Our lives are a succession of moments, beginning with the moment we pop out of the womb, all slimy and new, and ending with the moment we take our last breath. Somewhere in between that beginning and that end, some of us experience a brain injury as a defining moment and life-changing event
Many dramatic changes occur in our lives due to our brain injury, and
we tend to view life in two distinct pieces; “what we were before” and “what we were after” our brain injury. However, there is one thing doesn’t that change; as we live our lives, there continues to be a constant flow of moments which affect us, through which we experience our lives, we learn and we grow. Although what happens to us during these moments isn’t always something we have control over, how we react to what happens is.
These moments of our lives are not like what you see in a coffee commercial; they are not always warm, snuggly moments in a snow-covered cabin sitting by the fire, drinking coffee. As we well know, some of the moments of our life, especially the TBI moments, can be gritty, ugly, pain-ridden and full of failure, but it is our responsibility, however difficult, to receive these moments in such a way that they contribute something positive to our lives.
“Contribute? What, are you crazy?”
“No, I’m not.”
Let’s look at what is going on here. Each moment is just a passage of time when something happens, and, as humans, we seem to feel obliged to judge what happens in terms of good and bad. We give these moments meaning, and often attach exaggerated importance to them. However, rather than label them as good or bad, what if we simply accepted them as moments in our lives when things happen.
Let’s look at one type of moment:
“There it is again,” you exclaim as you smack your leg, disgusted because you realized you forgot to do something, yet again. Everything you already know about yourself has been proven once more; about how you can’t do anything right, and how that “damn brain injury” has messed up your life. This becomes a familiar mantra in your head; about how that “damn brain injury” has screwed up your life.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
It may very well be true that your “damn brain injury” has completely messed things up for you. We think that by blaming what just happened on that “damn brain injury”, we are saying, “It wasn’t really my fault. If I didn’t have the brain injury that wouldn’t have happened.” The trouble is, when you buy into the fact that every bad moment or thing that happens is the fault of your brain injury, and you blame it for all the s*** that is going wrong, you are not making it any easier on yourself.
How so?
Moving forward is all about doing things for yourself that improve your life, and while you may not always have a positive attitude about what is happening, it is important not to be negative, or to drag yourself down. That means not getting bogged down in the bad, ugly or painful moments, and not putting too much emphasis on them. Not everything is an earth shattering event…they are just moments. Blaming things constantly on your brain injury brings you back to the place where nothing is in your control…and that’s a place you don’t want to be.
You might start by looking at the moments of your life as just that; individual moments in your life, not always a sign of things to come, or indicative of your life. When looked at as individual moments, they are much easier to manage in terms of your attitude. By looking at the occurrences in your life as “moments”, or things that just happen which you accept, you will find it easier to deal with the emotional reactions you have to events, and you’ll also be less likely to be emotionally influenced by their results.
Don’t say, “Oh, I always do stuff like that.” Don ‘t reinforce behavior that may not be good for you. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt, the ability to learn and grow.
Think of a moment as a drop of water. Deal with each drop as a moment in your life, and don’t make one moment indicative of your whole life by always going back to blaming your brain injury. Holding back a few drops of water is easier than holding back a flood, and so too, dealing with each moment by itself is easier than fighting back against the flood of events and emotions that accumulate when you’re always blaming and lumping things together under the “brain injury umbrella”. Living our lives from moment to moment helps us to create a world where we can be the master of how we look at our lives and those moments in our lives.
Realizing you are the master is one of the greatest revelations you can have, and will contribute in a big way to getting your life back.
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So you’re saying that we ought not to hold the ‘self-image’ of “victims of circumstance, floating mindlessly on the oceans of the world’s forces acting upon us,” but rather the ‘self-image’ of “operators, given the challenge of using less (mobility, power, etc.) to do more (inspire great things, etc.)
I think (if I understand it correctly), that quote pretty much sums it up.
