my jaw slipped too easily, at an awkward angle, into a gross position.  They told him that I had sustained a massive, closed head injury, and perhaps broken my jaw.  He had already observed the jaw, and was surprised at the perhaps.  To him, the fracture had been quite evident, but he soon realized that their initial concern was to keep me alive.  

A shunt had been inserted in my skull, to relieve the pressure that was building, as my brain swelled. I was told that at the time of the accident, this procedure was fairly new.  Luck had been on my side, my husband reported, because the doctor on call was familiar with the precaution. I’m not sure if this is true, because it seems to me that they would have known to do this back in 1991.  I am certain, though, my TBI effects would have been far worse, had it not been done.

Initially, no one knew that I had also broken my collarbone.  Gary told me that, soon after the accident, he was instructed to pry my arm open. The right side of my body was hypertonic, or in a state of abnormally high tension.  My arm was contracted; fist clenched, palm up, drawn towards my body and nearly even with my shoulder.   It took all of his strength and lots of time, to get my arm open, a surly grimace on my face the entire time. An orthopedic surgeon, years later, who would tell me my collar bone had also been broken in the accident.

That surgeon was Ken Singer, a team physician at the University of Oregon, and had operated on my knee, in the early ‘80s, while I was an athlete on their track team.  Yes, I was, and am a Duck.  Some say my athletic drive, determination and competitive nature are the reason I recovered from my TBI as well as it did, and I cannot disagree.  However, I think being head injured is a condition that lasts a lifetime, and recovery is never complete.

During the knee surgery, back in my co-ed days, my heart rate fell dramatically.  It slowed to 30 beats a minute, causing Dr. Singer some anxiety.  This freak occurrence also concerned another onlooker, Rick.  He was an athletic trainer who worked with the track team, and was in the operating room observing.   We  became good friends over my years at Oregon; through rub downs, injury rehab, and time traveling to meets, we shared a lot of laughs. The connection remains today.

The car accident was in November of 1991, and I remained in the hospital until March.  That summer, we sold our house in the desert and returned to Eugene, home of the Ducks, as my husband had changed jobs.  As I write this, I realize this is not the last time I would return to familiar surroundings, teeming with happy memories, at a stressful period in my life.  But, let’s get back to Eugene.  Intense rehab would continue there, in the hospital where my heart incident occurred, and those memorable men, Doc Singer and Trainer Rick, came back into my life. 

Rick agreed to look at my only-semi-responsive right hemisphere. While exercising my compromised arm, he detected that my collar bone had once been broken. Together, we visited Doctor Singer and his x-ray showed that, yes, that bone had been broken.  No wonder my face contorted when Gary tried to straighten my arm, (at the nurses' instruction.) 

Looking back, I realize the trip to see the Doctor was more about reconnecting, than anything else. Rick realized how important it was for the Head-injured Me to rebuild my good memories.  He knew that my years of success as a Duck hurdler were near the top of that list. 

          My hypertonic right hemisphere also resulted in my toe pointing, like a ballerina, as I lay comatose. Gary outfitted me with a cheap, high top canvas tennis shoe. I wore it in my hospital bed.  It was an attempt to minimized long-term effects caused by the dorsa-flexed position of my right foot.  I think it helped a lot.

          Picture this: I lay unconscious, with an unsightly pipe in my head, one pristine high top sneaker poking from the covers, tubes entering and exiting who-knows-where on my person, with some of my nervous family members surrounding me. Then I came around.

Most do not know what emerging from a coma looks like.  Many of us have seen it happen on television, so that may be our point of reference.  We close our eyes and see this: After spending time in a coma, unattached to any monitors, and looking freshly showered, a good-looking actor, or actress, simply opens their eyes, and blinks a few times.  He, or she, appears confused for a few seconds, then they look as if they've come to an understanding.  Oh, I must have been in an accident, causing me to lapse into a coma, but now I’m awake.  

That was not my experience, however.  The way my husband explains it, I opened my eyes, after three days, but only briefly.  The next day, they may have stayed open a bit longer. Each day, I appeared awake longer than I had the day before.  The key word here is appeared. I was in no danger of dying now, but doctors could not predict my mental state.  They said I needed to respond. 

At that point, the waiting continued.  I would live, but no one knew what my mental capacity would be upon total emergence.  As they waited, and nurses cared for me, I lapsed in an out of consciousness, and continued to not respond.  The nurses, that were there to protect me, were not always vigilant. Family placed a sign above my bed warning all that entered, not to lay me down flat.  The reason was something about fluid draining into my lungs, but, after a shift change, a nurse did just that, and I ended up with pneumonia.  

