Brain Injury

Slowly adjusting…to the weather (snowstorm on the second day of spring), and to the new regime I am forced to live since arriving home from the hospital. Initially it sounded pretty draconian: no driving, no working, lots of time in bed, and the challenge of learning to read again. I’m slowly adjusting to the pace, although the reading pace frustrated me when I am reading a murder mystery and can’t keep up with the plot. And when I do speed up, I make more mistakes, and have no idea what I am reading.

Have taken a couple of short walks over the last two days, and was very surprised at how quickly I tired. I need a nap after the second one. It will be a long road back to Tim Horton’s, I fear.

Apart from these operational details, I have had time to ponder a number of things at greater depth. For example, I was surprised and shaken to discover the depth of the anxiety I felt when “confronted” by a room full of strangers – my room mates family, come to visit him. As the crowd grew to 8 and then 9, I felt trapped and threatened – almost in a panic. A nurse was able to refuse the situation and lower the numbers until I relaxed.

As my anxiety grew, my perception of what I should do, skewed by my injury, moved in the direction of angry and violent confrontation – “drive them out!” As the nurse calmly spoke to them of my dilemma, the situation resolved itself. I found myself thinking, “Gee, her way of doing that was a whole lot better than what I in mind!” I became aware of how brain injury can alter the way you see the world.

Brain injury. That’s what it is, however small. I kept thinking of ‘little stroke,” “minor event…’’ I believe that’s called ‘denial.’ A close friend helped me say the words ‘congenital brain injury.’ Another way of saying ‘get real.’ This process also prompted the thought, ‘I now have an inkling of one of the ways that I will die.’

So, I have begun to think of my life in terms of ‘last phase.’ Might be a decade… or a week. So some things become less important than they were, and some things become more important. Some bits of unfinished business will be deliberately left unfinished. Others will be picked up and completed. Life has changed, and even though I sometimes imagine myself living the way I live today as a ‘forever’ thing, I know that isn’t so. And so, I am different. Not worse, and certainly not better. Just different. Changed.