I have came to a point in my journey where when people ask me what was I like before my brain injury
Whereas before I tried a long description I now say younger
Thank you for this. I tend to write a lot when I do write, so this is likely going to be a long comment because writing is a coping skill I’ve temporarily lost to TBI so it doesn’t just rain right now, it pours when I let myself do the “wrong” thing for my own sanity. I think this post is awesome not only for TBI but also for PTSD and your water analogy matches up with my description of a bunch of memories I can’t control as being under a waterfall. Your general message of “be present and live life instead of being a victim forever” is so valuable.
This made me look at a couple of related things in my own life and see where I’m on the right track already (and maybe others in my life aren’t) and where this advice, which is more of a reminder for me and handhold that will help me climb out of a (completely unrelated) hole I let someone push me into right before being evaluated for TBI, could help me. I’d like to share part of my TBI story and interwoven struggles and what I got out of this because it really hits home for me.
Too many people like to think in black and white. I just got out of the hospital for some inpatient testing – some related to my TBI, some for things that were already there.
My TBI diagnosis is the result of an assault. That was the head injury that got taken seriously eventually after being passed off as a migraine at first when I insisted it was a concussion. I couldn’t report it right away because I couldn’t find anyone and had no idea I lost a half hour of time until later.
I was mistreated by a police officer for 3 weeks when I didn’t need that stress but it happened so close to a much better jurisdiction, they built me up whenever he crushed me. They supported me and kept me going and when I finally overcame that obstacle, I felt like they were all standing behind me.
I had asked before, several times, about my head injuries causing some of my issues and then one of my current docs mentioned neuropsych testing but didn’t know where I could go so it got put on my list, which is very long. Then I was referred to someone who I asked about it, completely unrelated to why I was there, just something I saw in his profile made it come to mind, and he thought it was worthwhile as well and made it happen after years of people blowing off my concerns.
Did some difficult things happen to me? Of course!
Did it set me back in terms of the PTSD I already had? You betcha.
Is the incident resolved? Not at all.
There’s one more question but I’m going to save the best for last…
So this inpatient testing was initially supposed to be a sleep study but when I expressed my concerns about the only hours I actually slept every single day during the previous two weeks falling outside the hours of the study, the doctor asked if I could spend 2 days in the hospital and you know what? One of my other doctors who is part of a large group I’ve managed to consolidate so they can all see all my records had tossed out a 2 day study as a possibility and it all fell under neurology and the other testing was within his scope so he offered to do both at once. The sleep study was initiated by one of the few people who are so good, I haven’t moved on organically and refuse to replace just because they’re with a different group, so this guy isn’t affiliated with the others and just took my word for it. Awesome. It actually was productive (meaning torturous) enough that turned into 3 days trying for one more thing I was able to notice myself on the edge of the last NIGHT and push myself into it instead of trying to pull myself out of it on the rare occasion that I notice. It helped to know exactly what they wanted to see and know myself well enough to know when it generally happens. And want them to catch it and to go home equally as strongly.
While I was there, the sleep specialist came to see me. My knee-jerk reaction was to kick out my in-laws, who were visiting, but I didn’t because they already know I’m pretty nocturnal and have some mental issues. And I didn’t really care if they knew about anything that might come up with a sleep doctor. I’m still not sure if letting them stay was a mistake. I thought they’d just sit there.
I’ve told them several times that I do appreciate their help and asked them politely to please keep that help to support (with examples) and butt the **** out of anything to do with medicine, including psych. They were confused at first but eventually figured it out and I predicted that my mother in-law was going to ask about reading glasses for convergence issues with my eyes due to TBI and I myself know enough about why that isn’t helpful, especially for something that varies in severity, that I didn’t even need to ask the question when a trial of limited time focusing close-up helped immensely. I noticed I also have trouble with things far away while staring at clouds today. I wonder if I need 18 pairs of glasses. So as soon as I decided to set up a vacation responder on my email and a list of people who I’d filter and look at once in a while, I asked my husband to act as a buffer WHEN (not if) that happened because I knew my in-laws would be curious about why I’m not even looking at my inbox and also it would affect things I do with them. I had just learned about this and didn’t think I’d be alone with them. She asked the question earlier that same day the doctor came, before my husband got out of work. I had no buffer and did what I knew I’d do and didn’t want to. I engaged her and educated her about how the eyes focus, what causes nearsightedness and farsightedness and why people have trouble focusing close-up and need reading glasses when they get older, what glasses actually do to bring things into focus, and how this is much different. She actually seemed interested in learning about how the eye works and what it does and doesn’t do.