Lexie's Story

Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story.

 That is his duty.  –Elie Weisel

Preface

It took me years to remember as much as I do. It came to me bit by bit; tiny drips to make a flood.   The story told by others, began to match my own memories. People say, It could have happened to anybody, at any time, and I nod in placid agreement.  But this didn’t happen to anybody.  This is the story about what happened to me, and the life-changing series of events that divide my life into two polar periods; before and after.  It is not meant to change how people view me or give others insight into how to better face adversity, and it has no fairy-tale conclusion that will make readers feel good.  Stories like this are just meant to be shared so I am telling mine.

Chapter One

That morning, after a silent road trip from Lancaster to Orange County, through the monotonous desert landscape, we finally reached the airport. I made the early morning journey with my husband Gary and young son, Harrison.  As my husband unloaded his baggage at the curb, I took the driver’s seat.  I recall his being upset about a situation regarding a job possibility for me.

I had recently finished work for a teaching credential, and had started the application process for a potential teaching position.  But, I had placed a job interview on the back burner so it would not interfere with a planned holiday trip to see my family in Montana.  He was not pleased that my priority was the trip, not the job, and voiced his displeasure on that morning trip to the airport. 

There probably was some exchange about meeting up later that day, but I don’t remember. As he hustled toward check-in, I eased my Volvo from the curb, and headed for the freeway.

My memories of that morning, the drive through dry, barren desert towards our home in the Antelope Valley, may be vague, but they are my memories.  Sally Jesse Rafael’s radio talk show kept me company, that I know, but I cannot pinpoint what the topic was.  For years I tried to recall the exact topic, but reasoning with myself, I asked, What does it have to do with my life right now?  My daughter, as an all-knowing, wise teenager often used that line and it made sense to me.

          The Sally Jesse Rafael talk show’s subject never did become clear.  And many details of the life shattering event that occurred, after the drive home, have never made themselves apparent either.

This is the way I choose to understand the blank spots: My brain exists above and beyond; it is separate from my self.  It makes decisions what is best for my self.   My brain sees no need for the memory of such horrific trauma.  My brain, therefore, has not revealed the traumatic part of my story.  That part comes from the memories of others, and I can only repeat what I have heard. 

At first, the account of events was just an explanation to me, and was pretty simple.  It was the reason I was in the hospital, the reason I did not remember the ordeal that brought me there, and the reason I was in such lousy shape, physically as well as mentally.  I don’t even remember asking those questions, but I guess I needed somewhere for my brain to build from.  So, the explanation went like this.  Nurses and family simply said that I had been in a car accident, and I hit my head, real hard, and that I’d get better slowly.  It’s not lost on me that his is how I explain it to others, even today. 

Then, other people wanted to know exactly what happened, and they were given the more detailed, grisly version.  It was told many times, by more than one family member and many friends. And, because I too am human, I also know that it was retold simply for its shock value; the macabre account of what happened after the airport drop-off. 

Apparently, I arrived in Lancaster, and was to pack my own bags for a flight later that day and join Gary in Arizona.  This was the meet-up that we may have discussed at the airport curb.  The plan was to watch our Alma mater’s football team, the University of Oregon Ducks, play the Arizona State Sun Devils, and celebrate the fact that I had made it through Cal State Northridge’s teaching credential program unscathed.  At some point, during that preparation, I spoke to my neighbor on the phone about my son’s fussiness. 

During a short conversation with my neighbor, I told her I was going to drop off a job application at the school district office, and would take my cranky baby, hoping he might nap.  Packing up a baby was not unusual since I was a stay-at-home, going-to-school mom, and my kids were constantly in-tow. The job app was for the job that would interfere with our holiday plans, so I guess Gary’s unhappiness had goaded me into submitting it after all. 

I hoped the car ride might lull my crabby toddler to sleep and he’d get the nap he desperately needed.  After securing him in his car seat, placed correctly, I might add, in the center of the back seat, we headed towards the district office.  The position of his car seat will make the difference between his being alive today, and not, and those I’m a good mother feelings could surface here, but don’t.  