So when I was talking to my doctor, what I thought was a one on one conversation with some people listening in (I wouldn’t mind my husband saying something though, I mean we do sleep next to each other about half the time when I’m asleep before he gets up and he’s seen all the standard behavioral stuff fail), I was quite surprised to hear my mother in-law jump into the the conversation and was a bit irritated because I had reiterated the things I personally knew and would like to know about what happens when I hope/think I’m sleeping and brought up something new I hadn’t thought of before and wondered if he could tell if I was having nightmares and not remembering them because I sometimes wake up in a ball pulling my head down as hard as I can and maybe I just don’t want to go to sleep because subconsciously, I know. I mentioned the slipped disc in my neck I had woke up with randomly one morning and that I had wondered about that position and nightmares then as well. He was explaining that there were movement sensors and he could analyze the data from those and find out and explaining a little about what usually happens and I have no idea what he said to me about that but I know I had mentioned that I think this is where neurology and psych cross paths and it would probably take both of them to figure it out AND my sleep has gotten worse since the assault and I was wondering about the role of TBI in that (he actually already knew about my sleep getting worse after the assault and he knew the head injury was overlooked and I had to deal with mistreatment by law enforcement on top of an already stressful month which included being blamed for being randomly assaulted because I dress comfortably and I guess wearing a hard neck brace that had people apologizing for accidentally brushing against the fabric on my pants in a crowd didn’t make me look frail and there’s something wrong with wearing hockey logos near a hockey arena during hockey season and I kept having to bite my tongue when I wanted to say this guy would’ve done the same to Granny and probably killed her but my father in-law’s younger brother by about 10 years had literally dropped dead right in front of Granny a little over a week after I was assaulted, and like I said, it was a stressful month – my own uncle died unexpectedly the day before I was assaulted and I was unable to go to his funeral and really wanted to) so I’m guessing my mother in-law didn’t remember the slipped disc happened before the assault and I had said to the doctor I hope he understood what I was trying to say through my maze of tangents and he said I was pretty clear and I jokingly said yeah as long as you don’t get me started about that cop and was in the middle of asking if there was anything I needed to know when…
Either I am regaining a tiny amount of my ability to think clearly or the absolute most stupidest words I’ve ever heard her utter came out of my mother in-law’s mouth. Yes, my choice of adjectives for this are proper grammar in my world…
She asked the NEUROLOGIST specializing in sleep if hypnosis to erase these memories I’m “stuck” on would help me.
Wow this illustrates that kind of black and white thinking so perfectly and also about how we can control how we react to things. I was enraged at not only the utter stupidity of this idea and asking the person who they only know as the sleep doctor a question that is totally inappropriate (I could stop there) for him and if anyone should be dodging it, it should be a psych person but also that this was the second time in a few hours that she crossed that boundary when I had specifically told EVERYONE that visitors would help me because I have no idea when I’m having an episode and it will only even show if I’m active and engaged in something and I’d be grateful if people stopped by to SOCIALIZE, sort of as a request for specific help and reminder directed at them.
A couple things that may have made her think it was ok to cross that boundary were that my father in-law was the first person to notice when something happened that was “different from [my] normal choosing to not pay attention” and my reaction to him thinking it was ever a choice was to ignore it and get every last detail about what happened because it sounded like an absence seizure to me and those details were way more important to me and I didn’t have a neurologist at the time but mentioned that my father in-law had noticed something different from my usual dissociation and my husband, who noticed SOMETHING but couldn’t tell the difference and they both said I stopped and froze halfway out of the chair. So the person at home is unreliable as a… um, detector of sorts I guess.
Knowing that he is the best person to notice this, I had specifically asked my father in-law to visit and asked if he remembered the thing with me getting out of the chair and the box with the red button and asked him to push the red button on this box if he noticed anything like it and I said actually anyone can press the button for anything out of the ordinary if I don’t press it myself and that would be extremely helpful.
So “hey this is a special circumstance if I act weird please press the button” is right on that boundary. It’s not asking for uninformed diagnosis by (not a doctor) or unwanted suggestions to treat things I don’t even have and it IS a very specific request – push a button… But in her mind I can see this translating into “door’s open, come on in with anything I don’t want.”
The second thing is she’s a retired nurse and we were in a hospital.
Yet my reaction was intense anger because it was the SECOND time she crossed a boundary. I grouped them together and the first time was easier to blow off.
The second time still would have made me quite angry on its own but maybe not as much as an isolated incident, or moment.
Both were genuine attempts at helping me and both crossed a line in the sand I drew long ago. I know a line in the sand isn’t going to keep people out and I wish I’d learn how to build a fence already, which is why I asked my husband for help when the reading glasses thing came up. I know engaging her only encourages her to cross that line and I know myself well enough to know that when I’m educated about something, it’s nearly impossible for me to not try to teach the uneducated person. And with this there was no argument and it truly was education and she seemed interested but it’s still engagement and had there been argument, I likely would have kept going. If I find out I’m wrong, I’ll readily admit it, which is great for most subjects but really I need to figure out how to not engage when someone crosses a boundary or I’ll never get that fence built.
Here is the difference: the reading glasses comment was innocuous and simply crossed a boundary while the erasing memories thing is wrong on so many levels.
First off, she is assuming I’m stuck on something, which can happen with me, without knowing enough details to determine if the situation itself has been resolved. I call that event assault because there is so much more to it than a head injury that likely caused my vision issues. Now that I know I have these issues, I better understand a second head injury less than a month later and it was a nasty one and I went to the ER. I fell backward and tried to grab ahold of the side of the fridge but somehow missed completely and smacked my hand on a cabinet. When I’m tired especially, I get double vision and can’t tell which image is real or I will only see the version my dominant eye is giving me and that’s not always the real one and often neither is correct. So there were actually two nasty concussions with loss of consciousness less than a month apart and I believe I didn’t come close to catching myself and preventing the second one because the first one, due to the assault, messed up my vision and my spatial perception is off. So I’m actually feeling the effects of two concussions close together, with the first contributing to the second. Also, there was no head injury medically assigned to that assault for the longest time.
The police report is wrong and I’m surprised “possible concussion” even made it in there. I know I never used the word “walked” when describing what happened to anyone. “Running with plenty of time and space to slow down or go around while I stood still after we made eye contact” is the most conservative way I’ve described it and my use of the word “sprinting” to mean running as fast as possible caused much contention between my husband and I because he thinks of that word only in terms of racing and the guy was late, not competing. Both definitions are valid.
I may want to ask for the details to be corrected now that I have a diagnosis of TBI and a neuropsych report that assigns the date of the injury to the date of the assault.