Since years have passed since I was in that high desert community, I can only picture avenues indicated by the letters of the alphabet, and the perpendicular streets being numbered.  The accident occurred on the corner of Avenue I and 70^th Street West.  I know this because it was in the paper, along with a picture of my wrecked car.  There is a stop sign at the intersection, and the question remains:  Did I stop, and study the road for on-coming traffic or did I role into the intersection, perhaps turned around, attending to me unhappy child?  And, if I did stop and look, did I decide to cross, unaware of how fast the truck barreling towards me, was traveling?

          My lawyer-brother from Oregon was asked, or maybe he offered, to come check things out.  His investigation verified that, yes indeed, it was my fault.  My Volvo had appeared from behind some bushes, in front of a truck hauling down a highway with a 45 mile per hour speed limit. Truck had the right of way.  There’s also the story, again I have no personal memory, of an officer visiting the hospital, with the intention of serving a warrant.  But, I was still in a coma!  I guess it determined that I was just a frazzled housewife with an unruly toddler, who made a very bad mistake.  It was a boo-boo that would change my life indefinitely, and affected the lives of my friends and family too.

          The actual accident report remained filed away for years.  It moved with me from California, to Oregon, to Washington, to Idaho, where I began writing this, and then to Montana, where I now live.  The narrative of events that day lived in file labeled accident gathering dust.  It wasn’t until I started to write this, that I actually read it for the first time. 

That must have been hard, a friend ventured.  But it wasn’t difficult. It was as if the article was about some stranger’s car wreck. I was out of it for a long time, and regained my mental capacity slowly.  Also, as many people who have suffered trauma to the brain will attest to life a different person all together. 

          The report tells me that a witness named Curt says he …heard a big bang…I saw the pickup truck in the air and I saw the Volvo in the air…  He continued, telling the investigator No, I didn’t know which way they were going at all…But Dave, the one who saw the accident, knew exactly how they were coming.  A passenger in the truck that hit us told Curt, who then told the investigator, their vehicle had been running about 50 mph. Even though I have never met Curt, I feel a connection with him, as I read his words.

He said, what I think that happened is she thought she was on 60^th where there the 4-way stop was.  I believe she fully felt that there was a 4-way stop here.  Because I don’t think she was…she --- I just think she was aware enough to know…

          Charles, another witness who also was close by, said he heard some brakes, and I looked up and it looked like the wagon was stopped in the middle of the road or it was crossing the road and then the truck hit it and it went up and I heard this crash, and the car went up in the air.  The truck spun around 180 degrees, and the car went up onto a bank and slammed on its right side and bounced back up.

          After our crashed cars settled, Charles first ran to the driver of the truck, and then to our car.  At my car the men heard crying and went first to my son, and saw that his foot was pinned between the car seat, and door.  Charles yelled for a crow bar, and was able to pry the door off my son’s tiny foot, and extract him from the mess.  Somebody named Ken took my baby, and cleared his airway, as he was choking on his own blood.  Charles then hollered for a fire extinguisher as smoke was coming from under the dash.  His initial assessment of me was that I had a neck injury, some type of jaw injury, maybe a broken rib… a puncture under the right arm.  His appraisal was near perfect, but the neck injury turned out to be the head injury that will haunt me forever.

          After struggling with my seat belt, Charles and Dave pulled me from the car and propped me on my side, away from the wreckage.  Then, another shout for a tool brought a cable cutter, which cut the battery cable, and the smoke under the dashboard subsided.

          Charles shared with the investigator that it was Dave who saw the accident.  Dave, he said, told me that the lady didn’t stop at the sign.  Reading further into the statement, Charles (whom I’ve never met either) also became an unsung hero to me.  He apparently was emotional, and although the investigator told him that the information he was providing was not critical to his investigation, Charles continued on…If the baby had been in the right driver seat, the baby would have been dead.  So the position of the car seat had saved his life, but the accident had changed its course entirely.

 The impact had been so great that it lifted both my car and the half-ton pick-up that I had cut off, into the air.  Charles had a row of autos setting in his yard, and the whole bottom of my car was above them. They were visible, under our vehicles in the air.  The truck then spun, in mid-air, 180 degrees.  My car did the same and upon landing on its right side, on the road’s bank, all the car’s windows exploded.  My Volvo’s right side was demolished, and the wound Charles had seen, on my right arm, had come from the mangled passenger side door.

My son and I were cleared from the ruble, both taken from the terror that encased us briefly, but would be transported separately to the hospital in Palmdale.  Although Harrison was not old enough to put his experiences into words, he heard the story many times, and was quick to tell whoever was interested that he went to the hospital in an ambulance, but his mommy got to go in a helicopter.