Not properly treating a concussion can make things worse. I was trying to get some kind of documentation ASAP to avoid stress later when the insurance thinks someone else should pay for treatment of all my injuries that day and there were many. I understand that I can’t press charges without being able to ID or even describe a suspect but that officer grossly abused his position, lied to me several times, got right in my face and screamed at me and spit on me just because I was having a peaceful conversation with another officer and it doesn’t matter but I never even mentioned him to that officer (which is abusive at best but spit ended up on my face and that would have ended with me in cuffs and charges filed if it were the other way around) and I don’t know why, but ACTIVELY prevented me from filing any kind of report and if running out of wherever he was getting dressed and shoving the other officer far enough away that I couldn’t see him to break up the conversation he at least partially correctly assumed we were having isn’t active, I don’t know what is. This went far beyond being too lazy to fill out paperwork and what should have taken 3 minutes and given me some peace of mind about my medical bills turned into a 3 week nightmare and caused stress later on as well in the form of being afraid to enter a law enforcement jurisdiction I need pass through when traveling to see doctors, not because I was assaulted but because I was afraid of the law enforcement agency there, and there is some overlap in jurisdiction but filing a report falls clearly in that one. This fear was so intense, I couldn’t hide it from the primary law enforcement agency in an adjacent jurisdiction and part of their job is to promote safety and a FEELING of safety for people traveling within that jurisdiction which is part of the overlap and that encounter ended with a police escort from point A to point B because passing through the area causing me so much fear was the only reasonable way for me to get home. That is how badly I was treated by someone who was supposed to help me. I don’t know what effect it had on the brain injury but my purpose for being there was medical care and I’m certain it didn’t help.
TBI assigned to the date of the assault rather than injuries like broken bones makes me reconsider my decision to not take action against this officer. Simply getting past him and getting what I need has had negative consequences so this is something I need to carefully research from both law enforcement sources and somewhere that will tell me the practical everyday consequences of taking action – it may make things worse for me outside of the formal process, so this needs much thought and not being able to read for very long makes this so difficult that I will likely run out of time before I gather the information needed to think about spending money on a lawyer.
The details of the neuropsych report are incorrect in the section from the interview and the person who wrote the report made one change that I was adamant about being fixed that day and then stopped responding to my calls and emails except once when her supervisor got involved and she simply used avoidance and denial and made the mistake of denying something I had saved and forwarded it to her and her supervisor asking if this might jog her memory. I can’t get ahold of either of them now and she has not only the details of the two head injuries wrong but also medical information and my doctor is good and has intervened through a different chain of command structure so that I can get the help I need from neuropsych but that report is already causing problems with most things backward or intertwined and the person listed as my primary mental health provider is basically seen on a consultant basis and I’m lucky my doctor informed me that I will likely need to fill out some paperwork so I could at least tell him I got so much pushback, only the thing that could get her sued has been changed and the OTHER name is the person responsible for 95% of my care.
So given all this stuff I have to physically do or consider doing because of this assault, while trying to get services I need and now qualify for and get whatever treatment I can, does it sound like I’m stuck on a memory or does it sound like an ongoing situation that needs my real actual here and now time and attention and help from others because I’m feeling overwhelmed and lucky to have a very good doctor who takes the time to listen to me and truly evaluate my needs and see me struggling to do things properly (plus a bit of an outburst when the person writing the report keeps telling more and more lies and her mistakes are interfering with my treatment)?
Should my memories of this be indiscriminately erased because assault resulting in a life altering injury followed by a cop preventing me from getting a piece of paper and becoming abusive while I’m doing absolutely nothing wrong to the point where he can’t even make it look like there’s a reason to cuff me and an incorrect police report and more importantly a neuropsych unwilling to admit there are mistakes in her report from HER notes that has my doctor finding a way around this only to be calling the wrong people because even the names of my other doctors are wrong is a bad memory?
My answer is a very emphatic NO!!!!!!
You see, I kind of had a head start on recovery because I only recently found out who I am at the core and that person at the core is the real me and that never changed. Also, my body never really told me when to stop what I was doing. It will tell me I’m way past the point of injury but that’s it so I JUST learned my limits, mostly anyway. I was coached by an observant and perceptive doctor on how to figure it out another way.
My strengths and weaknesses are different now. I have to relearn some things. Some things I may never get back. I have some physical issues but I’ve had chronic pain and illness for 20 years so I’m already used to that. Some days I’m so stressed I want to die but my survival instinct is intact and my psych team’s lives afterhours… aren’t really. I’m very slow now but I’m still very smart and I can learn to adapt. It’s just going to take time. I have some of the best medical care and I’ve been told by people from many places I’m at the best rehab center which is kind of sad given the problems I’m having (not all are listed) but I have great people FIGHTING for me – it will get better. I’d rather start off rough with good outside support than have my expectations unrealistically high and be disappointed.
Don’t I deserve to know why all this is happening? The assault itself I’ve dealt with. And the idiot who hurt me actually did me some favors. My head finally got examined for real and at this point in time anyway I have been validated that head injuries are contributing to my symptoms. I found some cool protective gear that’s hidden under my clothes and soft for both people for those accidental bumps in crowds. I’m small and have been very injured for years and look young and healthy and I’ll probably look young and healthy until my body has decayed and returned to the earth and my number of injuries in crowds from those accidental bumps and people expecting me to get out of the way and really trying to go around and not hurt me when I can’t move fast enough has gone way down. And there is a certain satisfaction in knowing that the next idiot who sends me flying won’t get that soft human contact – he will feel like he ran into a giant piece of plywood and I won’t be hurt as badly and he’ll be hurting too and surprised by it. It’s likely to happen again. I’m in a city now. There is a high density of idiots. Hopefully I’ll be wearing a helmet, either a skate helmet or the hockey helmet I modified because the one my insurance paid for sucks.
I’m better on my longboard than walking from old injuries, except the stopping part. I had just bought my board before I was assaulted and wow I learned fast before my TBI diagnosis. The community here is great and they’ve seen me skate exactly once wearing an excessive amount of protective gear at an event that’s mostly social and people teach each other. I showed up to my first one in an ambulatory EEG. I’ve showed up with a cane instead of a board. They accept me as I am and respect my decisions. If someone suggests something and I don’t feel comfortable, they don’t push me to do it. They may not quite understand me yet and maybe never will but they accept me as I am and no other group ever has. I love the longboard community here. And my doctors will defend me on a skateboard because they know me and I couldn’t get to them without it for a long time and my track record speaks for itself. I’ve broken bones walking to the train station. I got a slipped disc in my sleep. I’m better off on that board and slowly improving my skills, carefully. And I’m kind of wondering if my statement re: neuropsych testing made it into my chart: “I don’t care what the test results are; you will pry this board from my cold, dead hands.” I’ve seen them defend it to people who don’t know me and will only know me for 20 minutes max. The other day a social worker tried to lecture me about how it’s really dangerous and I didn’t skate that day because I was too tired and I know my limits and I stopped her in her tracks and she probably still doesn’t believe my doctors know I skate but I pointed to her phone and said my neurologist referred me to your treatment center. Why don’t you call him and ask right now? I’ll wait. She didn’t pick up the phone. She tried again and I told her it’s the most effective way I have to keep weight off my bad leg that I recently injured trying one exercise once that one of YOUR rehab therapists gave me. She knew his name so obviously the discussion I had with someone about postponing that until after I see a pain specialist that uses the electronic chart and she gets the 40 days of required reading that anyone working with me on anything physical needs to know about injuries that are up to 20 years old are in there. Now I’m paying for walking places 2 days in a row – it’s injured worse than before. I could barely walk when I left her office. And now it’s in my chart that I got transportation assistance which led to less sleep not more, knew better than to skate, thought my leg could handle walking but I was wrong. I learned that anyone can see what I write there and it gets put in my chart. It’s also in my chart that I’m missing an appointment tomorrow because of it. So she can read that and weep and I hope she does. The teen in me wants to make an appointment with her next week I know I can’t keep and cancel at the last minute because I’m still not recovered from that injury and I walked too much. But there’s too much adult left in me to do it. There’s probably more now than before. I fell in love with that sport right before I was assaulted and I get to keep doing it and my doctors support me in that decision. I am so lucky. And there’s not much else I can do without giving myself a headache so I do a lot of it.
Trouble with healthcare? I lived in Idaho for a while. This is nothing. There are programs here to help me and I had a good team of doctors before and that hasn’t changed. I just need to add some, which kind of sucks considering my response when asked what I do for work is “well my full time job is working with a variety of medical professionals to find solutions to complex issues but I do art on the side.”
Ok so that’s not all bad but what about that cop? That was really bad, right? I’m still mad at him don’t give a crap about the person who gave me this injury. That must be a bad memory I’m just stuck on and should be erased, right?
Well um, NO NO AND ESPECIALLY NO!
For my first time standing up to a bully, I picked one heck of a bully and did it in front of the people he was trying to impress. I had no intention of embarrassing him. I just wanted my piece of paper. I didn’t even do anything except become educated about things most people can’t find out and become friendly with officers in a better department. Maybe he doesn’t know how to use a computer? Had he just done a search on my last name ohhh that’s right he didn’t have it because he wouldn’t do his job…
I needed that experience. Yeah I haven’t fully healed from it. Is that situation resolved? Physically it was for a while. I’m guessing I won’t change my mind though. Emotionally, no it’s just not resolved yet. My brain is slow and I’m actually having these things they call feelings and those are kind of new to me believe it or not and I’m not quite even sure what they’re all called but they’re accessible now. All that work trying to get to then and all I needed was a whack on the head. But I’ll work through it. They can rebuild me!
I grew so much from that experience and I swear my dog held on just long enough for me to heal enough to grow from it and figure out I can growl and do know how to bite. He needed that. I remember his last night here and the look he gave me. It said mommy please be a strong voice for me and convince daddy he’s being dumb and don’t let anyone hurt me. He had a spinal injury. Doggie Advil wasn’t going to make him be able to go outside and use a bush and go to his regular vet tomorrow. And daddy was not going to just carry him out to the car. We were going to make a stretcher and keep his spine stabilized. No one and I mean NO ONE was going to hurt my guard dog. And when I said we would make a stretcher I meant mostly me with a little help from grandma and grandpa when they got here. That dog did so much for me… No way was I going to let anything make him worse. The techs who had to get a big dog out of the back seat were so happy to see that stretcher. The ER vet said I did everything right including no tramadol and I’m not sure exactly what the law is but my own meds say transfer of this medication to any person is illegal. Doesn’t say anything about accidentally dropping the right amount for a dog in some peanut butter that happens to be on the floor. His med is worthless. All it did was make his eyes glaze over. I’ve been on it myself and it didn’t work. And it interferes with the really good stuff they have at the vet. So he got relief ASAP. The night vet said she’s never seen a stretcher that good in her life. She said I did everything right. Well I’ve been trained for this, just not with dogs. Pre-ambulance care without having what you really need. That was me in a past life. The skills transfer to animals. I’m quite surprised there was any argument at all that night. I knew what to do and I’ve done it on people before. But honestly if I had to fight like that again or that cop, I’d choose the cop. It was so much easier.
There was no arguing the next day when the day vet called with his test results and no improvement in neuro function. The decision was mine about what to do. I’ve been through back surgery and I knew why I was having it. He was chasing squirrels the day before. 3 mos away from us for nursing care to add a year to his life and a best case scenario that would make a person who knew what was going on want to die? I couldn’t put him through that. He gave us 14 wonderful years. He spent a lot of then dealing with pain as I have. He didn’t need that kind of misery. And he wasn’t gonna get that best case anyway. He had other stuff wrong. It was up to me and me alone. I wish there had been something that day. Discussion, argument, anything. And I have to live with that decision. I’m just thankful right vs. selfish was obvious. I’ll always love my dog and I’m going to pick up that project I put on hold and write that book about him when my eyes get better. Am I stuck on that too? It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done but at least we got to say goodbye. And daddy couldn’t make the decision. He knew it was obvious but he couldn’t do it. And I needed the strength I gained from dealing with that cop. My dog needed mommy to be his voice and he held on until I could.
Nothing is all bad or all good. I don’t want to forget the bad stuff. I want to learn to deal with it better. I’ve always grown from it. Fact is you can’t have good Without bad. And every experience changes us. We need them all no matter how much they suck.
And writing like this was a bad idea. Now I can’t walk OR see straight. But it was needed.
Maybe what I’m really stuck on is my mother in-law and I need to forget I have one. But I’d be really confused next time I see her. Besides, love her. She just wants what’s best for me even if she doesn’t have a clue what that is.
I see life altering events as course corrections. I had too many options before and wasn’t doing what I was put here to do. So it’s a little more obvious now with different choices than before. You just have to go with the flow. No sense in battling the river. Everyone ends up in the ocean anyway. Why fight it? Might as well explore the area while you’re here because you can’t beat the river. So go with the flow and enjoy the ride. Look at the scenery as it gore by. It’s always changing. And so are you. So use what you have right now to find something you love. Things are different. Deal with it. LIVE with it don’t just survive. Life is so much better when you actually live it. Live, learn and love. Trust me it works. I may be new to TBI but I’ve dealt with a lot. Figure out what’s changed, find out what you love, and go with it!
Thanks for the inspiration.
LESLIE HOFFMAN, STUNTWOMAN, TBI SURVIVORAs a stuntwoman, I exepcted to get bumps and bruises, much like any other physical career i.e. Football Players, Hockey Players, etc. I also have had explosions go off near me or actually had small explosions put on my body to make it appear as if I had been shot, much like our Soldiers.Little did I know, whether the director wanted me to hit my head, like the dead Cook in Clue, or I made a slight miscalculation on my part and ending up hitting my head, that I would end up with PCS (Post Concussion Syndrome), TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).I started noticing that I was dizzy, off balance and feeling unbearable stress. I did go to my doctor, who did various tests and who sent me to specialists, who also performed numerous tests. These tests would come back normal or negative because no one was looking for TBIs.Finally unable to go on with my career, due to physical injuries and these other unexplainable ailments, I filed a Workmen’s Comp Claim, which also included the injuries to my head. I also filed for Social Security Disability, which was, not uncommonly, turned down. I hired an attorney and filed an Appeal. With all this stress before I could go, my TBI and PTSD got the best of me and I suffered a nervous breakdown. Again, I was at the mercy of doctors who have had no training in recognizing Brain Injuries and their symptoms. I was treated with antidepressants with only increased my anxiety and depression. There was a second opinion doctor brought in who recommended that an MRI be done and that my medications could possibly be increasing my symptoms. This was noted in my charts but ignored, the MRI was not done and once released from then on, all the doctors and 2 other hospitals increased my medications. Finally electro shock therapy was done on my already injured brain. This all came about in 2003.Now in 2004, having headaches and vomiting became common for me. We finally had the SSDI Appeal Hearing. My attorney, instead of stressing my physical injuries to the judge, choose to go after the mental disability I had suffered in 2003, the year AFTER my 2002 application for SSDI. The judge award me SSDI, but unfortunately in the finding part of his judgment, he only states severe depression. He did not add my physical impairments, even though Social Security has my severe bad back listed. He did award me back to 2002, the year BEFORE my breakdown. This, in turn, has cost me my Health Plan with the Screen Actors Guild Health Plan. The Plan is taking the position that TBIs do not cause depression. Had the plan contacted Social Security, they would have known of my bad back and awarded me my Occupational Disability Health Plan. Also, if they would research TBIs and their effects, they would know that study upon study has been done on TBIs and depression, a direct results of my injuries on the set.I continue my fight about TBIs in the Entertainment Industry and in fact have helped several stunt people who suffered TBIs get their Pension and Health Plans. It is my hope that someday the Plan will change their minds in my situation; I really want to be an Advocate, not a martyr in the fight for the recognition of TBIs. Doctors need to be educated to look for the cause and not “mask” the symptoms of TBIs as the solution with drugs that might harm the TBI Survivor further. Education about TBIs is a must for everyone, so that there will be diagnosing TBI Survivors and caring for them properly.